The Compound Verb in Bengali

Computational …, 2008

The aim of the present paper is to describe different processes of transitive and intransitive verb compounding in Bodo language. Bodo belongs to Bodo-Garo subgroup of the Tibeto-Burman sub family of languages (Benedict, 1972). Compound is a word formation process where the words are formed by two or more roots. 'Verb + Verb' compounding is a very common in Bodo-Garo group of languages. The paper tries to focus on the compounding processes of transitive and intransitive verb in Bodo. Here will describe the verb compounding processes like ​ 'transitive + intransitive verb', 'transitive + transitive verb', 'transitive + transitive + transitive verb', 'transitive + intransitive + intransitive verb', 'intransitive + intransitive verb'​. It will look into the description how the verbs are compounded in the 'V1 + V2' and 'V1 + V2 + V3' constructions. This analysis of verbal compounding in Bodo will help us understanding verb formation in Bodo in particular and other Bodo group in general.

2020

While a lot of research has already been done on defining compound verb constructions and understanding their semantic and pragmatic usages, there is still a gap when it comes to our understanding of atypical compound verb constructions where transitive polar verbs are paired with intransitive vector verbs and vice versa. In this paper we focus on atypical constructions with two intransitive vector verbs: jānā and baiṭhnā. We collate and review the different meanings that scholars have ascribed to these constructions and present our own analysis. We conclude that the main reason behind using an intransitive vector verb with a transitive polar verb is to reduce the transitivity of the action by implying reduced agency on the part of the Agent-like argument of the sentence. In addition to that, the use of an intransitive vector verb with a transitive polar verb also tells us which argument in the sentence is affected by the action from the point of view of the speaker. However, someti...

2010

In this article, we show how grammar can account for Benglish verbs, a particular type of complex predicate, which are constituted of an English word and a Bengali verb (e.g. /EksiDenT kOra/ ‘to have an accident’, /in kOra/ ‘to get/come/put in’ or /kOnfuz kOra/ ‘to confuse’). We analyze these verbs in the light of a couple of models (e.g. Kageyama, 1991; Lieber, 1992; Matsumoto, 1996) which claim that complex predicates are necessarily formed in syntax. However, Benglish verbs like /in kOra/ or /kOnfuz kOra/ are problematic for these approaches because it is unclear how preposition in or flexional verb confuse can appear as the arguments of the verb /kOra/ ‘to do’ in an underlying syntactic structure. We claim that all Benglish verbs can be satisfactorily handled in Morphology in the light of Whole Word Morphology (Ford et al., 1997 and Singh, 2006).

Linguistica, 2011

The study of compound verbs in English poses numerous problems, among which even their recognition as compounds on grounds of their derivation. Resulting from at least three different word-formation patterns, compound verbs constitute a heterogeneous class of complex lexemes. Their status as actual compound lexemes invites the differentiation between compounding as a word-formation process and compounds as a special class of lexemes. Even within the latter, compound verbs display marked properties at least in relation to the inability of standard classifications of compounds to capture and compromise their lexical uniformity and their heterogeneous origin. The adoption of a position in which it is argued that compound verbs in English constitute a constructional idiom and the application of scalar analytical notions which combine word-formationist and lexical-semantic accounts cast in the general framework of the cognitive linguistic enterprise yield informative generalizations conc...

Abstract: Compound verbs (CVs) raise a number of puzzling questions concerning their classification, their word formation properties, their basic onomasiological function and their transitory status between “relations” and “conceptual-cores”. Using the constructionist framework in the context of a usage-based network model of language, the paper develops a proposal for the classification of CVs and an account of the semantics of word formation niches of CVs created by analogy, which yield unified semantic analyses.

In this paper we present a rule-based technique for the automatic extraction of Bangla compound verbs from raw text corpora. In our work we have (a) proposed rules through which a system could automatically identify Bangla CVs from texts. These rules will be established on the basis of syntactic interpretation of sentences, (b) we shall explain problems of CV identification subject to the semantics and pragmatics of Bangla language, (c) finally, we have applied these rules on two different Bangla corpuses to extract CVs. The extracted CVs were manually evaluated by linguistic experts where our system and achieved an accuracy of around 70%.

2018

Language Sciences, 1991

The explicator compound verb (ECV) construction has been a focus of attention since its recognition as a major areal feature of south Asian languages. An ECV construction refers to a sequence of two verbs VI and V2, in which the main verb of the sentence, generally VI in SOV languages, is followed by another verb, i.e. V2. which is delexicalized in the construction. It is possible to group all previous discussions on the topic into two categories. One, the analyses of the forms and associated meanings of the construction in individual languages of the area. Two, the consideration of broader issues such as, for instance, the common or most general function of the construction as such, comparisons of explicators across languages in terms of their forms, meanings, numbers and frequencies of usage, setectional constraints operating on combinations of main verbs and explicators and degrees of grammaticalization. The present paper is an attempt towards making a comparative areal survey of the ECV construction in terms of semantic typology. With this end in view, explicator meanings are grouped into three major types and further subtypes, with illustrations to show that each of the larger types and at least one of the subtypes is represented by all languages of the area that have ECV constructions. Also, characteristic traits are identified in the case of different language families with reference to both the actual lexical items used as explicators as well as their meanings.