Igala Grammar

Disclaimer

This wiki is currently under construction. The information on this page stems from the research that began with the field methods class taught at the McGill Department of Linguistics in Winter 2021.

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). 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).

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).

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).

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].

A native (first language) speaker of Igala, recorded herself telling the pear story. The Winter 2021 Field Methods class, transcribed the story based on her recording [2].

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.

Igala Consonant Phonemes

	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		j
Lateral Approximant			l

Vowels

According to Ejeba (2016), there are seven vowels in Igala. 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.

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.

The majority of syllables in Igala contain a single vowel in the nucleus (V) or a consonant in onset position and a vowel in the nucleus (CV). There are exceptions to these two structures which I will discuss. First, Igala may allow for consonant clusters in onset position, but there are rules to the clusters that are allowed. The clusters must take the shape of C + /j/ or C + /w/. There isn’t enough evidence to determine if these consonants should be treated as labialized and palatalized consonants or as consonant clusters. In speech, it is also the case that if there are two consecutive vowels, the first vowel will be deleted and will become /j/ which would in turn create a consonant cluster.

Igala does not allow sequences of two vowels. In most cases, when there are two consecutive vowels, the first vowel is deleted and the second one stays. Some examples of this phenomenon include: /ì m(a) ɛli lɛ́/ ‘He knows the song’, /ul(ɛ) ɛ̂lɛ̌/ ‘act of walking’, and /ú k(o) égbé ŋw(u) áɲèlà lɛ lɔ/ ‘I gave grass to the horse’

Vowel Hiatus

From a preliminary overview of Igala, it appears that Igala does not tolerate vowels in hiatus. Resolution usually consists of the deletion of the initial vowel of the VV. Take for example, the following:

(1) ɹɔ ākʷū > [ɹākʷū] ‘cry a cry’
(2) ra ɔ́mɛ̀ > [rɔ́mɛ̀] ‘pay debt’
(3) kɔ uɲi > [kuɲi] ‘build a house’
(4) kpɛ útʃɛ̀ > [kpútʃɛ̀] ‘send message’
(5) wɔ ɛ́dɔ̀ > [wɛ́dɔ̀] ‘get angry (lit. foam heart)’
(6) gba ìlɛ́tà > [gbìlɛ́tà] ‘receive a letter’
(7) du ēdʒū > [dēdʒū] ‘take eye (part of a SVC)’

Note: The deleted vowels are put in bold

The exception to this pattern of deletion is when the initial vowel of the sequence is i, in which case the hiatus becomes diphthongized. In other words, the initial high front vowel becomes a glide and yields a jV string, as seen in the following:

(8) li ɛ > [lʲɛ] ‘see you’
(9) hi odʒe abatʃa > [hʲodʒabatʃa] 'cook cassava morsel'
(10) bi ɔ̌nà> [bʲɔ̌nà] ‘open door’

There are other instances where hiatus is not repaired ...

Tone

Main page: Tone

There are four level tones (Low (à), Mid (ā), High (á), and Super High (a̋)) and two contour tones (Falling (ǎ) and Rising (â)).

In Igala, tones are involved in morphological processes.

Morphosyntax

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

Nouns

Nouns in Igala begin with a vowel.

In Igala, the morpheme àma pluralizes an animate noun. An example of noun pluralization in Igala is shown below.

(1)

ū	tʃě	n(ɛ)	ám(a)	ēwú
1SG	do	have	PL	goat
‘I have goats’.

Determiners

In Igala, lɛ acts as a determiner. lɛ seems to have a similar meaning to English's 'the' or 'that.' lɛ is a definite article, not a demonstrative.

An example of lɛ

(1)

ɔnɛkɛlɛ	lɛ	nɛ	imoto
man	DEF.DIST	drive	car
‘The man drove a car.’

In Igala, ji is a definite article. ji is a definite article. It is a proximal (??)

An example of ji.

(2)

tʃɔ́tʃì	jī
church	this
‘This church.’

The determiner follows the head noun:

(3)

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).

Personal Pronouns

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?).

Verbs

Verbs in Igala begin with a consonant.

Verbal Elements

Main page: Verbal Elements

Igala has multiple verb phrase constructions, such as serial verb constructions, split verbs, and cognate objects.

The serial verb construction, also known as (verb) serialization or verb stacking, is a syntactic phenomenon in which two or more verbs or verb phrases are strung together in a single clause.

Serial Verb Constructions

Below is an example of a serial verb construction in Igala.

(1)

aladi	kpa	adʒuwɛ	dʒɛ
aladi	kill	chicken	eats
Alali killed and ate the chicken (D:22).

Cognate Objects

A cognate object (or cognate accusative) is a verb's object that is etymologically related to the verb. More specifically, the verb is one that is ordinarily intransitive (lacking any object), and the cognate object is simply the verb's noun form.

Below is an example sentence with a cognate object in Igala.

(2)

u	l(e)	t(i)	ona	dʒidʒi	ɛrɛ
1SG	walk(V)	to	path	long	trek
He walked a long walk (D:207).

Alice Tremblay (2021) notes that cognate objects in Igala only occur with unergative verbs, and not with unaccusatives.

(3)

ū	r(a)	úlɛ́
1SG	run(V)	run(N)
'I ran' (Tremblay 2021).

Tremblay (2021) writes that an important characteristic of cognate objects in Igala is their ability to be modified, including in relative clauses.

(4)

ū	t(a)	ídő	(u)jɔ̀
1SG	dance(V)	dance(N)	cheerful/joy
‘I danced a cheerful dance’ (Tremblay 2021).

Split Verb Constructions

The split verb is a verb that sentence-finally appears as one word, however can be split so part of the verb appears earlier in the sentence.

Below is an example sentence containing a split verb in Igala.

(5)

dorkas	kp	lɛ	ɔna	fɔ
Dorcas	break	door	DEF.DIST	break
Dorcas, break the door! (D:?).

Nominalization

Main page: Nominalization

In Igala, nominalization occurs with the addition either the morpheme ɛ/e or the morpheme a, as shown in the examples below.

In this example, ido ta alone means 'to dance,' while the additional of the morpheme e gives the nominal meaning 'dancing' to the word.

(1)

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).

(2)

é	n(ɛ)	ɔ́bē	álādì	n(ɛ)	ɔ́bē	kp(a)	ādʒūwɛ̄	lɛ̀
NMLZ	use	alado	use	knife	kill	chicken	DEF.DIST
‘It was the use of knife that aladi used knife to kill the chicken’

Reduplication

(1)

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'.

The morpheme 'm' ?

The morpheme m acts a multiplier between a noun phrase or a grouping number and a digit between two and nineteen. A syntactic structure that includes m in a functional projection, mP, with NPs on either side as its complements.

àm(a)	ōlí	m	ɛ́tà
PL	tree	MULT	three
'three trees'.

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

Adjectives and Adverbs

The morphemes mɛ and gɛ in Igala pattern as adverbs.

mɛ

The morpheme mɛ patterns as an adverb meaning now or already depending on the context.

An example of mɛ with the meaning 'now.'

(1)

ma	wa	mɛ
3PL	come	now
‘They are now coming.’

An example of mɛ with the meaning 'already.'

(2)

ū	gbɔ̋	kàkīnī	ɛ̀	tʃɛ̀	wā	mɛ̂
1SG	hear	C	2SG	already	come	already
‘I heard that you have already come.’

gɛ

The morpheme gɛ patterns as an adverb in Igala meaning 'again.'

An example of gɛ.

(3)

a	dabi	ta	ido	gɛ
1PL	turn.back	dance(V)	dance(N)	again
‘We danced again.’

Sentence-Final Particles

More information on Sentence-Final Particles: 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:

(1)

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?'

Numerical System

The Igala language utilizes a base-20 multiplicative system that also includes functions of subtraction and addition. The system has separate morphemes for numerals one to nine, as well as for ten ɛ̀gʷá, twenty ógʷú, fifty ódʒe, and two hundred ɔgwɔkɔ (Ejeba, 2016, p. 105; Otu, personal communication, 2021). For numerals eleven to nineteen, the form is ‘ten’ followed by a number from one through nine (Savkovic 2021).

(1)

ɛ̀gʷá	ɛ̀lá
ten	nine
'nineteen' (from Ejeba, 2016, p. 103).

The rest of the numbers are created using multiplication, addition, and/or subtraction. Igala employs “grouping” numbers for 20 ɔ̀gbɔ̀ and 50 ólí, that are separate from the words listed above, to make larger numbers through multiplication (Savkovic 2021).

(2)

ɔ̀gbɔ̀	m	ɛ́gʷá	ɛ̀là
twenty	MULT	ten	nine
'380' (from Ejeba, 2016, p. 105).

Inflection

Aspect

The morpheme a indicates imperfective aspect.

(1)

ēlì	lɛ̄	ā	tʃè	mī	ôlū
song	DEF.DIST	IPFV	do	1SG.OBJ	sleep(N)
‘The song is making me sleepy.’

The morpheme na indicates that an action is in progress.

(2)

ábʲá	lɛ̄	nǎ	kò
dog	DEF.DIST	PROG	bark
‘The dog was barking.’

The morpheme ɲa has a similar meaning to 'go' in English. The morpheme indicates that an event/action will occur in the future.

(3)

ɛ̌	ɲá	kpɔ̄	ɔnà	lɛ́	fɔ̄	ɔ̀nâ
2SG.IPFV	go	break	door	DEF.DIST	break	tomorrow
‘You will break the door tomorrow.’