SOAS Research Online

Abstract

Our aim in undertaking the present study is to discover and present the semantic and syntactic rules or conventions that determine the meanings of nominalizations in Yoruba. There has been a relatively accurate outline of grammatical structure of the Yoruba language in about half a dozen or so more or less traditional individual descriptions of the language. Some scholars have also worked on specific aspects of its grammatical structures; what has never been attempted is the study of nominalizations on a full scale. The present study evaluates the contributions of earlier writers in very general terms in the first chapter, the rest of the chapter is devoted to the verb system and the definition of nominalization as it appears in this study. Chapter II gives the theoretical orientation of the thesis. It overviews the present position in transformational grammer, and we have to choose either the 'Extended Standard Theory' of Chomsky, Katz, Doughert, Jackendoff etc.; or the Basic Theory of Lakoff, Ross, McCawley, Bach, Postal etc. as our syntactic model. Considering the nature of Yoruba structures, we choose the Basic Theory. The problem of choice rests mainly on one basic question; whether the relationships between pairs of Yoruba Structural types could be correctly stated if only the purely syntactic deep structure of the 'Established Standard Theory' were available. In work in the tradition of the 'Basic Theory' the usual argument is that there is no autonomous leval P1 of syntactic deep structure where all lexical insertion must take place in a block. The 'EST' on the other hand, maintains that all the lexical insertion takes place in the deep structure and furthermore, it is syntactically based in that it asserts that 'the sound - meaning relation P.S. is determined by (i.e. syntax). The rest of Chapter II asserts that greater generality in description is achieved and the duplication of rule representation for stalled if we break the main condition on P1 that is, the level where all transformation have applied and from which all true syntactic transformations start to operate. Chapter III describes the infinitives and related nominalization i.e. Purposive and Non-Purposive. It goes on to describe the Gerundive Structures. Chapter IV examines the relative clause constructions and the bearing they have on nominalization and other related structures in Yoruba. It proves that it is a conjuction hypothesis that is appropriate for the formation of the relative clause. Chapter V deals with relative clause. Chapter V deals with factive/non-factive, emotive/non-emotive nominalizations and some nominal pieces identified as ideophones by some Yoruba grammarians. The point on the achievement of economy of description is made for derived nominals and most proper noun derivations in chapters VI and VII where the classifiers in relation to Yoruba propert nouns and nominal compounds are treated respectively. We have applied some transformational rules which are not numbered, because the rules in chapter II are formulated to justify the choice of our grammatical model. We number the rules which are applicable to the underlying representation of nominalization in Yoruba and which, we hope, can apply to any natural language with or without modifications.