Bole Verb Morphology
Alhaji Maina Gimba
University of California, Los Angeles, 2000
Professor Russell G. Schuh, Chair
This study draws on earlier works by Lukas (1970/71, 1971/72, 1971) and Schuh
(1983) all of which describe the verbal system of Bole by classifying verbs
according to their formal behavior in tense/aspect/mood. This study will
however go beyond these descriptions, to look at the interaction of
morphosyntactic and morphophonological properties that give shape to the
realization of verb forms. Various inflectional units which give various
shapes to the verb stems will be examined. In particular, we focus mainly
on clitics and tones, and how the two interact with each other in Bole verbal
system. First we give a survey of the verb classes and verb forms and the
forms of verbal nouns. Second, we examine pronouns which are clitics to the
verb stem. Third, we explore other verbal clitics including but not limited
to what is referred to as verbal "extensions" (Lukas 1971, Schuh 1983b).
Finally, we examine reduplicated verb stems and other related inflectional
categories which give rise to different semantic interpretations, consequently
making the term "pluractional" more appropriate than "reduplication" or
"intensive" (the later used by Lukas 1971). A description of this nature,
we hope, will help towards the understanding of the verbal system of Bole,
as well as contribute towards the understanding of the verbal system of other
languages to which Bole is genetically related.