The metamorphosis of predicate extensions: A morpholexical study of verb extensions in the Shona language

Abstract

This article explores the behaviour of verb extensions in the Shonalanguage from historical linguistics and empirical points of view. Itsmain thrust is based on two related arguments. The first is that notevery extension can pair with every other verb in the language. I referto the ability or otherwise of a given extension to couple and derivea meaningful construction with a verb as its semantic compatibility.The corollary is that there are semantic compatibility constraints thatneed to be accounted for, which impede a free-for-all co-occurrence ofverbs and extensions in the language. The second related argument isthat different extensions exhibit varying levels of semantic compatibilitywith verbs, a phenomenon that I refer to as productivity. The mainargument of this article is therefore that the interfacing of semanticcompatibility and productivity provides clues to groups of extensions’relative morpholexical evolution in the language.