Social SciencesLinguisticsAfrican StudiesLinguistic AnthropologySociolinguisticsAfrican LanguagesAfrican LinguisticsAfro-asiatic LanguagesNiger-congo Languages
An infinitival verb phrase is generated to express compar-ison in Bambara. In particular, the comparative verb phrase has the structure: INFINITIVE MARKER + INTRANSITIVE VERB + NP + POSTPOSITION. The structural constraints on the comparative verb phrase are not specific to comparison, but are the more general constraints resulting from concat-enating verb phrases. However, a special structural and pragmatic relation is established between the head clause and the comparative infinitival verb phrase. This relation has consequences for the structure of the NP in the compar-ative phrase and for deletion of lexical items within the comparative phrase. In this respect, the comparative in-finitival phrase behaves differently from non-comparative infinitival verb phrases. 1.