Towards a Typology of DIE Verbs in African Languages

Abstract

This paper constitutes an essay in comparative lexical semantics and typology, comparing DIE verbs in nine African languages: Arabic, Tigrinya, Hausa, Dinka, Maa, Chindali, Kinyarwanda, Yoruba, and Akan. Cross-linguistically, DIE verbs, although referring to the same human event, differ in their aspectual structure. Primary DIE verbs, representative of Vendler's class of achievement verbs, provide not only an interesting case study of a single lexical verb, but also an excellent exemplar of the class type. The author proposes that the four types of DIE verbs identified also constitute the potential range of all achievement verbs.