Abstract
This
article investigates the formation of Grade 1 verbs in the Hausa perfective
aspect within the framework of Distributed Morphology (DM), addressing a
central theoretical puzzle: how can morphological dependencies that appear to
involve a higher element attaching to a lower one be accounted for without
positing downward movement in the syntax? While the Minimalist Program (MP)
prohibits downward movement due to the Extension Condition, DM provides
post-syntactic mechanisms to resolve such apparent violations. This paper
argues that the Grade 1 pattern results from Local Dislocation, a
post-syntactic operation that merges a morpho-phonological bundle (comprising
tone and termination features) with the verb root at the level of Phonological
Form (PF). The analysis demonstrates that the surface properties of Grade 1
verbs—including the contextually conditioned vowel shortening in Form C—are
best explained not by syntactic lowering, but by a string-sensitive, linear
operation that applies after the syntactic derivation is complete.
Keywords: Distributed
Morphology, Downward Movement, Local Dislocation, Verbal Grade System,
Lowering, Hausa, Minimalist Program
DOI: 10.36349/alqajolls.2026.v01i02.040
author/Dr. Danlami Bala Gwammaja, Dr. Yusuf Salisu Sani & Dr. Abdullahi Aliyu
journal/AL-QALAM JLLS 1(2) | June 2026
