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    Verbs and Verb Phrases in Frisian
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    The Verb Phrase (VP) is a structure built around a verb. Most verbs denote a process involving participants bearing designated thematic roles. For example, in the sentence below, the Noun Phrase (NP) Jouke carries the thematic role of involuntary agent:

    1
    Jouke lake
    Jouke laughed
    Jouke laughed

    The verb is a complex syntactic category, and the structural representation of the verb and its arguments is a subject of ongoing syntactic investigation. Arguments of a verb may exhibit specific forms of behaviour, which correlate with the semantic subclass to which a verb in its usage belongs.

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    More details about the verbs and VPs can be found by following the corresponding links:

    • Characteristics and classification of verbs

      The classification of verb forms is closely related to the type of constructions in which they may occur. In addition, the relation between semantic subdivision and syntactic behaviour of VPs is briefly discussed.

    • Unergative and unaccusative subjects and the auxiliary of the perfect

      The syntactic relation of a verb to its arguments correlates with its meaning. A basic distinction is that between unergative verbs and unaccusative verbs. Unaccusative verbs such as oankomme to arrive are non-agentive and they tend to select wêze to be as the auxiliary of the perfect, in contrast with unergative verbs such as laitsje to laugh:

      2
      a. De trein is oankommen
      the train is arrived
      The train has arrived
      b. Doutzen hat lang lake
      Doutzen has long laughed
      Doutzen has laughed for a long time
    • Evidentiality in relation to perception and epistemicity

      Perception verbs such as sjen to see and hearre to hear form a coherent semantic class. An example of a sentence with a perception verb is given below:

      3
      Edzard heart dat allegear
      Edzard hears that all
      Edzard hears it all
      Transitive perception verbs may participate in a verb frame alternation. They may be detransitivised, more specifically, they may lose their subject argument and be used as evidential copulas, as in the following example:
      4
      Dat heart allegear goed
      that hears all good
      It all sounds good
    • Types of to-infinitival clauses

      Non-finite clauses involving a to-infinitive do not show uniform behaviour. They may be further classified depending on their similarity to syntactic categories such as APs, PPs and clauses. Infinitives may also be classified depending on whether or not they exhibit incorporation of the verbal arguments and on the basis of their semantic interpretation. The following is an example of an incorporating to-infinitival clause:

      5
      Omdat er hjoed te hierknippen is
      because he today to hair.cut is
      Because he is having his hair cut today
    • Predication and noun incorporation

      Auxiliary verbs are verbs with a very abstract, unspecific meaning, such as wêze be and gean go. Auxiliaries comprise both modals verbs like kinne can and various types of copula verbs, such as the copula of being, wêze be and the copula of going, gean go. Auxiliary verbs may select a predication that is headed by a bare infinitive or a to-infinitive, among others. There are selection restrictions on the type of infinitive that may appear in such a predication. An example is given in (6), where the auxiliary verb bliuwe stay selects bare infinitives. These bare infinitives must have the form of a gerund and they must belong to the semantic class of verbs of body posture:

      6
      Yn oare blommen bliuwt dat dan oan de plakkerige gnodze sitten
      in other flowers stays that then to the sticky pistil sit
      Then it stays and sticks to the sticky pistil of other flowers

      Verbal complements are selected by various types of auxiliary verbs, and they are subject to varying selection restrictions. Supplementive and appositive constructions instantiate another structural realization of predication structures.

    • Ellipsis of ordinary infinitives and to-infinitives

      Light verbs are auxiliary verbs which are not modals. They may be left out if they function as the main verb in certain types of infinitival complements, that is, in the verb position of the complement to auxiliary verbs, as in the following example:

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      a. Jouke soe nei Grins ta
      Jouke should to Grins to
      Jouke intended to go to Grins
      b. Jouke soe nei Grins ta gean
      Jouke should to Grins to go
      Jouke intended to go to Grins

      Syntactic and semantic factors are involved in the description of the distribution of light verb ellipsis.

    • The Imperativus-pro-Infinitivo construction

      The Imperativus-pro-Infinitivo construction (IPI) features a bare verb occuring in the first position of the clause. An example is given below:

      8
      Heerd doarde it net oan en rin it hiem op
      Heerd dared it not AdP and walk the premises up
      Heerd did not dare to go and set foot on the premises

      The IPI functions either as the second conjunct of a coordination or as a selected infinitival complement, as in the example in (8). The IPI is atypical in that normal infinitives are head-final and feature a verb that has the form of an infinitive. The verb of the IPI occurs in head-initial position and it is homophonous to the imperative form of the verb.

    • The expression of irrealis in nineteenth-century Frisian and in Modern Frisian

      The verb cluster features a special type of instantiation that is referred to as the B-construction. An example is given below:

      9
      Hja moast him earder fuortstjoerd hawwe
      she must him earlier away.sent.PfP have.OI
      She should have sent him away earlier

      The B-construction has recently been replaced with the A-construction, that is also current in Dutch. An example is given below:

      10
      Hja hie him earder fuortstjoere moatten
      she had him earlier away.sent.OI must.PfP
      She should have sent him away earlier

      The B-construction has some interesting properties. It is, for example, by and large restricted to main clauses.

    • Embedded Verb-Second with and without complementiser

      Embedded tensed clauses may exhibit variation with respect to the question word, the complementiser and the position of the finite verb. They may feature main clause word order under certain conditions involving both direct and indirect speech. The complementiser may be present or absent, as shown below:

      11
      a. Hy sei dat hy hie it net witten
      he said that he had it not known
      He said that he had not known it
      b. Hy sei hy hie it net witten
      he said he had it not known
      He said he had not known it

      The variant with the complementiser is subject to intricate restrictions. In addition, direct and indirect speech may follow the marker fan like, as in the example below:

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      En doe't jim seinen fan jim soene nei it boekebal
      and when you said like you should to the book.ball
      And when you said like you were going to the ball of books

      Finally, long distance questions may be formed by duplicating the question word, as in the following example:

      13
      Wa tinkst wa't ik sjoen ha?
      who think.2SG who.that I seen have
      Who do you think that I saw?

      The first question word may also be replaced with the unmarked question word wat what, as shown below:

      14
      Wat tinkst wa't ik sjoen ha?
      what think.2SG who.that I seen have
      Who do you think that I saw?
    • Agreement on verbs and complementisers

      The 2SG ending is found on both verbs and complementisers, and it licenses pro-drop, that is, the subject may remain absent. An example of pro-drop is given below:

      15
      Moatst dy noait fan in faam belêze litte
      must.2SG you.OBJ never of a girl lecture let
      You should never let yourself be lectured by a girl

      The 2SG ending shows some remarkable properties. For example, the pronominal subject must cliticise onto the 2SG agreement marker in inversion.

    • Negation, scrambling and polarity

      Two quantifiers which occur within the VP may be subject to syntactic restrictions. For example, Frisian has the option of putting the pronominal adverb of manner and degree in the position before negation, as in the following example:

      16
      Dat is sa net
      that is so not
      That is not the case

      This order is marked in the sense that it presupposes that the discourse participant may have a contrary opinion, which is contradicted by the utterance above. Another example of quantifier interaction involves double negation.

    References
      About this article
      Author(s): Eric Hoekstra
      Category: Frisian Syntax
      Keywords: verbverb phrase
      Version: 1.0, December 2015
      Version history:
      version editor(s) date remarks
      1.0 Eric Hoekstra December 2015
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