- Title
- Nominalized predicates in Vurës, Vanuatu
- Creator
- Malau, Catriona
- Relation
- Oceanic Linguistics Vol. 57, Issue 2, p. 410-432
- Relation
- https://muse.jhu.edu/article/711271
- Publisher
- University of Hawai'i Press
- Resource Type
- journal article
- Date
- 2018
- Description
- In Vurës, spoken on the island of Vanua Lava in northern Vanuatu, clauses are categorized as either verbal or nonverbal. A verbal clause has as the head of the predicate a verb, which can be preceded by verbal proclitics or particles. Verbs are classified as either active or stative. While stative verbs can occur underived as the head of either a verbal or nonverbal predicate, active verbs can, for the most part, occur only as the head of a verbal predicate. Active verbs can generally only occur as the head of a noun phrase if the verb is nominalized via reduplication, and such noun phrases can be arguments or adjuncts, but cannot be predicates. There is, however, a clause type with a limited distribution—approximately one percent of clauses in a corpus of 7,095 clauses—in which the head of the predicate is an underived active verb, preceded by o. O is the form of the common noun article, suggesting that these are nominalized predicates. This paper examines the form, functions, and distribution of this predicate type in order to confirm that o in these clauses is the common article marking a nominalized predicate and not a homophonous verbal particle with a specific function.
- Subject
- Vurës, Vanuatu; verbal; nonverbal; stative verbs; active verbs; predicates
- Identifier
- http://hdl.handle.net/1959.13/1403864
- Identifier
- uon:35226
- Identifier
- ISSN:0029-8115
- Language
- eng
- Full Text
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