Igala Grammar

Cultural Information

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Igala, known to the Igala people as “àbó ígálâ [àbóogálâ] in their language” is both an ethnic nationality and language (Ẹ̀jẹ̀bá 2016:1). 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).

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Phonology

The phonology of Igala consists of a mid sized inventory of consonants and vowels. Igala is a tonal language.

Phonological Inventory

Consonants

The consonants in Igala are given below.

Vowels

According to Ejeba, there are seven vowels in Igala. ADD CITATIONS RAY

The vowels in Igala are given below.

Igala Vowel Phonemes

	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. CITE EJEBA PAGE 29

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

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Morphology

Igala is a dominantly isolating language. Igala does not make use of derivational or inflectional affixation.

Nominalization

Reduplication

Syntax

Igala is a largely head-initial language. The basic word order of Igala is SVO (subject verb object)

Verb Phrases

Main page: Verbs

Noun Phrases

<gl id="sentence.one" fontsize=12> ɔ̋nɛ́kɛ̄lɛ́ l(ɛ) a̋ f(a) ītébùlù lɛ́ ī:? \gll Man DEF.DIST IMPF pull table DEF.DIST EMPH+QUES \trans ??? </gl>

The determiner follows the head noun:

ɔ̋nɛ́kɛ̄lɛ́ l(ɛ) a̋ f(a) ītébùlù lɛ́ ī:?

Man DEF.DIST IMPF pull table DEF.DIST EMPH+QUES PLEASE HELP, I DON'T KNOW HOW TO MAKE A TABLE OR NICE GLOSSING

Possessives

Possession is not morphologically marked (although may be marked tonally?).