Abstract

This paper examines the thematic roles of Gbagyi and Kambari verbal predicates within the framework of Government and Binding Theory using one of its sub-modules – Theta Theory. Basically, the paper explores the kind of thematic roles obtainable in Gbagyi and Kambari languages and how their verbal predicates play a crucial role in theta marking their arguments. The data collected for this study were sourced from both primary and secondary sources. The analysis reveals that both Gbagyi and Kambari exhibit zero-place predicate, one-place predicate, two-place predicate and three-place predicates, and that the subject, direct object, as well as indirect object positions of the arguments of a predicate are realized syntactically while thematic roles such as agent, patient, benefactor, goal, location, etc are realized semantically. This work identifies and further describes the most basic thematic relations encoded in various theta roles in Gbagyi and Kambari. The study observed that aspects of the syntactic behaviour of verbs are tied to their meaning in Gbagyi and Kambari. It further shows that having more or less required number of arguments in the sentence can lead to ungrammaticality in the two languages. Considering the breadth of Theta Theory and the fact that this paper serves as a comparative study of the two languages in this area, some key issues may not be addressed at this point in time but would be considered in the subsequent study.