CONCLUSION
This chapter was divided into three main sections, namely, the
left periphery, adverbs fronting in Shupamem, and the impact of adverb fronting
on their relative order. The first section aimed at presenting the structure of
the left peripheral domain, while the second part aimed at analyzing adverbs
fronting, through focalization and topicalization of the different adverb
classes.
As far as the analysis on the left periphery are concerned, I
realized that the main constituents of the left peripheral domain are the
Force, the Topic and the Focus phrases. The data showed that the ForceP
dominates the TopP, which in turn dominates the FocP. Furthermore, my analysis
showed that there can be NegP and RelP at the left periphery. Therefore, the
order between all these elements are ForceP>TopP>NegP>ForceP>RelP.
As far as focalization and topicalization are concerned, I
realized with higher class adverbs that speech act adverbs license
topicalization and focalization with «poì», while
they do not with the cleft copula «aì». Epistemic I
adverb licenses only topicalization, not focalization. For pre-verbal lower
class adverbs, they cannot be topicalized. They only allow focalization with
the cleft copula «aì». Finally, post-verbal adverbs
allow focalization and topicalization. Their focalization with the cleft copula
«aì» requires additional elements, (mb?ì
kaì, mb?ì j??ì etc, and
«n?ì» at the end of the sentence). This is the reason
why those structures are not frequently used in the discourse. Furthermore, I
realized that focalization and topicalization can imply some changes on adverbs
orders in the sentence. However, this is not tenable for aspectual adverbs
whose relative order remains unchanged in the marked and the unmarked forms.
GENERAL CONCLUSION
The general objective of this research work entitled The
morphosyntax of adverbs in Shupamem (991) was to study the morphology and
the syntax of adverbs and adverbial expressions in Shupamem. The thesis was
driven within the framework of the Minimalist Program of Chomsky (1993, 1995,
etc). However, I also drew inspiration from the Cartographic Approach of Rizzi
(1997) and the Cinquean (1999) approach, that is, his advocate for a
cross-linguistic fixed hierarchy of adverbs. All these methods led me to
interesting findings in relation to the aims of the study.
On the one hand, the morphological study aimed at presenting
the different forms and the formation processes of adverbs in Shupamem. In
other words, the section devoted to morphologylooked at the different
derivation processes of adverbs in Shupamem. On the other hand, the goal of the
syntactic study was to reveal the different positions that adverbs occupy
within the sentence, that is, their unmarked positions. It also presentedthe
order of occurrence and the hierarchy of adverbs within a structure, in the
light of the Cinquean (1999) approach. Furthermore, Isought to know the
structure of the left periphery of Shupamem, and to identify the adverbs that
license focalization and topicalization, and those that do not.
Firstly, the study of adverbs morphology revealed that
Shupamen distinguishes between pure and derived adverbs. As far as pure adverbs
are concerned, there are lexical and grammatical adverbs. Lexical adverbs are
those that have sense on their own. Thus, we have temporal adverbs such as
«?kuìr?Ì» (yesterday),
«f?ìmn??ì» (tomorrow), the exocomparative
adverbs «ndu?niì»
(differently), and others. Grammatical adverbs do not
convey meaning on their own. They are aspectual adverbs such as
«ti?ì» (progressive), «kaì»
(habitual), «piÌt» (repetitive).
As far as derived adverbs are concerned, Shupamem has four
derivation processes, namely affixation, adjunction, reduplication and
substitution.
Affixation is the main process through which manner adverbs
are derived. The suffixes «-kériì»and
«-riì» areattached to the nominal or adjectival stems
respectively to form adverbs. This is the case with
«poÌkériì»(well),
«kénkériì» (tiredly),and others.
The adjunction process on its part is concerned with the
addition of some particles, mostly prepositions to nouns or adjectives to form
adverbs. Some examples of adverbs formed through adjunctioninclude manner
adverbs «n?ì k?ì» (forcefully),
«n?Ì ???ì» (angrily), temporal adverbs
«n?Ì ?yì?» (in the night),
«n?Ì ?kuì?n??ì» (in the morning),
frequency adverbs «?gu?lién??Ì» (everyday),
«?kaì im?Ì?» (once), ideophonic adverbs
«miì kp?Ìm» (quietly), «miÌ
waìnn?», (rapidly), and others.
Reduplication process is concerned with the duplication of the
word.It is the case with celerative adverb «m?ìjeìt
m?ìjeìt» (slowly), the temporal adverbial
«n?ì ?yì? ?yÌ?» (in the night) and the
exocomparative adverbs «?g?ì? ?g?ì?»
(similarly).
Finally, the substitution process concerns the nouns or
adjectives whose last vowel is substituted by another vowel, in order to form
an adverb. It is the case with manner adverbs such as
«raÌ??i?» (rudely) which is made from the adjective
«raÌ???Ì» (rude), and
«?yÌ?ri?» (stubbornly) made from the noun
«?yÌ?r?Ì» (stubbornness).
Secondly,the syntactic study of adverbs revealed that Shupamem
has two main adverb classes, namely the higher classand the lower class
adverbs. The higher class adverbs includes adverbs that are base-generated in
the sentence initial position,such as the speech act adverb
«m?Ì ndaì ?gaÌm» (honestly) and the
epistemic I adverb «m?ì? mb?ì» (maybe). Both
of them license topicalization. As for focalization, the speech act adverb
allows only the focus morpheme «poì», not the cleft
copula «aì», whereas the epistemic I adverb allows
none of the two focalization processes. In other words, the epistemic I adverb
cannot be focalized.
Concerning the lower class, it is divided into two groups,
which are the pre-verbal and the post-verbal adverbs. Pre-verbal adverbs
include all the aspectual adverbs (progressive, repetitive, habitual,
continuative, and anterior tense), and the epistemic II adverb
«k?Ì mbuì?/puì?» (unavoidably). They
all allow focalization through the cleft copula «aì»,
at the condition that they raise to the left periphery alongside the verbs that
they modify. Their focalization is not possible with the focus particle
«poì», because this particle is used only for
post-verbal items.
The post-verbal adverbs include the rest of the adverbs, which
are the manner, the celerative, the temporal, the locative, the frequency, the
degree, the restrictive, the ideophonic, the comparative and the exocomparative
adverbs. My analysis showed that all these adverbs license focalization and
topicalization. Their focalization through the cleft copula
«aì» requires additional elements in the structure,
such as «mb?ì j??ì» (which is
what), «mb?ì jekaì»,
(which is how), «mb?ì
?aìj??ì» (which is where), and the declarative morpheme
«n?ì» at the end of the sentence. For thereason of
their complexity,such structuresare rarely used in the discourse.
Finally, as far as the order and hierarchy of adverbs are
concerned, I realized that the fixed hierarchy posited by Cinque (1999) is
tenable only between the higher class adverbs and the pre-verbal lower class
adverbs. In fact, my data showed that pre-verbal lower class adverbs cannot
come before the higher class adverbs, nor can they come after post-verbal
adverbs. However, between the post-verbal adverbs, the order is highly
flexible. Forexample, the locative can precede or follow the manner adverbs,
the temporal adverbs, etc, and all this being interchangeable. Based on what
has been discussed, the hierarchy of adverbs in Shupamem is as follows:
Speechact>epistemicI>proximative>progressive>anterior>habitual>epistemicII>continuative>repetitive>
locative>frequencyI>frequencyII>temporal>manner
Interchangeable
Furthermore, based on Rizzi's (1997) Fine Structure of the
Left Periphery, I have studied and established the structure of elements above
TP in shupamem. In fact, operations like focalization, topicalization,
relativization and question formation can initiate movements to non-arguments
position. It was observed that the order of adverbs of the language maychange
for higher class adverbs and post-verbal adverbs,due to focalization and
topicalization. However, the order between the pre-verbal lower class adverbs
is not interchangeable. In other words, the aspectual adverbs do not change
their order of occurrence, be it in the unmarked or the marked forms. In the
same light, some restrictions are observed as far as the topicalization and the
focalization of some adverbs are concerned.
Epistemic I adverbs cannot be focalized while epistemic II can
easily be focalized. Furthermore, aspectual adverbs cannot be topicalized. Out
of that, I realized that the Topic Phrase precedes the Focus and the Relative
Phrases in Shupamem. In addition, when negation occurs within the left
peripheral domain, it must come before the FocP. Thus, the structure of the
left periphery of Shupamem is ForceP>TopP>NegP>FocP>RelP.
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