Les morphèmes de nominalisation du verbe en baoulé, langue kwa de Côte d’Ivoire

Verb nominalization morphemes in baoulé, the kwa language of cote d'ivoire

Abstract

The verb remains one of the most important constituents of the phrasal structure in Baule. It is the element around which other constituents such as subject NP, object NP and circumstantials are put intoaction. Thus, nominalization of the verb in Baule calls for characteristic lexical morphemes called nominalizers. These are “a-”, “-lɛ”, “-wlɛ”, “-fwɛ” and “-lwa”. These isolated meaningless morphemes enable the verb to change lexical category by becoming a noun. This is achieved by derivation through three (03)
morphological processes, namely prefixation, suffixation and reduplication of the verbal base. In fact, these lexical constituents in the Kwa languages of Côte d'Ivoire (the case of Baoulé) have the transformational and categorial capacity to influence verb categories.