LANGUAGE IN INDIA

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Volume 24:11 November 2024
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Verb Serialization in Ezaa Igbo

Goodluck Chigbo Nwode, Ph.D. and Osaigbovo Obed Evbuomwan

Abstract

The phenomenon of verb serialization (VS), also regarded as serial verb construction (VS), describes the linguistic situation of verb occurrence or appearance in series in given constructions. This study describes VS in Ezaa dialect of the Igbo language. Data were drawn from both primary and secondary sources. Descriptive method, content analysis, systematic review and interpretive tools were employed in the analysis of the gathered data. The Chomsky’s Minimalist Program is adopted for its theoretical framework and used as the lens for realising that Ezaa possesses VS, because it meets the Universalist conditions for being a VS language or dialect. The analysis shows that the phenomenon of VS obtains and operates shabbily in Ezaa, thereby exhibiting peculiar and general constituents and features like inadequate tense marking, implicit negation marker, ordering structure and minimalism, and object sharing and deletion. The study concludes that VS obtains and operates in Ezaa in both specific and general contexts. Among others, it recommends that Ezaa younger generations should be taught their dialect. Besides, they should consistently make efforts to master VS and other linguistic aspects of their dialect.

Keywords: Ezaa Igbo, serial verb, agreement, syntactic features.

1. Introduction

This paper examines Verb serialization in Ezaa, a dialect of Igbo. Verb serialization involves the occurrence of verbs in series. The occurrence of verbs in such manner is regarded as verb serialization (VS henceforth). VS describes a linguistic situation in which verbs are characterised by two or more verbs acting together as a single predicate and marking a single event (Omachonu, 2012). Herein, VS and serial verbal construction (VS) will be used interchangeably to mean or refer to the same subject matter. VS was first introduced or formalised by Balmer and Grant (1929) and later reintroduced by Stewart (1963). Before then, Christaller (1875) had talked about VS in Twi, while Westermann (1973) discussed VS in Ewe. Both Twi and Ewe are Western African languages belonging to the Niger-Congo family or branch of the Kwa group of languages (Omachonu, 2012).

The occurrence of VS is said to be without any interruption (Ndiribe, 2019). This linguistic situation of VS obtains in all languages of the world. That is why scholars across all the continents of the globe have carried out studies (Matisoff, 1973; Li & Thompson, 1973; Sebba, 1987). Some others are Agbedor (1994), Ejele (1995), Onuoha (2014), Okorji and Mbagwu (2008) and Sanusi and Umeozor (2015). Verb serialization varies from one language to another. For over four decades now, the theme of VS has remained of interest to different scholars in the field of Linguistics and English Studies.

Thus, linguistics studies on VS among languages and dialects vary considerably. While some languages and dialects have had appreciable volumes of scholarly work on VS, others have not or are yet to gain appreciable scholarly attention and engagement. That of Ezaa dialect of Igbo language in is yet to gain scholastic attention and exploration. This study is an attempt in that direction to rouse deserving scholarly attention to the VS of Ezaa dialect of the Igbo language.

This is only the beginning part of the article. PLEASE CLICK HERE TO READ THE ENTIRE ARTICLE IN PRINTER-FRIENDLY VERSION.

Goodluck Chigbo Nwode, Ph.D.
Department of Languages and Linguistics
Ebonyi State University
goodluck.nwode@ebsu.edu.ng

Osaigbovo Obed Evbuomwan
Department of Linguistics Studies
University of Benin
osaigbovo.evbuomwan@uniben.edu
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