In-depth annotation of multi-verb constructions in Èdó
INTRODUCTION
Type craft is a tool for annotation and sharing natural language paradigms online. The main purpose of annotation is to describe the meaning and grammatical structure of languages. Type craft features the following tiers arranged in the following order: 1. Latinsed orthography 2. A tier for morhological analysis 3. A tier for meaning 4. A tier for glossing of morphological features 5. A tier for part of speech information.
Also type craft provides global tags that allows for classification of data along different mophological, syntactic and semantic criteria. In my analysis I have used the following default global tags: construction kernel, situation and aspect, additional predicates, Illocution and polarity
In the following I discuss first general features of Èdó language and then multi-verb constructions in Èdó.
Èdó language: some basic facts
Èdó is a tone language with an SVO structure. There are two basic tones in Èdó: high ( ) and low ( ). Nominal heads bear constant tones while verbal heads bear relative tones. By relative tones, I mean grammatically and lexically constrained tonal realization. Tones in Èdó have contrastive functions and may serve to distinguish meaning in minimal contrastive forms as depicted in the following examples (Agheyisi 1990:18):
| Àwá |
| àwá |
| dogLH |
| CN |
| Áwà |
| áwà |
| timeHL |
| CN |
| Ódó |
| ódó |
| mortarHH |
| CN |
| Ódò |
| ódò |
| potashHL |
| CN |
| Ẹ̀dẹ́ |
| ẹ̀dẹ́ |
| dayLH |
| CN |
| Ẹ́dé |
| ẹ́dé |
| CrownHH |
| CN |
| Ìghó |
| ìghó |
| hornLH |
| CN |
| Íghó |
| íghó |
| moneyHH |
| CN |
In addition to the two basic tones above, Èdó language has two other tones that are derived. The falling tone and the downstepped high tone. The falling tone is derived when a high tone precedes a low tone as in Ódò [ódô] Potash and Áwà [áwâ] hour in the examples above.
In Èdó due to the open syllable pattern of the language when two vowels occur adjacent across word boundaries contraction takes place and tone spreading and tone simplification processes apply. The downstepped high tone is derived when a word ending with a high tone bearing syllable combines with a noun with an initial low tone bearing syllable across word boundaries. In summary, the downstepped high tone is created through the processes of vowel assimilation and contraction (Agheyisi 1990)/vowel elision (Omozuwa 1993), tone spreading and tone simplification. The following example illustrates this:
/òwá/ 'house'+ / èbé / 'book' [òwá!bé]
| òwá!bé |
| òwá!bé |
| SchoolLH!H |
| CN |
In annotating Èdó data, the following glosses have been incorporated into the set of glossing tags to account for tonal features in the language.
Glossing tag Tag description
H high tone
!H downstep high
L low tone
Tense
Tense is marked on the first verbal element after the subject NP, that is, the AUX/ADV if present in a clause or otherwise on the verb. It may be realized as tones: past tense ( ) and present tense ( ) or ( ), a suffix: past –rV, or a lexical item: future tense ghá. Tone marking on verbs encodes tense and transitivity information. For CV intransitive verbs, present tense is marked as a high tone and for transitive verbs it is marked as a low tone. For transitive CVCV verbs marking past time, the final syllable obligatorily has a high tone while the initial syllable may be high or low. This also applies to the intransitive CVCV verb in the past and in addition the -rV suffix is attached to the verb stem. Transitive CVCV verbs marking present tense have a sequence of low low tone marking while intransitive verbs have low high tone marking.
The glossing tags H, !H and L play a significant role in tense distinction. In addition, a gloss tag RT was introduced to account for the past tense suffix –rV. The past suffix attaches to intransitive verbs and transitive verbs when their objects are not realized or focalized in non-canonical positions. It harmonizes with the final vowel of the verb stem it is affixed to:
Verbs, number and iteration representation
Most verbs in Èdó can be inflected for the purpose of pluralizing nouns that occur with them or to mark repeated action. For transitive verbs with a participant bearing the grammatical function of the direct object, the direct object is interpreted as plural when the verb has plural suffixation. In addition, the event may be interpreted as iterative.
For verbs with only one argument which bears the subject grammatical function, the subject is interpreted as plural in the presence of plural suffixation on the verb. The event depicted by the verb with the exception of accusative verbs may also be interpreted as iterative.