odo, doris chinyere department of igbo …particular and igbo language in general to grow for a...

Journal of Languages, Linguistics and Literary Studies (JOLLS) Volume 5. June 2018 ISSN: 2536-6300 Http://www.jolls.com.ng

CC BY-NC-ND Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs EZE EUCHARIA & ODO DORIS

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MORPHOSYNTAX OF THE IMPERATIVE IN NSUKKA DIALECT OF IGBO

EZE, EUCHARIA A.

Department of Linguistics and Communication Studies

University of Port Harcourt

&

ODO, DORIS CHINYERE

Department of Igbo Language

The College of Education,

Nsukka Abstract This work examines the morphosyntax of the imperative in Nsukka dialect of Igbo. It

investigates the Imperative in order to identify the various ways Imperative is being inflected

in giving command in Nsukka. The method for collection of data is participant observation.

The researchers found it necessary to sit in at the local and social gatherings of native

speakers of the dialect under investigation to elicit words that give command. The paper

adopts transformation rule, Lieber (1983) feature percolation convention, descriptive method

and the researchers‟ intuitive knowledge as native speakers for the analyses of data. The

paper finds out that „gə‟ is deleted in the surface structure living only the verb to form

imperative. Also imperative is been inflected in its verb stem to give order as Lieber (1983)

points that root verbs need affixes. Again the imperative uses open vowel suffix with its

variants A /E/O/O in affi rmative constructions. We also find out that „-lẹ‟ is the negative

marker of imperative. Moreover, some imperatives „ rὸó‟ – „think‟, „rὸózó‟ – „forget‟ and

„pìóté‟ – „enter‟, „pìófú‟ –„go out‟ form words and opposite. The paper therefore advocates

that imperative constructions should be documented and this will help Nsukka dialect in

particular and Igbo language in general to grow for a sustainable development of words for

constructions.

Introduction

The complex system of communication known as language is as old as man himself. Every

human language is the result of an orderly combination of sounds. This orderly combination

of sounds gives rise to morphemes and these in turn combine to form phrases. It is a linguistic

fact that the grammars of different languages exhibit certain differences. For example, a

grammar of Yoruba, that of English from French, etc. However, it must also be stated that

they have some properties in common. Linguists of difference traditions and conventions all

agree about this situation.

On the backdrop of the observed structural differences between languages, the models of

generative grammar till the mid – 1970`s were based on the idea that the speaker`s

knowledge of his native language is expressed in particular `grammar‟, a system of rules that

are construction-specific and language-specific (Rizzi, 2005). Hence, a grammar of human

language contains the following components, a phonological, a lexical, a syntactic and a

semantic component. This study is concerned with the lexical component of grammar and

falls within the purview of morphology whose concern is the study of the internal structure of

words.

Finch (2000) describes morphology as the process by which morphemes combine to form

words. He goes further to identify two main kinds of morphology; namely inflectional and

derivational. Yule (2006) and Essen (1990) on the other hand, regard it literally as the study



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of forms. Katamba (1993) and Ndimele (1999) state it as the study of internal structure of

words.

Words, which are the units of the lexicon of a language, are basic to the discussion of the

grammatical pattern of any language. In this regard, Halle (1973) states that speakers of a

language normally possess knowledge not only about the words of the language but also

about the composition and structure of the words. He explains further that since a grammar is

the formal representation of what a speaker must know about his language, it must therefore

reflect in some fashion facts like those mentioned above. Thus, it is generally assumed in

linguistic studies that a grammar must include a list of morphemes, which are the units of

morphological descriptions, as well as rules of word formation or morphology. The driving

force of this work is the recognition of the fundamental role of a lexicon in the description of

a language.

Over the years, man has come to have a renewed interest in the study of possible ways the

various linguistic units in a language combine to form not only grammatical but also

acceptable structures in his language. This analytical approach to the study of linguistics is

generally known as syntax. Sentences are hierarchically structured out of constituents

belonging to restricted set of categories. These categories are of two levels – word level and

phrasal level categories. At the level of word category, we have such word classes as noun,

verb, adjective, pronoun etc. while at the level of phrasal category, we have such category as

noun phrase, verb phrase, adjective phrase, preposition phrase etc. Consequently, many

scholars have studied lexicon on different perspectives – some looked at it as nominal, others

treated it as verb and or as other different parts of speech. This present work concentrates on

verbal construction.

Verb is one of the word classes or categories that shows action; it is the core of the sentence

and also the message carrier. Authors like Nwachukwu (1988), Emenanjo (1985), Millier

(1985) and Palmer (1988) agree that verb is central to the syntax and semantics of any

language. The centrality of verbs to the structure of a sentence makes it possible for the verb

to be included in most work on languages. Quirk and Greenbaum (1979) states that many

English verbs have five forms: the base, the –s form, the past, the –ing participle and the –ed

participle, they add that regular lexical verbs have the same –ed inflection for both the past

tense and –ed participle. Also, they note that irregular verb forms vary from three: put, puts,

putting to eight: be, am, is, are, was, were, being, been.

The verb morphology of Igbo resembles that of French and English considering their

syntactic functions. They are inflected for tense, mood, number, persons etc. the Igbo

language differs from them insofar they do not undergo noun inflection. Nwachukwu (1983)

expresses that inflection is the change made in the word internal structure which is

occasioned by the grammatical function. It is obvious that there are some elements

(morphemes) or preferably word-building constituents attached to a word to cause these

variations in meaning and function. This part that receives affixes is central and remains

untouched even when other linguistic units have been altered or removed. This central item

(the stem) constitutes the base, core or nucleus of a word. Fromkin (2007:81) refers to the

root as “a lexical content morpheme that cannot be analysed into smaller parts.” Some

examples of English roots are: paint in painter, read in reader, ceive in conceive, ling in

linguist etc. According to him, a root may or may not stand alone as a word {paint and read

do while ceive and ling do not}. Katamba (1993:41) claims that „the root is the irreducible



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core of a word, with absolutely nothing else attached to it.‟ Robertson in agreement submits

that there is a constant element in the word that receives suffixes and prefixes which are not

separate words for varieties of actions.

Some Igbo linguists like Green and Igwe (1963) have identified the rv (time) suffix as a past

tense marker while some agree that apart from the above notion, Igbo verbs can be inflected

for various expressions including affixes as all tense. Ogbalu (1972), Okoroafia (1974),

Okonkwo (1974), Green and Igwe (1963) claim that in some dialects like Onitsha, the

counter part of rv (time) suffix is optional. This view suggests that in the Igbo language

generally, some suffixes are optional. Winston (1973) submits that what are obtainable in

Igbo morphology are not tense but rather aspect and mood. Mood is a term referring to “a set

of syntactic and semantic contrasts signaled by alternative paradigms of the verb, e.g,

Indicative, (the unmarked form), Subjunctive, Imperative. Basically, this work is on

Imperative which is the form of a verb that expresses an order.

Though in order to express the appropriate mood, an Igbo verb form must have the

appropriate paradigm of the verb. Therefore, this paper will examine how Nsukka Igbo verbs

can be inflected for Imperative – mood using obligatory affixes to indicate the simple,

complex or various aspects of imperative in both affirmative and negative forms .

Consequently, the current orientation in linguistic semantics is to account for the

interrelationships that verbs and other lexical items exhibit in sentence. This approach is due

to the fact that more than any other category, it is the verb that language differences are

primitively registered.

Verb-verb compounds (v-v compounds) have been shown to exist in Igbo. Verb-verb

compounding constitutes a linguistic strategy the language employs to fill some of its lexical

gaps (see Nwachukwu, (1976), Uwalaka, (1997), Mbah, (2005), etc.). What has not been

adequately established is how well this class of verb fits into the various framework of

linguistic analysis. Such as the Case grammar (Uwalaka 1988), or the Thematic Relation

approach of Ogwueleka (1987) following Gruber (1965). Uwalaka (1998) has attempted an

incorporation analysis to account for the nature of Igbo complex predicates. The analysis,

excellent as it is, only focuses on morphological causatives combining with second verbs or

applicative (suffixes). Such a treatment does not give a detailed account of Igbo v-v

compound formations apart from the interesting idea of assigning to a bound root, the status

of a second member of the causative compound in her analysis. Nweze (2009) carried her

own research on inflection in Imirike dialect of Igbo. The study investigates inflection as a

morphological concept of word formation. It thus becomes crucial to investigate the process

of verb formation in Igbo because what is called formation in the standard account is the

uniting of two or more morphemes to form a word.

On the other hand, the concept of root verb or verbal is a core feature in Igbo. Emenanjo

(1987) stated that this group of Igbo verbs are majorly monosyllabics and hardly occur on

their own. Rather, they occur in any of their inflected forms such as infinitive, imperative and

progressive, with their noun complements. When these verbs are inflected, they become

disyllabic. Some examples of Igbo verbal include but not limited to –ri (eat), -ga (go), -gu

(read), -gbo (vomit), -lo (swallow), -de (write). Emenanjo‟s position is supported by many

other scholars of Igbo morphology, including Iloene (2007), Maduagwu (2006), and

Abakporo (2001).



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Apart from these monosyllabic root verbs however, the Igbo language also accommodates a

number of disyllabic root verbs such as bịa (come), pịa (flog) and so on. This paper therefore,

examines morphosyntax of imperative in Nsukka dialect of Igbo to find out the various

inflected forms of the imperative in a construction within the framework of Deletion

Transformation Rule and Lieber (1983) Feature Percolation Convention.

The area of study is Nsukka, one of the dialects in Igbo language. Nsukka is a dialect in the

northern part of Enugu State. is included in what some scholars like Ikekeonwu (1986) and

Nwaozuzu (2008) called Waawa or Nsukka Dialect Cluster (NDC) and Northern Groups of

Dialects (NGD) respectively. The method we used for data collection is participant

observation. Sometimes, the researchers found it necessary to sit in, at local gatherings of

native speakers of the dialect under investigation. Therefore, some constructions that relate to

imperative are picked from the native speakers‟ discussion. So the researchers‟ knowledge of

linguistics and intuition as native speakers of Nsukka dialect helped a great deal in the

analysis of which descriptive method is also used.

Many studies have been carried out in Igbo verbs. But to the best of our knowledge no study

has been carried out on Imperative in Nsukka (Mkpunanọ, Nru and Ihe/owere) dialects of

Igbo. The choice of this dialect is necessitated by the fact that an extensive research work has

not been carried out on it. This, in the other word, makes it a rich source of linguistic

database. This underscores the relevance of carrying out this research.

The tone marking convention is such that only contrasting pitches are indicated , leaving

sameness unmarked. Example – Ò jère áswùa instead of ὸ jèrè áswùá.

Literature review

This section studies relevant theories applied in this study. It is divided into four sub-sections:

theoretical studies, empirical studies, the theoretical framework and summary of the literature

review.

Theoretical studies

Many scholars give detailed theories of the Transformational Generative Grammar, the

heads and verb forms. There is transformation because the Phrase Structure Grammar as an

improvement on the Immediate Constituents Analysis failed to account for all the possible

sentence structures in any given language. It cannot account for sentences exhibiting nested

dependencies neither can it handle ambiguous sentences. It is not equipped to explain the

semantics sameness of structurally unrelated sentences that are structurally different

sentences that derive from one underlying representation. Chomsky, notes Ndimele

(1999:158), advances two major arguments in support of why transformations are important

in accounting for the structure of sentences: (i) to show that sentences which exhibit

superficial syntactic differences can be proved to have a common origin and should have a

similar meaning (ii) to show that sentences which exhibit striking similarities on the surface

can be proved to come from different underlying sentences.

Further to this, in any syntactic description, the observable syntactic structure of sentences,

(the surface structure) should be related to a more abstract deep structure. The former (i.e

surface structure) is the aspect of description that determines the phonetic form of sentences

while the later (i.e deep structure) determines semantic interpretation and the rules that

express the relation of deep and surface structure in sentences are called grammatical

transformations. Chomsky, according to Allen (1975:41) also makes it a requirement that the

rules of the grammar should be absolutely explicit. In other words, the rules automatically



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generate sentences without having to utilize a native speaker‟s intuitive knowledge of

language in the process. These characteristics, that is the use of transformational rules linking

deep and surface structure, and the explicit, generative nature of the rules; continues Allen,

are what we specifically refer to when we talk about „transformational-generative grammar‟.

In later versions of TGG, the deep structure is referred to as the underlying structure while

the surface structure is the derived structure.

Consequently, Hoekesma (1992) morphosyntactically sees head as the locus of inflection.

Example apple pie receives plural inflection on the second member only:

1. apple pies, not apples pie.

This morphosyntactic definition creates problems in languages that lack inflection, and does

not generalize well to morphological structure.

According to Zwicky (1985), head is like notions in syntactic combination. The first picks out

the constituent acting as the semantic argument. Zwicky (1985) in defining semantic

argument says, in a combination X + Y, X is the „semantic head‟ if speaking very crudely, X

+ Y describes a kind of the thing described by X. On this basis, N is the semantic head in Det

+ N (“those penguins” describes a kind of penguin). Also, VP is the semantic head in AUX +

VP (“will leave” describes a kind of leaving). He explains further that in the semantic

interpretation of Det + N, Det represents a functor on an argument represented by N and, in

the semantic interpretation of AUX + VP, AUX represents a functor on an argument

represented by VP. In conclusion, in X + Y, X is the semantic interpretation of X + Y, Y

represents a functor on an argument represented by X. as Mbah (1999) observes, Zwicky

(1985) cautions on the selection of the head. He points out that even though the montague

system treats Det as functor in Det + N, the system can be reversed so that Det becomes the

argument and N, functor.

The subcategorisand is the constituent that is lexically subcategorised with respect to the

sister constituents it can occur with. According to Zwicky‟s (1985) explanation, in same

constructions, one slot has a special status in that items which can fill that slot must be listed

in the lexicon, while its sister constituents are not so constrained. The subcategorisand has the

ability to occur with a particular set of sister constituents. For example the verb give is

subcategorised to occur with either NP NP or NP to + NP as its sisters (give Kim money, give

money to Kim). “Donate” is subcategorised to occur only in the second of these two

constructions (donate Kim money, donate money to Kim). Adapted from Zwicky (1985).

On the morphosyntactic locus, the constituent on which inflection marks are located, Mbah

(1999) describes it as the place that characterizes the syntactic relations between a construct

and other syntactic units. Olsson (2014) observes that Zwicky‟s criteria for selecting head

will yield different phrases. Hudson (1987) bemoans the various arguments that have been

made for the correct analysis of a syntactic notion of the head.

Mbah (1999) explains that there is an interaction between morphology and syntax. Anderson

(1992) sees this overlap in the domain traditionally known as inflectional morphology. He

defines this overlap as a theory i.e. internal overlap with independently motivated syntactic

operations. While morphology deals with the shapes of individual words, syntax deals with

the relations of words within the larger structure. Rules operating within syntactic domains

must have access to the properties of words. The sets of properties therefore common to the

theories of morphology and syntax are not disjoint. Anderson (1992) gives instances where



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word internal elements are involved in other processes central to the syntax of a language.

This manifests in the verbal agreement in Breton language. Verbs in Breton can be marked

inflectionally for a number of categories like tense and person/number, for example:

2a. Bendez e lennon

„every day prt I read‟

b. lenn lennom

„he reads‟

c. lennount

„we read‟

d. lenno

„they read‟

e. eul levr

„he will read‟

Adapted from Anderson (1992:575).

Nneji (2013) cites Radford (2004), who identifies two questions each addressed by

morphology and syntax. According to him, morphology addresses the question, “what are the

components of a morpheme and what morphological operations guide the concentration of

these morphemes to form the overall word?” He explains further that syntax concentrates on

the structure of a sentence and the nature of grammatical operations that inform how separate

words are combined to form a sentence. He further draws a line where morphology and

syntax meet while discussing the categorization of words.

Nneji concludes based on Radford‟s observation that while morphology deals with enriching

the lexicon of any language, syntax fixes each word that is formed into class or what the

traditional grammarians call parts of speech.

The lexicalist approach to word formation began in the early 1970s with two fundamental

articles: Chomsky‟s “Remarks on Nominalizations” (1970) and Halle‟s (1973) Prolegomena

to a “theory of word formation”. The lexicalist theory of morphology advocates a separate

rule of derivational morphology distinct from syntactic transformation. It arose to counter the

enormous generative power ascribed to the transformational theory (Oha, 2010). Chomsky

argues that transformation should capture the regular correspondences between linguistic

forms. This transformation should be capture productive and regular relationships between

sentences. On the other hand, all idiosyncratic information belongs to the lexicon. Chomsky

(1972) refers to these idiosyncratic features as the hallmark of derivation. The process of

deriving what he terms derived nominalization is purely a morphological operation within the

lexicon. Ukene (2010) reiterates that lexicalism is the theoretical position in modern

generative linguistics to which the processes that form complex words (derivation and

compounding) are accounted for by a set of lexical rules. These are independent of and

different from the syntactic rules of the grammar.

These rules operate in the lexicon. Spencer (1991:66) gives examples with the following:

„give‟ and „gift‟ to show the idiosyncrasy in deriving one from the other. Booij (1990)

observes that the most fundamental principle of the lexicalist theory of word formation is the

principle of lexical integrity formulated by Lapointe (1980). It states that no syntactic rule

can refer to elements of morphological structure. This principle implies that word-internal

phrases are not accessible to the rules as syntax. The principle came up to consolidate the



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assumption that morphological rules are different from syntactic transformations (Scalise and

Guarva 2005:150). However, Oha (2010) expresses theoretical difficulty in understanding

Ogwueleka‟s (1982) mode and terminological inconsistency. According to Anderson (1998),

Chomsky‟s (1970) proposal was a suggestion to allow the base rules to accommodate derived

nominal directly.

This implied allowing the relationship between verbs and associated derived nominal to be

described in the lexicon, the part of the grammar responsible for providing words to the

syntax. This involved extending the theory of the lexicon to permit some internal

computation. Such lexical rules according to Chomsky‟s (1970) proposal would constitute a

part of the syntax, but an entirely distinct class of rules of word structure. However,

Jackendoff (1975), Wasow (1977) and Anderson (1977) took up the challenge in more detail

in ways leading to a renewed interest in morphology as a distinctive aspect of grammatical

theory. The thrust of this work was the recognition of the difference between morphology and

syntactic rules. This contrast led to a distinctive approach to syntax and morphology known

as lexicalism, rounded between lexical processes relating words to one another and syntactic

processes governing phrase markers.

Oha (2010) claims that the lexical transformational device was developed by Reoper and

Siegel (1978). The theory states that the syntactic relationship between the compound and the

corresponding verb phrase should be represented by incorporating aspects of the syntactic

structure into the lexical representation of the compound. This is generalized in the first sister

principle (FSP). The principle states: First Sister Principle, all verbal compounds are formed

by incorporation of a word in first sister position of the verb. The principle stipulates that a

compound verb is derived from any underlying lexical representation of VP complement.

Words involved in this complement are nouns, adjectives or adverbs which are

subcategorised as a verb. An attempt at reconciling the aspects of headedness those are

morphological with those that are syntactic led to the lexicalist transformation theories. There

is a conceptual redundancy as the rules generating x categories in the lexicon are identical in

function to syntactic phrase structure rules for example in the generating of the verb – particle

combination “hang on” and “hanger on”, while the phrases, belong to the category V and N

respectively. Simpson‟s postulation of the lexical integrity hypothesis was on the assumption

that the combinations are phrases, and not words.

Also her acceptance of the No phrase Constraint and the Lexical Components Hypothesis

force her to accept that verb – particle combinations, though assigned the category V are

generated by word formation rules in the lexicon. She is also forced to maintain that verb –

particle combinations are phrases, instead of words, and to shun the use of phrase structure

rules to generate these combinations. Also Selkirk‟s unspecified lexical rule duplicates the

syntactic rule move alpha (ɑ). In order to maintain that verb – particle combinations can serve

as bases of word formation rules, she accepts the No phrase constraint and the lexical

component hypothesis to maintain that continuous verb – particle combinations are lexically

generated compound verbs and not syntactically generated phrases. She also proposes that a

lexical rule causes them to relate to the phrases, rather than the rule move ɑ which is

independently motivated. Simpson‟s lexical X rule can only account for the properties of verb

– particle combinations in English and their nominal.

Similarly, Baayen‟s postulation of a category level V has been seen „to‟ manifest only in

Dutch grammar. Secondly, Simpson‟s analysis wrongly predicts that verb – particle



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combinations will display the same syntactic behaviour as other constituents of the category

level V. Similarly, Selkirk‟s dual structure analysis in assigning distinct structural

representations to continuous and discontinuous verb – particle combinations incorrectly

predicts a difference in syntactic behaviour between the two kinds of combination.

Feature percolation theory is another theoretical mechanism used in the framework of

generative morphology. It was proposed by Lieber (1980:85) and modified by Williams

(1981). It holds that all features of a stem morpheme including category changing features

percolate to the first non-branching node. Secondly, all features of an affix morpheme

percolate to the first branching node dominating that morpheme. Thirdly, if a branching node

fails to obtain features by feature percolation convention 11, features from the next lowest

labelled node are automatically percolated up to the unlabeled branching node. Fourtly, in

compound words in English, features from the right-hand stem are percolated up to the

branching node dominating the stems as in the example „blackbird‟. Lieber (1980, 1983), she

observes the first attempt at parametering headedness in compound formation in the

languages of the world. In developing her convention – the feature percolation convention

(Lieber, 1980), she observes that English, German and other Indo-European languages have

their compounds labeled through the features of the right-stem for example:

3a. household, black bird, swearword.

b. breastfeed, underplay

c. dark blue, overripe

Adapted from Lieber (1981:8).

The constituent on the right hand side constitutes the heads. Other languages have their

compounds labelled through the features of the left-hand stem, other languages as

Vietnamese and Thai label compounds on the basis of the left-most stem. For example, the

examples in Thai and Vietnamese are those of recursive compounds. They are phrase – like

and produced like two independent words with a slight pause in between the second and third

constituents.

Thai:

4a. [[raan Khai] khanom]

shop sell sweets

„candy store‟

b. Vienamese:

[[dwхȠ - cɅn] txi]

line foot sky

„horizon‟

Pereltzvaig (1998) observes that Modern Hebrew maintains left-headed compounds. In some

languages, the position of the head within compounds varies depending on the lexical

category of the compound. Spencer (1991) identifies endocentric and exocentric compounds

in headedness. Endocentric compounds are compounds in which one element functions as the

head for example:

5a. [student [film society]]

b. [[student film] society]

Adapted from Spencer (1991:310).



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„Society‟ is the head in the two constructions. A (student) film society is a type of society.

The modifier element in the compound attributes a property to the head. Exocentric

compounds are compounds without a head. According to Spencer (1991), such compounds

are sometimes called bahurihi compound, a term in Sanskrit grammar meaning „(having)

much rice‟ for example:

6. pickpocket, lazybones, cut-throat.

According to Zwicky (1985), feature percolation requires that the category of a construct and

the category of its head be identical. Percolation also insists on other morphosyntactic

features such as gender and number, be identical for the construct and its head. In his

example, „happiness‟ belongs to the category N for the same reason that „those penguins‟

belongs to the category NP, that is N – with – two – bars: since the head of each construct (-

ness and penguins, respectively) is itself an N. Zwicky (1985) proposes identifying the head

in a syntactic percolation with the morphosyntactic locus. He observes that stipulating the

morphosyntactic locus as head for the purpose of percolation does not achieve a conceptual

economy. Assigning head to the morphological determinant also enlarges the stock of

concepts. He suggests specifying inflectional suffixation as an operation which takes place on

the rightmost morpheme in a word and that determination is a property of rules, not of the

constituents combined by the rules.

Consequently, there has been an argument on the issue of which argument structure features

in word formation and are projected up from lexical entries to produce complex word

structures. According to Spencer (1991), Williams (1981b) was the first to propose the

important role played by argument structure in morphology. He distinguished between two

types of arguments, the external and internal arguments. Williams (1981b) explains that a

predicate in English (verb or adjective) may have one external argument and any number of

internal arguments. Lieber (1983) conceives of the argument linking model in terms of a

feature percolation mechanism which transfers the morphosyntactic features (including the

Argument Structure features) to the first non-branching node dominating that morpheme cf

(Lieber 1983:258), it states that if a verbal head appears as a sister to a „potential‟ internal

argument, that is the logical object, this argument slot will be linked (i.e. satisfied), thus

bringing about the configuration of syntactic compounds like “beer drinker”. [[beer N drink

V] – er N]. In the example, beer, the object and head carries the internal argument of a noun.

Through argument linking, the verb drink is satisfied, being a sister of the head.

Among these theories reviewed, we are going to use Transformation Rule and Lieber (1983)

feature percolation convention as framework for the analysis of data. The justification for

using it implies that it involves deletion of some elements and formation of root/stem

morphemes respectively which imperative possesses.

Empirical studies

Studies have been done on various aspects of verbs. Lord (1975) reviews the various

characteristics observed in the transformational approach to Igbo verb compound. While

conceding that many can be derived through regular formation. She notes the great majority

that cannot be accounted for through transformation. She points that for a compound to be

transformationally derived, it implies that there are single verbs to which the compound can

be related or linked. Thus through syntactic movement of constituents, these single verbs can



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form a lexeme called compound. The components join together in the compound to give a

single meaning (Mbah, 1999).

Lord (1975) equally considers the interpretation of certain verb compounds in Igbo from the

individual verbs that form them as anomalous. She adopts the Lexicon-based account as more

elegant approach. Using the compound verb “gafe”, she says that “fe” cannot be used as

individual verb to gloss for passing “school” while to her it can take such other objects as

“bridge”, “boundary”, “us”. To her Igbo verb compounds should be listed individually in the

lexicon. But since certain verb compounds exhibit obvious morphological and

syntactic/semantic similarities with components, she seeks for a general rule of compound

formation she calls Combinatory Rules as in 7:

7a. V+V→[v+v]RV

b. V+S→[v+s]RV

The rule are interpreted to mean that a verb can be combined with a verb (V) or a suffix (S) to

produce a resultative verb compound (RV). Lord (1975) claims that in the combination the

first component can be any verb and the second component can represent a state or action.

She also notes that in such combinatory rule the actual verbs and suffixes that cannot be

joined to form verb compounds are those limited by the possible lack of a situation in the

speaker‟s intellectual or cultural experience that would be appropriate to the meaning of the

compounds.

Emenanjo (2005) observes that many problems arise with regard to classifying Igbo verbs in

terms of transitivity. Emenanjo (2012) observes further that neither Ubahakwe, Nwachukwu

nor Uwalaka has fool – proof syntactic criteria for transitivity. Ubahakwe (1976) and

Nwachukwu (1983) believe that „usage‟ conditions transitivity, thereby seeing transitivity not

as a syntactic but a pragmatic feature. Nwachukwu (1983) categorizes the following verbs as

transitive – those of metereological conditions, those with locative prepositional phrase

complements, inherent complement verbs denoting actions or states which begin and end

with the same subject NP. Nwachukwu also categorizes all verbs of movement as

intransitive, unlike Ubahakwe. On the other hand, Nweze (2011), Okeke (2011), Uzoigwe

(2011) and Ezenwafor (2012) all classify psychological verbs, cooking terms and verbs of

planting and harversting as transitive, in line with theta theory of functional grammar.

Ahaotu (2012) compares SVC in Igbo and Yoruba. The study was based on Chuwicha‟s

(1993) classification of SVC in Thai, which comprises two verbs or verb phrases. The

framework adopted in this study involves the application of Langacker‟s (1987) notion of

valence relation and correspondences. According to the study, Chuwicha (1993) classifies

SVC into four types and describes them in terms of the syntax semantics of the verb types.

The four types are as follows:

8a. primary action verbs + non-primary action verbs

b. primary action verbs + primary action verbs

c. primary action verbs + physical process verbs

d. posture verbs + action verbs.

The studies of these scholars relate to the present research. All the reviews above talk about

verb classification of which the imperative is one of the verb forms. They differ to the extent

that it is not how those scholars classified verb that imperative is being classified.



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Emenanjo (1987) classifies imperatives under simple or complex, affirmative or negative. His

classifications are based on the standard Igbo data while the present study is on a dialect of

Igbo which is Nsukka.

Nweze (2009) studies inflection in Imirike dialect of Igbo language. The work adopts a

descriptive as well as a comparative approach especially between standard Igbo and Imirike

dialect. Through morphosyntactic process of formation and the tonal characteristics of the

constituent morphemes, the paper identifies various time markings with the use of distinct

construction types exemplified in polar forms of affirmative and negative. She finds out that

in Imirike dialect there is a morphological derivation of constituent markers from the V-stem

through the use of various syntactic constructions and the use of prosodic features (tone) and

also the use of auxiliaries. This work is related to the present study. They talk about word

formation using polar forms of affirmative and negative. There is difference on the angle of a

morphological derivation of constituent markers through the use of syntactic constructions in

Nweze‟s work while the present work is only on the imperative.

Enwere (2012) studies homonymy and lexical ambiguity, a case of some Igbo homonymous

verbs. It discusses homonyms in general with a particular reference to some homonymous

verb forms in Igbo which can create ambiguity in the language. She used imperativisation test

to establish semantic vagueness or transparency of the forms of words. She finds out that

“gbaa” for instance can express the meanings: slap, run, dance, bleed, etc. depending on the

nominal element it occurs with. Also, the accompanying nominal element or cognate is

semantically transparent and its semantic value is absorbed into the “gbaa”. She further

explains that the use of each of these lexemes causes ambiguity without an accompanying

nominal element to specify the meaning. Also when each of these various lexemes of similar

form co-occurs with a different nominal element, a different meaning is realized and

ambiguity is solved. So, there is a relationship between Enwere‟s work and the present study.

They all study various aspects of imperatives. There are also differences. Enwere (2012)

studied homonymy using imperative verbs to realize different meanings in a word (verb) and

these meanings helped to clear ambiguity in the construction.

Iheanetu and Adegbola (2015) carried their own research on “are imperatives of disyllabic

Igbo root verbs truly disyllabic?” They used driven data approach of computational

linguistics in the analysis of data. Using a computer program, the approximately 30,000

words in the modest Igbo corpus were automatically clustered according to the pattern

bestowed on them by the morphological processes that produced them. The paper finds out

that the imperative verbs derived from both monosyllabic and disyllabic root verbs clustered

under the pattern Consonantₒ, Vowelₒ, Vowel ﮾ (CₒVₒV ﮾ /CₒCₒVₒ). The paper advocates that

such a fundamental insight coming from a modest corpus lends credence to the study

assumption that computational analysis of morphology based on a corpus as small as 30,000

words can produce useful information that can be transferred to higher levels of

computational linguistic study. There is relationship between this work and the present study.

They talk about imperatives but differ on the method used for the analysis of data. Iheanetu

and Adegbola‟s work used a computer program (data deriven approach) to analysis their data

but the present work uses deletion transformation rule and Lieber‟s (1983) feature

percolation.

Alerechi and Worukwu (2016) studied verb tone classes in Ikwere. Considering the tonal

variation existing among the verbs in the various dialects of Ikwere, the paper identifies the



1

verb tone classes in the language based on the infinitive forms of the verb. It adopts eclectic

approach in the analysis of verb tone classes. The study finds out that verbs from each tone

class are used in different constructions as in the imperatives, the simple aspect, the past

aspect, the progressive aspect and the perfect aspect with the aim of finding how verbs from

the same tone class behave in a particular construction. The work of Alerechi and Worukwu

relate to this present work. Both study verbs using imperative forms but differ on the angle

that many other verb forms are studied in Alerechi and Worukwu‟s work. At the same time,

this present work investigates imperative form of verbs in Nsukka dialect while Alerechi and

Worukwu studied other verbs including imperative forms to examine tone classes in Ikwere.

Therefore, based on the above researches, it can be seen that not much has been done on

imperatives especially in Nsukka dialect of Igbo, hence the need for this study.

Theoretical framework

A transformational approach to verbs while deriving imperatives syntactically, fails to

capture all aspects of imperative forms. It is only the deletion transformational process which

involves the elimination of certain constituents in the phrase structure accounts for

imperative. This motivates the choice of a morphosyntactic approach in this study to ensure a

complete coverage of all linguistic features in imperative verbs. Consequently, the version of

morphosyntactic analysis applied in this study is the ecleptic method, a combination of

morphology and syntactic theories. This is made up of Lieber‟s (1983) feature percolation

convention (FPC) and argument - linking principle. It is an interface between morphology

and syntax, and transformational generative grammar thus morphosyntactic. Lieber‟s (1983)

feature percolation convention dictates that if a verbal head appears as a sister to a (potential)

internal argument, that is a logical object, the argument slot will be linked (i.e. satisfied), thus

bringing about the configuration of syntactic compounds. Spencer (1991) thus posits in the

case of a semantic argument of the head, the verb‟s argument structure features percolate to

the compound verb, which then satisfies its internal role outside the compound. (Spencer

1991:331f).

The feature percolation convention requires that the category of a construct and the category

of its head be identical. Lieber‟s (1983) percolation lifts features from one morpheme in a

complex word and assigns the features to the word as a whole. The argument linking

principle is a buildup from the feature percolation convention which acts as a constraint on

the over generation of compounds through the assignment of argument structure.

Summary of the review

Morphology governs the hierarchical and linear arrangement of word – internal structure,

while syntax governs the hierarchical and linear arrangement of words themselves, in a

sentence form. It is evident from the review about works on transformation rules, heads and

verbs in Igbo that huge amount of data on heads and Igbo verb compounding are done; only a

few non-comprehensive works have been done on imperatives in standard Igbo not

guaranteed the same for Nsukka dialect. Scholars such as Emenanjo (1987), Enwere (2012)

and Iheanetu & Adegbola (2015), discuss the imperative in a dialect of Ikwere and still in a

few pages of their work. By this token, it becomes necessary to advance the frontiers of

knowledge by carrying out a comprehensive analysis of imperatives in Nsukka dialect of

Igbo.

On the theoretical dimension, only Iheanetu & Adegbola (2015) use a computer program to

study imperatives. A critical appraisal of the review clearly shows that no scholar has



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attempted to analyse and classify Nsukka imperatives within the transformation rule

(deletion) and the framework of Lieber (1983) feature percolation convention, hence the

relevance of the present study.

Data presentation

Data is presented using simple and complex forms, identifying their verb stem forms under

Nsukka imperative and its standard Igbo forms of which the English gloss is shown under

appendix.

Data analysis

The data is analysed under simple and complex imperative both in affirmative and negative

forms using transformation rule which involved deletion of certain constituents in the phrase

structure which is descriptive and also Lieber (1983) feature percolation convention.

The simple imperative: Affirmative

Nsukka Gloss

9ai. Hụ - See/Look

ii. Nə - Give

iii. Gbà - Hide

iv. Fùá - Go out

v. Gὸó - Buy

vi. Gbùé - Kill

vii. Jìé - Go

viii. Kwùé - Say

ix. Lìá - Remove

x. Nwùá - Drink

xi. Ryìé - Eat

xii. Ryìá - Grand

xiii. Sùá - Wash

xiv. Swùá - Sweep

xv. Swùjìé - Break

These imperatives are action verbs. They serve as instrument that motivates the verb. Hence

they can be called instrumental verbs that give command. Morphologically, some of these

words are in their verb stem. Example:

9bi. Gbà - Hide

ii. Hù - See/Look

iii. Nə - Give

iv. Jìé - Go

v. Ryìá - Grand

The structure of these imperatives is consonant, vowel (CV) and CIV. In this, the I is always

either i/i while the V is always e/a. Example 9bi-iii has CV while 9iv-v has CIV structures.

Some imperatives have verb-verb roots with or without suffix. Consider this:

10a. Bə-lìé - Stand up

b. Dè-rə-jú - Cool down

c. Gwù-zó - Wait there

Following CIV format above, example 10a and c have two roots while 10b has V-V roots

with suffix. With the help of Lieber (1983) feature percolation convention, these verbs

contain affixes and work as imperative. They give order. This command is given to a human



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being. So in the surface structure every imperative has an underlying NP subject, which

optionally undergoes deletion. For example:

11ai. Ryìé – Eat

ii. Gbà – Escape

These order is being directed to somebody. The construction has NP subject which is „Gə‟ –

„you‟.

Consider this:

11bi. Gə ryìé. – You eat.

ii. Gə gbà. – You escape/hide yourself.

This input structure of 11b from which the output of 11a is derived can be stated thus:

Structural description (SD) – NP V

[Gə] 2

1 2

Structural change (SC) ϕ 2

ϕ 2

With this transformational rule, „gə‟ is deleted and only the verb which is the imperative is

left. Also, imperative in Nsukka exhibits a unique tonal pattern that glides in some

construction. Example:

12ai. Kwùé - Say

ii. Nwùá - Drink

iii. Chìó - Search

Where there is glide, there is a movement of the tongue from one vowel to the other. Here the

tone moves from one vowel to the other. The tone pattern is low-high (LH). Though there are

exceptions, as some imperatives that are in their verb stem are in a low tone. Consider this:

12bi. Nə - Give

ii. Gbà – Hide

The simple imperative: Negative

Nsukka people can give negative commands. This command prohibits them not to carry on

with the action. Consider this:

13a. Áfùle - Do not go.

b. Ázàle - Do not sweep.

c. Áhùle - Do not see/look.

d. Ánəle - Do not give.

e. Ezəle - Do not steal.

In this negative construction , „-le‟ is suffixed to the verb stem to form nega tion in the simple

imperative forms. The tone on the constitute marker that is „le‟ is step.

The complex imperative: Affirmative

From simple imperative we have complex ones. Example:

14ai. Ryìé – Eat

ii. Ryì + hó – Eat and have left over.

Eat + remain

iii. Ryì + mìé – Eat the biggest share.

Eat + sink

iv. Ryì + ché – Eat all.



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Eat + wait

v. Ryì + gə dè - Continue eating.

Eat +tns continuous

bi. Gὸ - Buy

ii. Gὸ + hó – Buy some and live others.

Buy + remain

iii. Gὸ + mìé – Buy the biggest quantity.

Buy + sink

iv. Gὸ + ché – Buy all.

Buy + wait

v. Gὸ + gə dé – Continue buying.

Buy + tns[ing]

This imperative has more than one element in its basic form. This additional element or

constituent adds meaning to them. The tone pattern of these complex structure is „LLH‟. Also

in Nsukka, some imperatives undergo verb conjugation as example 14 has shown. That is the

addition of „-hó, -mìé, -ché, -gədé to the stem of each of those examples above.

The complex imperative: Negative

Some complex verbs can also be in negative form.

15a. Ákpəzəlẹ - Do not shift.

b. Epìófùlẹ - Do not go out.

c. Áchìlẹ - Do not laugh.

d. Ebùlilẹ - Do not stand.

e. Ágəlẹ - Do not read.

f. Epìótẹlẹ - Do not enter.

Also „-lẹ‟ harmonizes all the negative imperative in Nsukka with step tone.

Combination of simple and complex imperative (affirmative) to form words and

opposite

Some imperatives can form words and opposite. Consider this:

16ai. Rὸó nə – Think about it.

ii. Rὸózo nə – Forget about it.

bi. Vùlé nə – Carry it up.

ii. Vùdá nə – Carry it down.

ci. Pìóté – Enter.

ii. Pìófú – Go out.

The addition of „-zó, -lé, -dà, -té, -fú‟ respectively brings those words to be opposite. So it

changes the meaning.

Summary of findings, conclusion and recommendation

The work investigated the morphosyntax of the imperative in Nsukka Igbo. It used

transformation rule, Lieber (1983) feature percolation convention and descriptive method for

the analysis of data. The paper finds out that imperative has an underlying structure “gə”

which was deleted in the surface structure living only the verb (imperative).

Using imperative in both affirmative and negative forms, we find out that imperative is

inflected on their verb forms as Lieber‟s (1983) feature percolation convention points out that



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affixes help a lot in the formation of words . Also Nsukka imperative uses open vowel suffix

with its variants A/E/O/O as almost all the examples testified.

Simple imperative goes with low-high tones. The imperative with CV which has only a stem

(root) also contains a low tone. In addition, the complex imperative forms bear LLH tone

patterns. We find out that „-lẹ‟ harmonizes all constituents in both simple and complex forms

to show negation with step tone. Also, some imperatives serve as words and opposite as seen

in example 16a-c.

Conclusively, the paper examined morphosyntax of imperative in Nsukka dialect of Igbo

using deletion transformational rule, Lieber (1983) feature percolation convention and

descriptive method of analysis. We found out that „gə‟ – „you‟ is deleted underlyingly in the

surface structure of the imperative construction. Using Lieber (1983) feature percolation

convention, we found out that imperative is also inflected in its verb forms to give order.

Also, „-lẹ‟ is the negative marker of imperative in Nsukka dialect of Igbo. Again some

imperatives form words and opposite in Nsukka.

The paper therefore recommends that imperative should be documented for people to know

the structures of imperative in Nsukka dialect and this will help to create awareness about the

existence of imperative. Also the usage of these words that give command often and on will

help a lot for the sustainable development of imperative of Nsukka in particular and Igbo

language in general for it to grow.

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Appendix

IMPERATIVES IN NSUKKA DIALECT OF IGBO

Introduction

The researchers have this column to document some imperatives in Nsukka dialect. In

order to ensure that they are well documented for posterity, the researchers have found it

necessary to document the entire imperative in the form of appendix to this paper.

Background information

Type of discussion: Oral /verbal means of communication

Time of data collection: October 2016 to November 2016

Imperatives compiled by the researchers

Number of imperative: The imperatives are grouped based on their verb

stem

The imperative

Nsukka

imperative

Verb stem

V-V root

suffix

Imperative in

Standard Igbo

Verb stem

V-V root

suffix

Gloss

Gbà Gbà Gbà Give chance

Hù Hù Lèé Lè é See/Look

Nə Nə Nyè Nyè Give

Bəlìé Bə-lìé Kùlìé Kù-lìé Get up

Chìá Chìá Chìá Chìá Escape

Chìó Chì ó Chìó Chì ó Search

Chùá Chù á Gbàá Gbà á Chase

Dèrəjú Dè-rə jú Dàjùó Dà-jù ó Cool down

Fùá Fù á Pùó Pù ó Go

Gìá Gìá Gùó Gù ó Read

Gὸó Gὸ ó Zùó Zù ó Buy

Gbùé Gbù é Gbùó Gbù ó Kill

Gwùzó Gwù zó Chèré Chè ré Wait

Hìé Hìé Fèé Fè é Praise

Jìé Jìé Gàá Gà á Go

Kpəzəmá Kpə-zə má Kpùmìé Kpù-mìé Shift

Kwùé Kwù é Kwùó Kwù ó Say

Lìá Lìá Wèpú Wè-pú Remove

Nùé Nù é Kwàá Kwà á Push

Nwùá Nwù á Nwùó Nwù ó Drink

Pìáchìé Pìá-chìé Kpùchìé Kpù-chìé Close

Pìófú Pìó fú Pùó Pù ó Go out

Pìóté Pìó té Bàtá Bà-tá Enter

Ryìá Ryìá Rìá Rìá Grand

Ryìé Ryìé Rìé Rìé Eat

Ryìó Ryì ó Rìó Rì ó Beg

Rὸó Rὸ ó Chèé Chè é Think

Rὸzὸó Rὸ-zὸ ó Chèfùó Chè-fù ó Forget

Sὸó Sὸ ó Sὸó Sὸ ó Follow

Sùá Sù á Sùó Sù ó Wash

Shùá Shù á Zàá Zà á Sweep

Shùjìé Shù-jìé Rὸjìé Ró-jìé Break

Tàá Tà á Tàá Tà á Chew

Vùé Vù é Bùó Bù ó Carry



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About the authors

Eucharia A. Eze

Eucharia A. Eze is a Senior lecturer in the Department of Linguistics & Communication

Studies, University of Port Harcourt with interests linguistics, languages and literature.

Odo, Doris Chinyere lectures in the Department of Igbo Language, The College of

Education, Nsukka

Vùlé Vù-lé Pàlìé Pà-lìé Carry up

Vùhìé Vù-hìé Pàfé Pà-fé Transfer to other side

Vùdá Vù-dá Pàtùó Pà-tù ó Carry down

Zὸgbùé Zὸ-gbù é Zὸgbùó Zὸ-gbù é Squash

Zὸshùé Zὸ-shù é Zὸpùó Zὸ-pù ó Break through

odo, doris chinyere department of igbo …particular and igbo language in general to grow for a...

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