International Journal on Studies in English Language and Literature (IJSELL) Volume 7, Issue 10, October 2019, PP 41-53 ISSN 2347-3126 (Print) & ISSN 2347-3134 (Online) http://dx.doi.org/10.20431/2347-3134.0710006 www.arcjournals.org International Journal on Studies in English Language and Literature (IJSELL) Page | 41 The Verbo –Nominal Structures in German and Yorùbá Languages: Parallels and Contrasts Deborah Adeyeye 1 , Ogunwale Abiodun 2* 1 Department of Foreign Languages, University of Benin 2 Department of Linguistics and African Languages, Obafemi Awolowo University, Ile-Ife, Nigeria 1. INTRODUCTION Although German and Yorùbá languages belong to two different world language- groups, but there exists a number of individuals who are faced with the challenge of having to combine the knowledge of the two languages either as bilingual individuals or for heuristic reasons in this modern world. In any of such circumstances, confusion emanating from the composition and the inalienability of the constituents of complex verb- formation can hardly be ignored. This is particularly so when it comes to abstracting the lexical status in order to effect the semantic value of complex verbs in either of the two languages. It is also found that there are a number of instances where verb forms in the two languages typically contain more than one morpheme within a verb- constituent, thereby making the notion of wordhood of a verb in the two languages to be quite intriguing. Thus, plethora of studies abound in the two languages where scholars have independently ventured to expound the status and the morphological structures of words, as opposed to syntactic structures, in the contexts of their syntactic and pragmatic configurations. 1 For example Adewole (1997:4) proposes that syntactic categories are defined according to whether they analyze complete or incomplete expressions while the domain of verbal process is determined by the instantiation of the feature, [LEXICAL]. For words like a verb, however, lexicality is fixed and defines the domain of lexical rather than syntactic processes. In other words, words in morphology is taken as primitive and defined as X[+LEX ] which means a lexical category that is neither a stem or an affix. In Generalized Phrase Structure Grammar( GPSG)analyses which he uses, we are made to understand that, a lexical category is neither a stem nor an affix. The lexical features appear with their own lexical entries, which means that they do appear through the operation of the word formation rules. Verb forms, are lexical categories and they are defined parallel to syntax with the use of two single value feature denoting [+word] (i.e non-stem and non- affix). The lexical features instantiated above connotes that they can appear through the operation of the word formation rules. Abstract: The morpho-syntatic analyses of lexical structures of complex verbs in German and Yorùbá languages are the thrusts of this study. The study primarily identifies German complex verbs found in Blechtrommel‘s Gunter Grass and Yorùbá complex verbs in Igbó Olódùmarè –a literary text of Fagunwa, as data base. Secondaryly, the morpho-syntax of the identified corpus in the two languages and their categorizations are highlighted with a view to pragmatically synthesising , comparing and contrasting the contextual usages which the corpus exhibited. As a a framework,the Contrastive Analysis Theory of Robert Lado is adopted. The result showes that some of the complex verbs in both languages comprised of two or more constituents; while those having more than two constituents are in the minority. As a result of the composite nature of the verb forms in the languages coupled with other identified idiosncracies, remarkable features of distinction noticeably distinguish the morphology and pragmatics of verb- forms in the two languages,especially when prepositional or nominal items are concatenated with verb-forms.Conclusively therefore, it is opined that the preceding deserning factors are substantial and capable of instantiating areas of learning difficulties for Yorùbá learners of German and German learners of Yorùbá languages pedagogically. Keywords: complex verbs, composite words, decomposition, derivation, morphology, syntax *Corresponding Author: Ogunwale Abiodun, Department of Linguistics and African Languages, Obafemi Awolowo University, Ile-Ife, Nigeria