Ogbonna Anyanwu

The Syntax of Ngwa Igbo Causatives: a Minimalist Account Ogbonna Anyanwu

This book is a revised version of my PhD dissertation which I presented to the Department of Linguistics & Communication Studies, University of Port Harcourt, Nigeria. It examines causatives in Ngwa Igbo within the minimalist framework. It identifies three types of causative, which are the analytical (syntactic), the morphological and the lexical. The analytical and morphological causatives constitute what have been referred to as the ?-me? causatives in this book. This is simply due to the fact that the main VP of both types of causative is headed by the causative verbal element '-me' 'cause'. The ?-me? morphological causative however, is derived from its analytical counterpart via incorporation (head-movement). The lexical causatives in Ngwa Igbo are either bi-positional or non bi-positional in terms of their morphological structure. While some bi-positional verbs alternate their transitivity, others are either inherently transitive or intransitive.