Igala Grammar
Cultural Information
Background Information
Igala, known to the Igala people as “àbó ígálâ [àbóogálâ] in their language” is both an ethnic nationality and language (Ẹ̀jẹ̀bá 2016:1)[1]. Certain cultural groups such as the Bassa people maintain an Igala identity while other groups such as the Inoma or Ebu do not view themselves as Igala people (Ẹ̀jẹ̀bá 2016:2). These divergent identities result from different historical interactions between these groups and the Igala people of the Kogi State (Ẹ̀jẹ̀bá 2016)[1].
The Igala territory in Kogi State of Nigeria lies east of the state, and the people are in nine Local Government Areas, out of the sixteen in the state. The Igala Local Governments are Ankpa, Bassa, Dekina, Ibaji, Idah, Igalamela/Odolu, Ofu, Olamaboro and Omala. (Ẹ̀jẹ̀bá 2016)[1].
Spoken by approximately 2,000,000 people (Etu 1999 and Omachonu 2000), Igala is one of the nine main languages in Nigeria (Williamson 1990). The name Igala refers to the people as well as their language (Boston 1968, Williamson 1989b, Ukwedeh 1989 and Etu 1999). The Igala language belongs to the New Benue-Congo branch within the Niger-Congo phylum. It is coordinate with such languages as Yoruba, Itsekiri, Igbo, and Idoma. (Ẹ̀jẹ̀bá 2016)[1].
The Pear Story
The Pear Story is a six-minute film that was produced at the University of California at Berkeley in 1975 and shown to speakers of a number of languages, who were asked to tell what happened in it. In the meantime it has been used in a variety of other studies across other languages. The goal has been to present cinematically a series of more or less natural events to multiple viewers, who are then asked to verbalize what they remember. (UCSB Linguistics) [1].
Phonology
The phonology of Igala consists of a mid sized inventory of consonants and vowels. Igala is a tonal language. (Main page: Tone)
Phonological Inventory
Consonants
The consonants in Igala are given below.
Bilabial | Labiodental | Alveolar | Postalveolar | Palatal | Velar | Co-articulated velar labial | Glottal | |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Plosive | p b | t d | k g | |||||
Nasal | m | n | ɲ | ŋ | ||||
Fricative | h | |||||||
Affricate | tʃ dʒ | |||||||
Approximant | w | ɹ | tʃ dʒ | j | ||||
Lateral Approximant | l |
Vowels
According to Ejeba, there are seven vowels in Igala. [1] The vowels in Igala are given below.
Front | Central | Back | |
---|---|---|---|
High | i | u | |
Mid | ɛ e | o ɔ | |
Low | a |
Phonotactics
Syllables in Igala are in the form V, VC, or CVC. The maximal syllable in Igala is CVC.[1]
There are distributional restrictions on where each syllable can appear. CVC can only occur in isolated form. CV can occur word-initially, word-medially, word-finally, or in isolated form. V can occur in all cases except for word medially.
Vowel Hiatus
Tone
Main page: Tone
There are four ?? tones (Low (à), Mid (ā), High (á), and Super High (a̋) are the ?? tones) and two contour tones (Falling (ǎ) and Rising (â)).
In Igala tones are involved in morphological processes.
Morphology
Igala is a dominantly isolating language. Igala does not make use of derivational or inflectional affixation.
Nouns
Main page: Noun Phrases
Plural Nouns
In Igala, the morpheme àma pluralizes an animate noun. An example of noun pluralization in Igala is shown below.
ū | tʃě | n(ɛ) | ám(a) | ēwú |
1SG | do | have | PL | goat |
‘I have goats’ (D:4). |
Nominalization
In Igala, nominalization occurs with the addition either the morpheme ɛ/e or the morpheme a.
ido | e | ta | tʃe | ɛŋʷu | ɔla | mi |
dance(N) | NMLZ | dance(V) | do | thing | body | 1SG.OBJ |
‘Dancing is my favorite thing (to do)' (D:193). |
Reduplication
imɔtɔ | onɛkɛlɛ | lɛ | rulɛ | ti | itʃekbulu | jè | jè | jè | jè |
young boy | DEF.DIST | run(V) | run(N) | to | school | slowly | slowly | slowly | slowly |
‘The young boy ran to school very slowly’ (D:10). |
Syntax
Igala is a largely head-initial language. The basic word order of Igala is SVO (subject verb object)
Verb Phrases
Main page: Verb Phrases
Igala has multiple verb phrase constructions, such as serial verb constructions, split verbs, and cognate objects.
Verbal Elements
tʃɛ/tʃe
The morphemes tʃɛ and tʃe appear as verbal elements in Igala. tʃɛ adds the meaning that something has already been done to a sentence.
ū | gbɔ̋ | kàkīnī | ɛ̀ | tʃɛ̀ | wā | mɛ̂ |
1SG | hear | C | 2SG | already | come | now |
‘I heard that you have already come' (D:225). |
The morpheme tʃe is a copular element translated as do/does.
ido | e | ta | tʃe | ɛŋʷu | ɔla | mi |
dance(N) | NMLZ | dance(V) | do | thing | body | 1SG.OBJ |
‘Dancing is my favorite thing (to do)' (D:193). |
In certain cases tʃ(e) seems to note additional emphasis in a situation.
i | tʃe | uwɛ | dʒɛ | ɔda | lɛ | i | n | : |
3SG.NEG | do.EMPH | 2SG.STR | eat | pear | DEF.DIST | EMPH | NEG.SFP | ? |
‘Are you not the one who ate the pear?’(D:?). |
fV/mv
Aspect
a/ɲa/ja
Noun Phrases
Main page: Noun Phrases
The determiner follows the head noun:
ɔ̋nɛ́kɛ̄lɛ́ | l(ɛ) | a̋ | f(a) | ītébùlù | lɛ́ | ī: |
man | DEF.DIST | IPFV | pull | table | DEF.DIST | EMPH |
What does this sentence mean? |
Personal Pronouns
The citation forms of Igala personal pronouns are on initial low and final mid tones for subjects/objects, and on initial rising and final mid tones for genitive pronouns. In discourse reference however, cliticized forms of the subject, object and genitive pronouns are used. The genitive pronouns are formed from the sequence of the genitive clitic and any of the pronominal genitive clitics – ordered as genitive Clitic+ Pronominal genitive clitic combination. (Ẹ̀jẹ̀bá 2016)[1].
Person | Number | Personal Pronouns | Gloss | Subject Clitics | Gloss | Object Clitics | Gloss |
1st | Singular, Plural | omi, awa | 'I/me', 'we/us' | u, a | 'I', 'we' | mi, wa | 'me', 'us' |
2nd | Singular, Plural | uwɛ, amɛ | 'you(sg)', 'you(pl)' | ɛ, mɛ | 'you(sg)', 'you(pl)' | ɛ, mɛ | 'you(sg)', 'you(pl)' |
3rd | Singular, Plural | oŋʷu, ama | 'she/he/it/her/him', 'they/them' | i, ma | 'she/he/it', 'they' | U, ma | 'she/he/it'/'them' |
Non-Person | Non-Number | ~ | ~ | V | ~ | ~ | ~ |
Possessives
Possession is not morphologically marked (although may be marked tonally?).
Adjectives and Adverbs
mɛ
gɛ
Sentence-Final Particles
As described in Simpson, sentence final particles are “phonologically small elements, most frequently monosyllabic, which typically (and in most instances must) occur in final position.” Prior studies of the structural position of SFPs in Mandarin, Vietnamese, and Niger-Congo languages have observed SFPs are head-final elements sentence-finally in otherwise head-initial languages (Paul). This observation challenges the Final-over-Final constraint, first proposed by Holmberg in the year 2000. The FOFC states that a head-initial XP cannot be dominated by a head-final VP.
Negation
Example of Negation:
ű | h(i) | ɔ̀dʒ(e) | àbátʃà | ŋ̌ | |
1SG | cook | morsel | cassava | NEG | |
‘I didn't cook mashed cassava’ (D:734). |
Questions
Final Lengthening
The lengthening of a sentence final segment seems to be related to question formation in Igala. Most commonly, the final segment is either a vowel or the negational morpheme n.
(1) Sentence with out final lengthening.
ɛ̄ | dʒ(ɛ) | ɔ̄dā | ɔ̀nálɛ́ |
2SG | eat | pear | yesterday |
‘You ate a pear yesterday.' |
(2) Sentence with final lengthening.
ɛ̄ | dʒ(ɛ) | ɔ̄dā | ɔ̀nálɛ́ | : |
2SG | eat | pear | yesterday | ? |
‘Did you eat a pear yesterday?' |