Action Nominalization in Lɛtɛ

Abstract

The primary aim of this paper is to describe the process of action nominalization as it operates in Lεtε. It will further explore morphosyntactic properties that the action noun shares with a prototypical Lεtε noun phrase. ‘An action nominalization refers to an action, usually in the abstract, expressed by the verb root ‘ (Payne, 1997: 224). Generally, the phenomenon can be formulated as:

V"N_{ACTION designated by V} (Payne 1997: 224).

Languages of the world employ one or more mechanisms for deriving action nouns from action verbs ‘meaning the act of that verb’ (Comrie and Thompson, 2007: 335). Lεtε uses two strategies in deriving action nouns from action verbs. One mechanism involves a tonal change; usually underlying high tones become low, and underlying low tones become high. It has been established that the underlying tonal pattern of the verb root is that of the imperative form (Akrofi Ansah 2009). Secondly, an action noun may be formed from a verb phrase consisting of an action verb and its object by reversing the order of the verb and the object. Transitive and intransitive verbs may undergo action nominalization. The derived noun possesses some morphosyntactic properties of a prototypical noun phrase. For example, it can be focused and also function as object NP in a transitive clause. The paper makes a contribution to our knowledge of some nominalization strategies that related languages like Akan (Appah 2005) and Lεtε share.