The Syntax of simple and compound tenses in Ndebele

Abstract

It is a widely accepted generalization that verbal periphrasis is triggered by increased inflectional meaning and a paucity of verbal elements to support its realization. This work examines the limitations on synthetic verbal forms in Ndebele and argues that periphrasis in this language arises via a last-resort grammatical mechanism. The proposed trigger of auxiliary insertion is c-selection – a relation between inflectional categories and verbs.