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Aspects Of Migili Verb Phrase
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Examples:
The goalkeeper threw the ball to the opponent
The goalkeeper à subject
The ball à Direct object
The opponent à Indirect object
The
main principle of Ó¨-theory is Ó¨ criterion which requires each thematic
role to be uniquely assigned. Each argument bears one and only one
Ó¨-role and Ó¨-role is assigned to one and only one argument. Yusuf (1998:
124).
The commonly expressed roles are agents, theme, instrument, locative (goal, source, direction) and a few more.
Yusuf
stresses further that, participants are assigned these roles in the
D-structure, whatever it is, the V or P assigned Ó¨-roles to their
governed complement while the VP assigns a role to be subject NP.
The thrust of Ó¨-criterion is that every argument (be it subject, direct or indirect object) must have a Ó¨-role.
1.11 Binding Theory
Madjaer
(1991: 46) refers to binding theory as a theory that is concerned with
the systematic domain in which NP can and cannot be constructed as
co-referential.
Yusuf (1998: 45) in his own view states that binding
theory is concerned with the relationships of NP participants in the
sentence. Precisely, binding theory shows how NP can be related to
another NP.
Chomsky (1988: 520) submits that binding theory deals
with the connection among Noun Phrases that have to do with such
semantic properties as dependence or reference, including the connection
between the pronouns and its antecedents.
The implication of the
above definition is that, binding theory deals with the co-referential
relationship among NPs in the same sentence. That is, how NPs
co-referred or co-indexes one another in a simple sentence.
NPs that are argument are assumed to fall into one of these three categories:
Anaphors
Pronominal
Referential expressions
Anaphors
These
are NP types that must have antecedents they depend on one for
existence in some definite place in the sentence. Reciprocals and
reflexive pronouns fall under this class e.g.
Ade hurts himself
“Himself†in the above sentence refers back to Ade, therefore Ade is the antecedent which licensed its existence.
Pronominal
These
are NPs that lack specific lexical content and have only the features;
person, number, gender and case they either refer to individuals
independently or co-refer to the individuals already mentioned in a
given sentence. E.g.
Bola greeted her mother.
“Her†may refer to the individual denoted by Bola, or another individual not mentioned in the sentence.
Referential Expression
These are NPs lexical heads which potentially refer to something. A referential expression is also known as R-e
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