Hausa disyllabic verbs: comments on base forms and extensions

Studies in African Linguistics. pp97-129. offprint. This paper seeks to test the premises of Newman's Vowel-Tone Class/Extension system against the operation of the present day Hausa verbal system as the latter is manifested in the co-occurrence of a verb in more than one base shape (or in Parsons' terms, the incidence of a verb stem operating more than one primary grade). The evidence suggests first, the existence of extensions other than the Applicative having the same shape as bases; second, that transitivity is a correlate of base shapes in three out of four cases and is a factor in extension formation; and third, a shape normally considered an extension (or secondary grade) contains base forms and two different kinds of extension.