Ga clauses without syntactic subjects

Abstract

In Ga, certain locative or goal-oriented expressions involve a type of multi-verb construction that is characterized by the independence of the agreement (including A(spect), M(ood) and P(olarity)) features and argument structures of the verbs, such that the syntactic and functional status of the second, locative VP poses an interesting problem. The compositional semantics of the sentence suggests that the second, locative VP, sometimes known as a "verbid" expression, is the Predicate of the first, which then must be its semantic subject, and a close examination of various constructions in Ga indicates that this is a reasonable interpretation. On the other hand, only the first verb takes the full range of aspectual markers and arguments. This together with the relations holding between the objects of the verbs, and the behaviour of the locative VP when in focus, suggests that on the syntactic level the reverse situation holds, that the locative clause specifies the other as its adjunct. © Walter de Gruyter.