Subjective Objective

7/27/2019 Subjective Objective

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Draft September 2012

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Chapter ##

SUBJECTIVE AND OBJECTIVE

COMPLEMENTS

verb phrase may include words or phrases that are complements of other nouns inthe sentence rather than complements of the verb, e.g. he looks sick,she became alawyer, where sick and a lawyer are complements of the subjects, and I

painted the chair red, we elected Bill president, where red and president arecomplements to the objects chair and Bill respectively. We use the traditional termssubjective complement for the former and objective complement for the latter.

1. Subjective Complements

Setting aside sentences in which the predicate itself is a noun or adjective (##), wecan distinguish at least two sentence types with subjective complements: (1) sentenceswith verbs that express a transformation in the state of the subject and (2) sentences witha verb followed by an expression that describes the subject.

Verbs of transformation typically have non-transformative base meanings. Below is alist of the most common Bole transformative verbs, followed by some examplescontaining these verbs.

1The base meaning is first. The transformative meaning

follows the semicolon:

bngru turn around; turn into

owu sit, stay; becomem return; turn intonguru remain, be left behind; become make, do, be done; become, be too...

As the examples below show, the subjective complement may be a noun or anadjective, though for verbs with the sense turn into, metamorphose into, only a nounwould be pragmatically appropriate. There are several variants with verbs and subjectivecomplements. The simplest form is VERB+COMPLEMENT. Verbs of transformation are allintransitive and hence allow use of the Intransitive Copy Pronoun (ICP##), comprisingj-+pronoun. For most verbs of transformation, the word b in the guise of, as canoptionally introduce a subjective complement. There is a tendency to use either the ICPorb, though it is not ungrammatical to use both. The verb become, be too... cannotuse b. Not all possible variants are given for all the verbs.

1 See the chapters on adjectives (##), ideophonic adjectives (##), and statives (##) for further examples.


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Subjective and Objective Complements 2

mm m znge = mm m b znge = mm m jn zngeperson return hyena person return as hyena person return ICP hyena

= mm m jn b zngeperson return ICP as hyena

the man has turned into a hyena (znge)

shi bngraj jto mm = shi bngrab b mm2goat transform ICP person goat transform as person

the goat (shi) turned into a human (mm)

wa mbkm = wa jn mbkm = wa b mbkmhe will become blind (mbkm blind person)

b ka umblin, ngra jn kr if you throw it down, it will become a snake jn sma (* b sma) he became deaf (sma deaf person)mma jn njrl lai (*... b...) the water has become very cold (njrl lai)tti jnnm smsm

the gruel has fermented, i.e. the gruel has become sour indeed (nm smsm)Even though subjective complements directly follow the verb, as do direct objects,

verbs with subjective complements are intransitive and thus bear a different syntacticrelationship to the complement than the relationship between verb and direct object.. Themost obvious evidence that the verb is intransitive is that transformative verbs can use anICP. By definition, ICPs occur only with intransitive verbs. The verb become seemsto require the ICP in affirmative sentences when a subjective complement follows.

3For

other verbs, the ICP is not grammatically required, and its use would be ungrammatical inall the following negative sentences (##).

mm bngr (b) znge sa a person cannot turn into a hyena

ka wa (b) mbkm sa ~ ka ngura mbkm sayou will not become a blind personmma njlr sa the water has not become cold(kob) tti i nm sa4 dont let the kunu go sour

Tonal evidence also shows that the syntactic constituency of verb + subjectivecomplement differs from that of verb + direct object, even though both constructionsdirectly juxtapose a verb and a noun phrase. Low Tone Raising (LTR##) DOES applybetween a verb and a direct object, but not between a verb and a subjective complement.In the first two examples below, where the verb can only be used intransitively,application of LTR is unacceptable. In the third example, the verb bngru used

2 Because the verb has a transitive meaning turn, rotate, ?*shi bngram mm, with no overt mark ofintransitivity or subjective complement status, is marginal because it sounds like the goat turned a person.3

Without the ICP, the tendency would be to interpret the verb in its transitive sense make, do, i.e. smawould be interpreted he made a deaf person, not he became deaf. Subjective complements aftermust be distinguished from transitive followed by a quality word. Thus, in ts em kumbethis bowlis too small (bowl this does [] constrictedness [kumbe]), the word kumbe constrictedness is not asubjective complement because it is a noun, not an adjective describing a quality of the bowl or a nounstating something that the bowl has become.4Kob is a prohibitive operator rather than a negator. Thus, (kob) tti i jnnm dont let the kunugo sour, with the prohibitive and without the negatorsa is grammatical with the ICP . See ##.


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intransitively with a subjective complement and no LTR is in contrast with the verb usedtransitively with LTR.

wa mbkm *wa mbukm he will become blind (mbkm blind person)sw ka owi pkra *sw ka owi pukra you should become a student (pkra)mm bongiro shi the man turns into a goat (subjective comp.)cf. mm bongiro shi the man turns the goat around (DO)

(This contrast would not be available for a construction with overt ICP, which could nottake a grammatical direct object.)

Some constructions optionally allow a subjective complement to be part of a phraseintroduced by b in the guise of, in the capacity of (cf. use of this word below withOBJECTIVE complements). This does not seem to be possible for the verb become, andit is not required with any verb.

mm m jn b znge = mm m b znge the man has turned into a hyenabngr jn (b) znge = bngr (b) znge he turned into a hyena

The second type of subjective complement construction mentioned at the beginningof this section comprises a verbal expression including a complement to the subject. Theverbal expression is typically an unergative intranstive verb, but transitive verbalconstructions are also possible. The complements are typically statives (##), butadjectives (##) and ideophonic adjectives (##) are also possible. Such sentences differfrom sentences with transformative verbs in that the subjective complement issyntactically optional., i.e. ??bngr jn he transformed would not be felicitous5whereas j rw he is wandering about (see first example below) is a completesentence.

j rw snkaln he is wandering about irresponsibly

bu pt slwain Abu went out nakedkr ye pten zengile the snake emerged (looking) long and thinan br ta wshi dn the warrior continued fighting (while) stabbednka otto wat she cooked the food (while) seatedkari ye wan ptl pok the clothes became (washed) snow whitelw rkk njll the boy lost weight (becoming) very leannonti ywi aj jo zngl the ostrich ran (looking) tallwo kw r the stomach swelled (looking) protruding and round

We draw attention here also to a construction akin to sentences with subjectivecomplements, viz. sentences with change of state verbs containing an ideophone (##) orideophonic adjective (##) that seems to comment on the state of the subject.

kul tu porot the calabash has a hole in itcalabash be-pierced ideophone

sr bkk jn murus the grass burned to a crispgrass burn ICP ideophone

5 This sentence would be acceptable in the sense he turned around.


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mbormi p jn kkkk the ebony fruit dried up and became hardebony dry ICP ideophonic adj.

karin jtt jn ndkkm his clothes are greasy and dirtyclothes-his spoiled ICP ideophonic adj.

Such sentences are on the borderline between sentences with unequivocal subjectivecomplements and sentences with manner adverbs (##). In examples like those above, theideophone seems to apply both to the event expressed by the verb and to the state of thesubject. In those where the complement word is labeled ideophone, analysis as a subjectcomplement seems untenable because the ideophone alone could not serve as a predicate,e.g. one could not say *kul porot the calabash is pierced, but for words labeledideophonic adjectives (##), this is possible, e.g. mbormi (ye) kkkk the ebony fruitis hard.

Bole does not have direct counterparts to many expressions using subjectivecomplements in English. For example, English expressions using verbs that relate asubject to its complement through the senses, such as feel (good), look (sick), sound(silly),smell (bad), taste (salty) would generally take one of the following forms:

km feel + nominal OBJECT expressingthe sensation that one feels:

km zi he felt good (zi pleasure)ita j km kwa she is feeling shy

(kwa modesty, shyness)

Unitary verb: msku feel nauseousklwu feel better (after illness)

Equational sentence with a sense noun assubject and a descriptive word as predicate:

bjin otto zi the food smells good(the odor of the food is pleasant)

An idiom: duwtdinhe doesnt look happy

(he beat his eyes)

The sense verb km feel differs from its English counterpart in that the Bole verbis transitive, whereas Bole verbs that require subjective complements are all intransitve.The words that express the counterparts of English adjectival complements like goodorshy are nominal direct objects in Bole. Aside from the fact that they would be anomalousas predicates (??Leng kwa would mean ??Lengi is shyness), they undergo LTR, as doall nominal objects of verbs.

sw shi kume kawa sa you shouldnt feel shy

2. Objective Complements (Small Clauses)

Verbs that take objective complements are transitive verbs that can be roughlygrouped into three categories, listed with exemplifying verbs from Bole:

(1) Verbs that change the state of an object into the form expressed by the complement

lu install, turban (a chief) make (into) (cf. intransitive use of this verb to mean become)


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mtu change to, turn into (cf. intransitive m turn into, become)

In addition to these specific verbs, there is a fairly open-ended class of verbs oftransformation, such as paint (X red), grind (X smooth), cook (X mushy), dig (X deep)see examples below

(2) Verbs that state a relationship between an object and its complement6

su call (someone something)ndolu want (object in the capacity of complement)

(3) Verbs of discovery or perception of a relationship between an object and itscomplement

bolu find, come acrossdeyu leavenn see

Most verbs of types (1) and (2) can (at least optionally) use a phrase headed by b inthe capacity of, in the guise of as the objective complement. For verbs of type (3), it ispossible that there are actually two syntactic constructions, viz. those with a direct objectand an objective complement and those where the apparent object is actually the SUBJECTof a complement clause like I saw [that] THE GOAT [was] tied up, where the bracketeditems would not have overt expression in Bole in any case. Note, however, that forALLverbs of type (3), a pronominal object is a clitic on the verb, not a free pronoun, showingthat even if object + complement is an underlying clause, the complement subject hasbeen coppied as the grammatical object of the complementizing verb when it is a pronoun(see ## for discussion of copying semantic subjects of embedded propositions as objectsof matrix verbs).

(1) Verbs changing the state of an object

lan br b Moi they have installed Abari as Moilan-n-n b wokkl moi they made him (n) the chiefs representativemtantn bno ye (b) ptl they painted (turned) the house whitell gbn ye (b) ptl he painted the room whitean gwa kskr ye (*b) gra the blacksmith made the sword longppan bz (b) gra they dug the hole deep (gra adj.)pp wyo (*b) zrklk he dug the hole deep (zrklk id. adj.)mtat tagrda b kmb she made the paper into a fanrt gr b blou he divided the kola in two

6An important subcategory of type (2) verbs comprises the verbs of comparison y exceed, l be equal

to, be up to, be the equal of, mn be equal to, be as...as..., ksu be less than, all of which can beused with a complement that expresses a standard to which the object is measured, i.e. ....exceed OBJECT(with respect to) STANDARD. Chapter ## covers expressions using these verbs and hence they are omittedfrom the present chapter.


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(2) Verbs stating a relationship between an object and its complement

js Bamoi (*b) an shiri they are calling Bamoi a thief (an shiri)n ndol Bamoi b sb I want Bamoi as a friendndol-k b sb he wants you as a friendBamoi ndol Leng b mnd Bamoi wants Lengi as a wifeBamoi ndolsh b mnd Bamoi wants you as a wife

(3) Verbs of perceiving a relationship between and object and its complement

dewu shi ye ngrat he left the goat tied updei-k ka ngrak he left you (k) tied upnnn gam ngran I saw the ram tied upnnn kr ye gndn mblili

I saw the snake lying (gndn) stretched out (mblili)mu innankun m gndku we saw you (pl.) lying downwal lw ye kwn they found the child well-fedwannan n kw

no they found me well-fedwankan ka rukkko they found you emaciatedblanna n njll she came upon me teeny-weenybolsh shi owash he came upon you seated

Akin to objective complements with verbs of type (2) are constructions involvingideophones and ideophonic adjectives such as the following, parallel to those withnominal complements (see end of 1). As with constructions such sentences differ fromsentences with straightforward objective complements, first, because the ideophoneseems to describe the action or state of the entire verb + object, and second, because,unlike words that appear as objective complements, the ideophone could not be thepredicate of an equational sentence (##), directly equating the noun which appears as

grammatical and the predicate.

ka zm-t kok-ko alal you shaved your head baldyou shave-tot head-your ideophone

ngor-t wula taitai he tied the load securelytie-tot load ideophone

ss biki ndalar he ground the flour to a soft consistencyground flour ideophone

zm konn sulsul he shaved his head smooth

Subjective Objective

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