The serial verb construction, also known as (verb) serialization or verb stacking, is a syntactic phenomenon in which two or more verbs or verb phrases are strung together in a single clause.
| aladi
|
kpa
|
adʒuwɛ
|
dʒɛ
|
| aladi
|
kill
|
chicken
|
eats
|
| Alali killed and ate the chicken (D:22).
|
A cognate object (or cognate accusative) is a verb's object that is etymologically related to the verb. More specifically, the verb is one that is ordinarily intransitive (lacking any object), and the cognate object is simply the verb's noun form.
| u
|
l(e)
|
t(i)
|
ona
|
dʒidʒi
|
ɛrɛ
|
| 1SG
|
walk(V)
|
to
|
path
|
long
|
trek
|
| He walked a long walk (D:207).
|
The split verb is a verb that sentence-finally appears as one word, however can be split so part of the verb appears earlier in the sentence.
| dorkas
|
kp
|
lɛ
|
fɔ
|
| Dorcas
|
break
|
door
|
DEF.DIST
|
break
|
| Dorcas, break the door! (D:?).
|