Abstract: | Emphasis on the meaning, even when it is recognised that a given extension may cover a range of quite diverse meanings, has tended to exclude consideration of the structure rules in sentences in which the verb has an extended radical. Even while acknowledging that the semantic relation between the simple and extended radical is not always clear, Bantuists have not generally investigated the grammatical function of the extension in sentence structures in order to account, at least in part, for apparent deviations from the semantic relationship. It is unlikely that Bantuists will readily attribute a break in the semantic relation to a difference in structure unless the concept of obligatory relationship is accepted as an important factor in the meaning of the sentence. An obligatory relationship is defined here as a relationship between nondeletable syntactic units. The type of obligatory relationship considered here is that in which the verb has a radical extension, but no attempt is made to describe in any detail the system in any given language. |