SELECTIONAL CONSTRAINTS OF YORUBA VERBS OF FARMING

Abstract

This paper attempts to contribute to the existing arguments on verb-nominal collocations. Verb-nominal collocations refer to the patterns of collocations of verbs and their internal arguments. This notion has been studied, although not exhaustively in existing literatures. Emerging data from verbs of farming in Yoruba show that some verbs exhibit some idiosyncratic behaviour. A careful study of the verbs employed in farming in Yoruba shows that some verbs may share similar semantic notion, yet exhibit different patterns of collocations with object arguments. Thus, the general opinion that a verb determines the features of the noun it subcategorises for is only an integral part of the grammatical role of the verb in verb-nominal collocations. Advancing these arguments further, this paper seeks to unravel the semantic underpinnings and variations in the collocation patterns of the Yoruba verbs of farming. We explore the object arguments of these verbs and investigate their similarities/differences to give a clearer understanding of the grammatical roles the verb play in complement structures.