A ROLE AND REFERENCE GRAMMAR ANALYSIS OF THE IGBO VERB

Abstract

Role and Reference Grammar (RRG) is central to the analysis of Niger-Congo languages because of its function and meaning properties, which are consistent with the clause structure of these languages. Many existing studies on the verb of Igbo (a Benue-Congo language) wrongly assume that the structure of the verb determines its meaning, thereby neglecting the role and reference assignments of the verb. This study, therefore, examines the structure of the Igbo verb from the perspective of Role and Reference Grammar with a view to accounting for class, transitivity, aspect and focus constructions in Igbo verbs and, consequently, addressing the problems of classification, transitivity, number of aspects and focus constructions created by existing paradigms. The study adopted the theoretical framework of RRG. Using a descriptive research design, a list of 200 verbs depicting various conceptual boundaries was purposively developed from popular Igbo music and Igbo literature. The verbs were presented to native speakers of Nnewi (5), Nsukka (5), Owerri (5), Onitsha (5) and Umuahia (5) dialects-which represents a fair geographical spread of the language- for dialectal interpretations. The data was analysed using the method of lexical decomposition. Six classes of verbs are distinguished, namely, state, activity, achievement, accomplishment, semelfactive and active accomplishment verbs. These classes represent the inherent temporal properties of the verb from which are derived five semantic classes, namely, cooking like isi ‘to cook’ (Nnewi and Onitsha); communication such as kwu ‘to talk’ (all dialects); body part complements such as nya ‘to be street wise’ (Nsukka, Nnewi and Onitsha); motion such as nu ‘to float’ (Nnewi, Umuahia, Owerri) and emotion such as iwe iwe ‘to be angry’ (all dialects). This classification based on temporal properties resolves the problem of verb classification in Igbo. The role of the verb determines its transitivity; hence, the transitive verb ‘to buy’ holds two arguments and iii represents the resolution of the transitivity controversy. The reference of the verb determines aspect by the conceptual boundary of the events the verb encodes. Hence, state and activity verbs have imperfective aspect in Nnewi while accomplishment, achievement, active accomplishment and semelfactive verbs have perfective aspect in Nnewi, Onitsha and Nsukka. This establishes that Igbo has only two aspects, thus solving the problem of an indeterminate number of aspectual categories in Igbo. Focus constructions are established by the role and reference of the verb. Hence, the verb ‘to build a house’ consists of ‘house’ as the focus while the verb –ru ‘build’ and other arguments consist of the topic, solving the problem of focus assignment. A Role and Reference Grammar analysis of the Igbo verb reveals the inherent temporal properties of verb classes, the arguments of transitive verbs, the conceptual boundaries of verbs and the complements and arguments of focus constructions. Thus, RRG explains the structure of the verb from the perspective of the knowledge the native speaker has about the meaning of the verb thereby, solving the problem of verb classification, transitivity, and aspect and focus constructions in the Igbo literature. Key words: Igbo verb, role and reference grammar, Native speaker intuition, Arguments Word Count: 500