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Volume 12 Issue 2 (2014)        DOI:10.1349/PS1.1537-0852.A.443

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Emai’s Variable Coding of Adjuncts

Ronald P. Schaefer and Francis O. Egbokhare

Southern Illinois University Edwardsville and University of Ibadan

This paper examines the morphosyntactic character of clauses containing adjuncts in Emai (Edoid and West Benue Congo). In clauses differing as to discourse function, adjunct coding is variable. Some adjunct types are consistently structured as either head of a phrase or complement in a phrase headed by a verb. Other adjuncts are coded more variably. In canonical declarative clauses, they appear in postverbal position unmarked by a verb, but in one or more noncanonical clause types, their clause requires a verb otherwise latent. Resulting patterns are assessed from a perspective in Croft (2001), where adjuncts are relations with their matrix clause as argument.

1. Introduction^[1]

The adjunct/argument distinction is widely recognized in language description and explanation. It is most often associated with a syntactic criterion; nonetheless, the semantic nature of adjuncts and arguments has drawn some attention (Matthews 1981, 2007, Croft 2001). For the languages of sub-Saharan Africa, adjunct and argument have received minimal scrutiny. Watters (2000) notes that adjuncts (X) generally follow objects (O) in SVOX languages, while in SOV languages they either precede V (SXOV) or follow V (SOVX).

For this paper, we explore adjunct structures in Emai, a West Benue Congo language within southern Nigeria’s Edoid group (Elugbe 1989, Williamson and Blench 2000). Typologically, Emai is relatively strict SVO with lexical and grammatical tone but little inflectional morphology and few prepositions (Schaefer and Egbokhare 1999, 2007, to appear). Word order is pervasive as a marker of grammatical relations. Regarding clause structure, Emai is characterized by simple predicates as well as complex predicates consisting of verbs in series, verbs in construction with postverbal particles, and verbs in series with verbs and postverbal particles (Schaefer and Egbokhare 2010). In addition, Emai shows an extensive array of preverbs (Schaefer and Egbokhare 2000), many of them adverb like, that affect interpretation of clausal event (che ‘again,’ ya ‘almost,’ duu ‘for no reason,’ kakégbe ‘perseveringly,’ kpao ‘initially’) or a core participant (zemi ‘very many,’ gba ‘together’).^[2]

2. Adjunct Character

Croft (2001) reviews a number of criteria proposed to distinguish adjuncts from arguments. The classic syntactic criterion holds that adjunct constituents are optional while arguments are obligatory. This seems relatively straightforward. In (1a-b), an adjunct (e.g. in the park) is peripheral to its associated verb, since it can be omitted without consequence to grammaticalness. In contrast, arguments (George, the dog) are obligatory relative to their predicate; argument omission results in ungrammaticality (1a-c).

(1a) George chased the dog in the park.

(1b) George chased the dog.

(1c) *George chased in the park.

Questions arising from Croft’s analysis and illustration are no doubt multiple. Two, however, concern us. One is whether the distributional potential that characterizes locative (i.e. in the park), applies equally to other adjunct types, for instance those expressing temporality (for the afternoon in 2a) or manner (clumsily in 2b).

(2a) George chased the dog for the afternoon.

(2b) George chased the dog clumsily.

A second focuses on whether all adjunct types lead to consistent morphosyntactic expression across canonical and noncanonical clause types.^[3]

Directing these questions toward Emai, we find that adjuncts in clause types differing as to discourse function attract nonuniform coding. Some adjunct types across canonical and noncanonical clauses occur as either head of a phrase or as complement in a phrase headed by a verb. Other adjuncts are coded more variably. In canonical declarative clauses, they appear in postverbal position unmarked by a verb, but in one or more noncanonical clause types, e.g. imperative, interrogative or contrastive focus, their clause requires a verb otherwise latent. As an initial sample of this variability, we present Table 1. It reveals that outside of manner, which is consistently unmarked by a verb, and reason, which is consistently verb marked (by re), adjuncts with a locative or temporal character require, in addition to a main verb, a latent verb such as re or za.^[4]

Table 1: Emai adjunct (AD) occurrence with main verb and latent verb (za or re) across clauses that are canonical, i.e. declarative (DECL), and noncanonical, i.e. imperative (IMP), interrogative (INTER) and contrastive focus (CF).

3. Emai Adjuncts and Arguments

Argument types in Emai exhibit rather consistent distributional behavior compared to the more variable nature of adjuncts. A direct object argument (óràn ‘wood’), whose grammatical relation is morphologically unmarked but syntactically indicated by word order, follows a transitive verb such as hian ‘cut’ (3a). Verbs like hian also occur in series with a transitive verb such as re ‘take,’ which precedes its obligatory direct object argument (ópìà ‘cutlass,’ 3b-c). Both arguments relate to an overall event of cutting.

As well, intransitive verbs in series such as za ‘be located’ and se ‘move up to, as far as, reach, extend to’ precede their obligatory arguments marked by locative preposition vbi (4a-b).

Emai adjunct types display some distributional consistency across clauses as well. In canonical declaratives they prototypically occupy postpredicate position following an intransitive verb or direct object of a transitive verb. As constituents adjuncts occur either unmarked or marked by preposition vbi. Unmarked are temporal deictic adjuncts (òdè ‘yesterday’ 5a) and temporal quantity adjunct phrases (íkpédè èéà ‘for three days’ 5b). Marked by vbi are temporal ordinal adjunct phrases (úkpédé lí ózèéà ‘on the third day’ 5c) and locative adjuncts (ímè ‘farm’ 5d).

A distinguishing feature of adjuncts, as opposed to arguments, is their tonal impact on a preceding constituent. Relative to a preceding verb argument (óràn), Emai adjuncts activate high tone spread starting at argument right edge, as in órán òdè (5a) versus óràn (3a). Nonadverb constituents following a verb argument do not activate high tone spread however. In (3b), where verb hian follows argument ópìà, high tone spread is not activated. Verbs in series thus do not trigger high tone spread. In addition, postverbal particles that follow a direct object argument do not activate high tone spread (6a-c), as shown by right edge low tone of úì ‘rope’ preceding Terminative lee ‘already, finish,’ Change of Location o or Applicative li.

An important feature of nondeclarative clauses containing Emai adjuncts pertains to their potential for variable coding. In information question clauses, temporal deictic adjuncts represented by òdè ‘yesterday,’ for example, correspond to an interrogative proform (éghè ‘when’). Their predicate phrase requires the verb re ‘take’ as the initial verb in series (7), despite the fact that re never occurs in the corresponding declarative clause, cf. (5a).^[5]

A similar condition holds for a vbi marked adjunct of place. In transitive declaratives, where a locative adjunct follows a verb and its direct object, place marking is signaled by preposition vbi (5d). In information questions, where the locative corresponds to a fronted interrogative proform, the verb za ‘be located’ occurs in the matrix clause and precedes other verbs in series. Thus in declarative (8a), ímè ‘farm’ appears in postverbal position preceded by preposition vbi; no za marks it. However, when adjunct ímè corresponds to an interrogative proform (ébé' ‘where’), za is obligatory in the predicate phrase (8b).

Fronting of a locative adjunct in a contrastive focus clause leads to similar marking by za. When ímè occurs in focus position and precedes positive focus (PF) morpheme li, za is required in the matrix clause as the initial verb in series.

In contrast, locative arguments of a verb do not give rise to za. As an argument of verb o ‘enter’ in declarative clauses, ímè in postverbal position follows preposition vbi.

In information question clauses, where ímè corresponds to fronted interrogative proform ébé' ‘where,’ za is disallowed (11a-b). As well, occurrence of ímè in contrastive focus position does not lead to a matrix clause predicate phrase with za as a verb in series (11c).

It is likewise the case for vbi marked locative arguments (e.g. ùdékèn ‘wall’) with transitive verbs (e.g. fi ‘hit,’ 12a). Neither information question clauses (12b) nor negative contrastive focus clauses (12c) with such verbs lead to verb za in series.

This brief overview of Emai locative and temporal forms reveals adjuncts in nondeclarative clauses scaffolded by a latent verb. Scaffold structures framed by a latent verb in series also affect adjuncts of temporal quantity. In declarative clauses íkpédè èéà ‘for three days,’ for instance, is postverbal and unmarked by a preposition (13a). In information question clauses (13b), where the temporal quantity constituent corresponds to a fronted interrogative proform (íkpédé ékà ‘how many days’), the verb re ‘take’ is obligatory and precedes other verbs in series.

Imperative clauses with adjunct íkpédè èéà grammatically mandate re as well; re must occur in the matrix clause and in a position preceding other verbs in series (14a-b). Temporal quantity adjuncts, though, are not found in contrastive focus clauses.

Another adverbial adjunct type utilizing latent verb re expresses temporal bounding for an event. In declarative clauses, ékéín íkpédè èéà ‘within three days’ is marked by preposition vbi (15a) and occupies postpredicate position. In corresponding imperatives (15b), re is obligatory with ékéín íkpédè èéà as complement; the resulting re ékéín íkpédè èéà constituent precedes other verbs in series. Temporal bounding adjuncts articulate neither information question nor contrastive focus clauses.

Not all adjuncts with temporal significance require latent re. In fact, some evince no latent verb as scaffold. Adjuncts expressing temporal ordinal relations (e.g. úkpédé lí ózèéà ‘on the third day’), for instance, appear in postpredicate position marked by preposition vbi (16a). Nonetheless without latent re, they retain postpredicate position in imperative clauses (16b) and in contrastive focus clauses they occupy focus position (16c).^[6]

Adjuncts expressing a temporal frequency relation (e.g. ìsèvá ‘twice’) also occur in postpredicate position (17a), although not as a constituent marked by preposition vbi. Without re or any other latent verb in the matrix clause, temporal frequency adjuncts retain postpredicate position in imperative clauses (17b), correspond in information questions to an interrogative pronoun (ísékà ‘how often’ in 17c) and occupy contrastive focus position (17d).

In stark contrast to these last two temporal types, adjuncts expressing reason exhibit a more consistent verb scaffold pattern. Adjunct reason constituents (e.g. òhíó ísì òjè ‘because of Oje’) do not occur in postpredicate position in declarative clauses (18a). Instead, as complement they immediately follow verb re as the initial verb phrase in series in declaratives (18b), in imperatives (18c), and when they occupy contrastive focus position (18d), re is retained as the initial verb in series.^[7]

Differing from reason adjuncts and exhibiting a distinct placement for their latent verb compared to temporal and locative types are adjuncts conveying aspectual and temporal extent. Adjuncts of aspectual extent (gbègbéí ‘completely’) occur in postpredicate position in declarative (19a) and imperative (19b) clauses. In information questions, where adjuncts of aspectual extent correspond to interrogative proform (ébé' ‘how’) and an accompanying manner (MAN) preverb i,^[8] their matrix clause requires the postpredicate verb se ‘extend to, reach’ as the final verb in series (19c). Aspectual extent adjuncts fail to occupy contrastive focus position.

Other aspectual extent adjuncts include jáún ‘completely, crisply’ (20a-b) and sésésé ‘completely, neatly’ (21a-b). In interrogative clauses they, too, give rise to latent verb se.

Another adjunct type, temporal extent (títítí ‘long time’), occurs in postpredicate position in declarative (22a) clauses. In information questions, where adjuncts of temporal extent correspond to interrogative proform ébé' ‘how’ and its manner preverb i, their matrix clause requires not only the extent verb se in series but also the temporal verb tee ‘be long’ (22b). Temporal extent adjuncts do not appear in imperative clauses or occupy contrastive focus position.^[9]

A distinct and final pattern characterizes adjuncts of manner. They reveal no evidence of a latent verb. Manner adjuncts (kóíkóí ‘in a gulping fashion’) occur in postpredicate position regardless of whether their clause is declarative (23a) or imperative (23b). When manner adjuncts in information questions correspond to interrogative proform (ébé' ‘how’) and manner preverb i (23c), their matrix clause fails to show a latent verb like se, re or za. Manner adjuncts of this type do not occupy contrastive focus position.

4. Discussion

In the preceding section we called attention to Emai’s latent verb coding patterns for some clause structures that incorporate adjuncts. For several adjunct types (locative, temporal bounded, deixis and quantity as well as aspectual and temporal extent), one or more of their noncanonical clauses, i.e. imperative, interrogative or contrastive focus, were coded with a latent verb, whereas their canonical declarative clause was not. Moreover, coding was not uniform across adjunct types, either by latent verb form (re, za, se, tee) or position (pre- versus post-matrix predicate). Still other adjunct types revealed either no latent verb (manner, temporal frequency and temporal ordinal) or consistently required a preceding verb (reason). As a summary of Emai adjunct behavior and its accompanying clausal coding we present Table 2.

Table 2: Coding of Emai adjunct (AD) types (where A is Aspectual and T is Temporal) by verbs se, tee, re, and za relative to clause types declarative (DECL), imperative (IMP), interrogative (INTER), contrastive focus (CF) and response to information question (R-Q).

At the outset we noted in passing Croft’s (2001) comparison of adjunct and argument semantic character. His semantic analysis emphasizes adjuncts as relations relative to their associated predication, following theoretical arguments laid out by Langacker (1987: 214-216), who posits a relation as existing when the definition of one concept inherently requires reference to another concept. If adjuncts are inherently relations, they are functions, i.e. predicates, that take an argument. With reference to (24), in the park is then a predicate whose single argument is the event of chasing. One and the same semantic component, i,e, chase, can thus be a relation or a filler argument of a role in a relation. While chasing is a relation with George and dog as filler arguments, chasing is also a filler argument for the relation being-in-the-park.

(24) George chased the dog in the park.

Earlier, we identified two questions that derive from Croft’s analysis and illustration. Do all adjunct types lead to consistent morphosyntactic expression across clause types? And do all adjuncts manifest similar distributional potential? More importantly for Croft’s analysis is a third question: Is there morphosyntactic evidence to support the claim that an adjunct is a relation and so can take an associated event as filler argument?

Recall Croft’s position that adjuncts are relations taking as their filler argument a matrix clause event. The facts from Emai suggest that not all adjunct constituents are relations vis-à-vis the matrix predicate, i.e. predicates that take a matrix event as filler. Instead, a number of adjunct types appear to be filler arguments for a latent verb that under varying discourse conditions appears in series in the matrix predicate phrase. It is these filler adjunct types, locative and temporal deixis for example, and their latent verbs, za and re respectively, that as a relation could take the matrix clause event as filler.

Not all adjunct expressions serve as filler argument for a latent verb however. Some appear to be relations that could directly take the matrix predicate as filler. The clearest example of this adjunct type is manner; adjuncts expressing temporal frequency and temporal ordinal sequence also appear to be examplars of this type.

Based on these distribution facts from Emai, one could formulate a relation-filler cline for adjuncts in which the propensity to serve as a filler argument increases while the propensity to serve as a relation decreases. The most comprehensive filler adjunct would be REASON, which requires the verb re in all clauses where its exponents occur. The next most filler-like adjunct would be LOCATIVE, which requires latent verb za in contrastive focus and interrogative clauses. The least filler-like and most relation-like adjunct would be MANNER, which revealed no latent verb. TEMPORAL would clearly be the most inconsistent class since temporal frequency and temporal ordinal evince no latent verb, while temporal deixis, temporal quantity and temporal bound lead to latent verb re in either interrogative or imperative clauses or both.

MANNER < TEMPORAL < LOCATIVE < REASON

Extent adjuncts, however, exhibit unique properties, as shown by their interrogative frame. They manifest a correspondence relation to not only an information question word (ébé' ‘how’) and its preverb í but also a latent verb (se) or verbs (se, tee) in postpredicate position, neither of which surfaces in imperative or contrastive focus clauses. The syntactic position of latent verbs associated with extent adjuncts thus contrasts with the position of latent verbs for locative and temporal adjuncts.

Extent adjuncts would be troublesome for a relation-filler cline. They consistently require a latent verb (or verbs) in interrogative clauses but position it after, not before, the matrix predicate. Where would extent adjuncts best fit on a relation-filler cline? Moreover, one wonders whether there might be other linguistic evidence that would identify structural affinities between or among Emai adjunct types. One fact to consider in this regard is shape of adjunct response frame relative to its information question. In question-answer discourse contexts, many adjunct types occur in response to an information question as phrases isolated from clause structure, i.e. ex situ as summarized in Table 2 and exemplified in (7), (8b), (13b) and (17c). Three adjunct types, aspectual extent, temporal extent and manner, fail this test however; each requires an in situ frame in which the respective adjunct follows its matrix verb, as in (19c), (22b) and (23c), repeated here as (25), (26) and (27).

In situ responses as well as interrogative proform in information questions (ébé' and i) thus suggest that adjuncts with a postpredicate latent verb are similar to adjuncts that reveal no latent verb; both are more relation like than filler like. Clearly, a simple correlation between morphosyntactic properties and adjunct status as relation or filler is not straightforward.^[10] Nonetheless, it does appear that while all adjunct expressions may be relational, not all adjuncts are relations. Some adjuncts are fillers that require a latent verb, especially in clause types outside the canonical declarative.

References

Croft, William. 2001. Radical construction grammar. New York: Oxford University Press.

Elugbe, Ben. 1989. Comparative Edoid: Phonology and lexicon. Port Harcourt: University of Port Harcourt Press.

Langacker, Ronald. W. 1987. Foundations of cognitive grammar, Vol I: Theoretical perspectives. Stanford: Stanford University Press.

Matthews, Peter H. 1981. Syntax. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

-----. 2007. Syntactic relations. New York: Cambridge University Press.

Schaefer, Ronald P. and Francis O. Egbokhare. 1999. Oral tradition narratives of the Emai people, Part I and Part II. Hamburg: LIT Verlag.

-----. 2000. Emai preverb order. Proceedings of the 2^nd World Congress of African Linguistics, Lepzig 1997, ed. by H. Ekkehard Wolff and Orin D. Gensler, 733-746. Cologne: Rüdiger Köppe Verlag.

-----. 2007. A dictionary of Emai: An Edoid language of Nigeria. Cologne: Rüdiger Köppe Verlag.

-----. 2010. On Emai ditransitive constructions. Studies in ditransitive constructions: A comparative handbook, ed. by Andrej Malchukov, Martin Haspelmath and Bernard Comrie, 115-145. Berlin: De Gruyter Mouton.

-----. To appear. A reference grammar for Emai: A Nigerian Edoid language. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter.

Watters, John. R. 2000. Syntax. African languages: An introduction, ed. by Bernd Heine and Derek Nurse, 194-230. New York: Cambridge University Press.

Williamson, Kay and Roger Blench. 2000. Niger Congo. African languages: An introduction, ed. by Bernd Heine and Derek Nurse, 11-42. New York: Cambridge University Press.

Author’s Contact Information (corresponding author):

Ronald P. Schaefer
Center for International Programs
Southern Illinois University Edwardsville
Edwardsville, IL 62026-1616
rschaef@siue.edu

Francis O. Egbokhare
Department of Linguistics and African Languages
University of Ibadan
Ibadan, Nigeria
foegbokhare@yahoo.com

^[1]Data incorporated in this paper derive from research sponsored by the National Science Foundation, (BNS #9011338 and SBR #9409552), the U.S. Department of State (College and University Affiliations Program grant ASJY 1333), Southern Illinois University Edwardsville, particularly its Distinguished Research Professor award, and the University of Ibadan, Nigeria, particularly its Inaugural Lecture series. We thank these institutions for their continued support, while not extending to them any responsibility for our data interpretation.

^[2]Orthographic conventions for Emai generally reflect Schaefer and Egbokhare (2007), where o represents a lax mid back vowel, e a lax mid front vowel, and vb a voiced bilabial approximant. For tone, acute accent marks high, grave signals low, and acute followed by an apostrophe designates high downstep. Abbreviations for grammatical morphemes used in this paper include: APP = applicative, ASS = associative, C = continuous, CL = change of location, CS = change of state, F = factative, H = habitual, ID = identity pronoun, IND = indicative, LOC = locative, MAN = manner, NEG = negative, NF = negative focus, PAP = past perfect, PF = positive focus, PRP = present perfect, R = relator, SC = subject concord, TEMP = temporal perspective.

^[3]It is worthwhile to note that English adjuncts differ in morphosyntactic expression as well, e.g. noun preceded by a preposition (in the park) versus lexical adverb (clumsily).

^[4]Evidence that za and re are verbs and not preverbs emerges from tonal behavior in Present Perfect aspect (Schaefer and Egbokhare to appear), where verb phrase initial monosyllabic preverbs like Additive gbo ‘too, also’ (in addition to auxiliaries) show a high low falling tone (òjè gbóò híán óràn [Oje ADD PRP.cut wood] ‘Oje has cut wood too’) but phrase initial monosyllabic verbs do not (òjè gbé ófè [Oje PRP.kill rat] ‘Oje has killed a rat’ not *òjè gbéè ófè).

^[5]Temporal deictic adjuncts occur in contrastive focus position, òdè lí ólí ómóhé é' ólí émàè [yesterday PF the man PAP.eat the food] ‘It was yesterday that the man ate the food,’ although not with a latent verb in series. Temporal deictic òdè does not occur in imperative clauses; other deictic adjuncts, e.g. ákhò ‘tomorrow’ and éènà ‘today,’ do, though not with a latent verb.

^[6]Temporal ordinal adjuncts occur in information question clauses with a complex structure, although not one involving a latent verb in series. Ordinal adjuncts correspond to a question frame marked by the identity pronoun í ID and the verb yi ‘identify’ and its complement noun édè ‘day.’ Ordinal adjuncts thus do not correspond to éghè re interrogatives, as temporal deictic adjuncts do.

^[7]Reason adjuncts correspond to the complex interrogative frame émé' ó ze khi ‘why,’ which does not involve a latent verb in series. Instead, the erstwhile matrix clause occurs in an embedded indicative marked clause (indicative complement khi) under a cause verb, i.e. ze. It is this matrix cause verb that syntactically corresponds to the reason adjunct.

^[8]That manner i is a synchronic preverb, not a verb, is supported by its distribution. It never occurs as a simple predicate, transitive or intransitive, or as one constituent of a complex predicate. It arises only in manner expressions where a manner related constituent has been fronted, e.g. manner demonstrative adjunct (ìyá ‘that way,’ ìná ‘this way’) or with information question word ébé' ‘how.’ In contrast, se, za and re occur as simple predicates or as constituents of complex predicates (Schaefer and Egbokhare to appear).

^[9]Temporal extent adjuncts fail to occur in contrastive focus and imperative clauses, as the examples below illustrate.

^[10]The correlation between position of latent verb relative to matrix verb, i.e. preceding vs following matrix predicate, and shape of interrogative response allowed, i.e. in situ vs ex situ, suggests that a more complex parameter than relation/argument may be operating. For the moment, however, we leave this notion unexplored.