CAUSATIVE VERBS IN ẸDO

ABSTRACT

This study is on causative verbs in Ẹdo. The study examined how causative verbs and causative constructions are expressed and used in the Ẹdo language with focus on the syntax and how it operates sententially. The work employs the theoretical framework first proposed by Gruber and developed by Chomsky “theta theory” to account for the grammaticality. The theta theory was employed to assign thematic roles to argument in the causative constructions. The method of data collection is the interview method. The data was collected from two competent native speakers of the language with competence in both speaking and writing. Audio recorder and writing materials were used during the research to document my findings. This research shows that there are two ways in which causative constructions are formed in the Ẹdo language; lexical and periphrastic as well as to know the thematic relation between predicates and their arguments. The relationship between transitive verbs and causative verbs was also analyzed. We found out that causative constructions are derived from non-causative constructions which affects the syntactic position of the subject argument. The subject in non-causative constructions move to the object position in causative constructions and the argument i.e. the causer argument becomes the subject of the sentence. This process also applied to the subject of non-causative constructions which becomes the subject of the predicate in causative constructions.