Another look at Syntactic Analysis of Hausa Verbs from Wallace Chafe’s Semantic Structure Form Perspective

Abstract

For several decades, linguists have arrived at the conclusion that semantic structure is the area in which the well-formedness of sentence is determined in all natural languages. Over these years, the issue of semantic structure in syntactic analysis of Hausa verbs takes a back-seat in the Hausa language research despite the centrality of verb as category that determines the organization of the rest categories of the sentence. The present paper employs Wallace Chafe’s semantic structure theory to analyze Hausa sentences that were generated from the Parsonian seven grades of Hausa verbs to justify their structural consideration within semantic structure theory which specifies verb semantically in term of their semantic units that include states, processes and actions. The findings of paper indicate that the semantic formation rules govern the configuration of the basic semantic element in well-formed ‘semantic structure’ underlying the sentence of the language in which verbs dictate the selection of accompanying nouns and of the relations which such nouns bear to verbs.