The Syntax and Semantics Interface of Auxiliary Verbs in Embosi

This contribution tackles the scrutiny of the syntax and semantics interface of auxiliary verbs in Embosi, a Bantu language spoken in the northern part of the Republic of Congo. This paper draws data from observation, traditional folklore and some written books on the language under discussion. It comes out from the analysis that Embosi has three types of auxiliaries: the primary auxiliaries, modals, and semi-modals. The work proves that Embosi has two primary auxiliaries: idzà “be” and idià “have” ; four pure modals: kà “duty with hesitation”, kòmi “obligation”, onami “condition”, and pènà “probability”; and five semi-modals: ikòngàà “futurity”, ipèrà “capacity”, ipùrà “desire”, itáá “prohibition”, and iwénà “progressive aspect”. It also demonstrates that Embosi primary auxiliaries and semi-modals are pre-verbal, whereas the pure modals are pre and post-verbal, and some of them ( onami and pènà ) may occur before the subject without affecting the semantics of the sentence. The analysis also specifies that two pure modals ( kà and kòmi ) may precede the subject and keep the same meaning. The study also attests that primary auxiliaries and semi-modals, in Embosi, have the morphosyntactic properties of finite-based auxiliaries, whilst pure modals are non-finite-based. Finally, the study proves that the negative auxiliary invariably parallels the syntactic function of a dummy auxiliary, regardless of verb type.