THE MULTIPLICITY OF ELEMENTS IN JUKUN

Abstract

Multiplicity of elements is a situation where an element, which in a normal clause structure occurs once, happens to occur more than once in certain circumstances within the same clause. Complements and adjuncts are the elements that occur more than once in a clause structure. The Systemic Functional Linguistics theoretical framework, propounded by M.A.K. Halliday, was used in analysing the data with specific focus on the scale of delicacy theory. The clauses that have more than one complement and adjunct were selected for analysis. The findings show that just as English; Jukun clauses tolerate the occurrence of more than one complement and adjunct in its clause structures. In terms of multiplicity of complements, the findings show that there are two kinds of complements; complement intensive and extensive.  There are also instances of rank shifted clauses functioning as complements. The adjuncts found in our data, on the other hand, are those headed by prepositions and those headed by adverbials. The analysis does not extend beyond the primary degree of delicacy because the point of focus for the study is just the structural identification of the occurrence of multiple complements and adjuncts at the primary degree of delicacy (SPCA). The elements were first identified in Jukun and glossed in English for clarity.