Igala Grammar
Cultural 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 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.
| 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
Morphology
Igala is a dominantly isolating language. Igala does not make use of derivational or inflectional affixation.
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 ...
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.
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? | ||||||
Possessives
Possession is not morphologically marked (although may be marked tonally?).
Adjectives and Adverbs
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.
Example of Negation:
| ű | h(i) | ɔ̀dʒ(e) | àbátʃà | ŋ̌ | |
| 1SG | cook | morsel | cassava | NEG | |
| ‘I didn't cook mashed cassava’ (D:734). | |||||