The process of embedding, a term used in generative grammar to refer to a construction in which a sentence is included within another sentence, is examined as it occurs in Yoruba literature. Examples are drawn from Yoruba praise poetry, in both written and oral form and within Yoruba novels. Forms of embedding identified include those to draw…

Conversion, the deliberate transfer of a word from one part of speech to another without any change in its form, is a typically English phenomenon, conditioned but not caused by the extensive wearing-off of word endings and weakening of inflections. It has typically been treated as a syntactic matter, since no new words are produced, and its…

Transferred epithets, adjectives that appear to have been transferred from adverb to prenominal position (e.g., "I balanced a thoughtful lump of sugar..."), have been viewed as unanalyzable both grammatically and from the viewpoint of transformational derivation. However, another explanation is that these combinations show patterns…