Igala Grammar
Cultural Information
Add citations
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 Pear Story
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.
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.
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
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: Verb Phrases
Igala has multiple verb phrase constructions, such as serial verb constructions, split verbs, and cognate objects.
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 | Q.EMPH | |
What | does | this | mean | Zoe :) |
Possessives
Possession is not morphologically marked (although may be marked tonally?).