Compound verbs. Verbs are not an open lexical class in that new verb stem paradigms are not regularly added to the lexicon. Instead, Sarikoli uses a large number nouns and adjectives in combination with other existing verbs to express verbal mean- ings. tɕejɡ ‘do’, sɛt ‘become’, ðod ‘give’, and χiɡ ‘eat’ are among the most common verbs to be used in compound verbs. Table 1.8 lists examples of frequently-used compound verbs. Table 1.8 Examples of compound verbs The nominal (noun or adjective) element of a compound verb does not func- tion as the direct object of the verb, as it is part of the verb. This is exemplified in (1.23) – (1.25), in which compound verbs occur with accusative arguments. Other compound verbs, as shown in (1.26) – (1.28), are used intransitively and do not take accusative arguments. Morphologically, the nominal elements of compound verbs are distinct from both verbs and NP arguments. Unlike verbs, they do not occur in five different stems and do not host pronominal agree- ment clitics in the imperfective aspect. Whereas NP arguments are usually marked with function-marking clitics or adpositions, the nominal element of a compound verb is not. It is part of the compound verb but does not take inflections that are limited to verbs or nouns. But it is a separate word which can anchor enclitics, as in (1.24).
