Theoretical Upraisal of Verb Incorporation : The Case of Shekacho Causatives
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Date
1996-06
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Addis Ababa University
Abstract
Incorporation theory denies the existence of Grammatical Function
changing (GF changing) phenomenon in our knowledge of language.
This phenomenon is believed to be the side effect of verb incorporation.
But we argue in this study that GF changing phenomenon does exist in
our knowledge of language. We show that this phenomenon is the actual
evidence for the existence of a level of representation which is higher
(more abstract) than the level of D-structure to preserve the recursive
device in language. This device cannot be preserved through the
abstract levels of D-structure and S-structure since there is no difference
between them in terms of meta languages. Moreover, the S-structrue can
be predicted from its D-structure as the 0- structure is deducible from the
S-structure and this situation leads a linguistic theory into a
contradiction. To get out of this and account for recursivness and
creativity in language, we have to assume a higher abstract level of
representation on the basis of facts from causative structures of
languages like Shekacho.
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Verb Incorporation