Download Igbo Deverbative Nouns as Thematic Compounds

Igbo Deverbative Nominals as Thematic Compounds
Amechi B. Oha
Federal College of Education
Obudu
Cross River State
Email: [email protected]
Abstract
Igbo manifests a set of nominal derivatives formed by derivational processes
that reqiure the theme arguments in the verb phrases, in what Roeper and Siegel
(1978) term first-sister position of the verbs, as the obliagory complements. The
derived base combines with the argument in situ to function in whatever syntactic
position it occupies. This obligatorinness of the complements to the derived nouns in
function compels us in this study to analyse them as one constituent derived from a
verb derivative and its thematic argument at the underlying structure which we term
thematic compound.
Introduction
The two main lexical categories of language, noun and verb, exhibit expansion
processes that yield compounds of various forms in Igbo. The nature of this process in
the verb has been variously studied as documented in Oha (2007). In the present
study, the process in the nominal system of the language is analysed as thematic
compound. What is referred to as a synthetic compound in the Indo-European
languages has never been associated with Igbo language probably due to the lack of
attention to this area of research. Nwaozuzu (1991), Oluikpe and Nwaozuzu (1995)
and Anagbogu (1990, 1995 and 2000) have argued fervently for the existence of the
conventional nominal (root or prmary N-N) compound of the sort (1) in Igbo:
1 nne + nna > nnenna
“father’s mother” (proper name)
ulo + uka > ulouka
“church”
egbe + igwe > egbeigwe
“thunder”
Other scholars such as Mbah (1999, 2004) and Onuoha (1990) counter this
assumption pointing out that what the former percieve as compounds are nothing
other than asssociative constructions. Mbah (2004) goes further to stipulate how to
avoid the pitfall of branding a construct compound in Igbo. He advocates for the
setting up of a simple rule: form a paradigm with such a noun, and it will be seen that
such noun associates with other members like the following noun to form
complements to the noun. While Mbah’s stipulation perfectly works well to exclude
the root or primary noun compound in Igbo, the same cannot be said to
discountenance the aspect of synthetic compound we call thematic compound being
explored in this study.
The same controversy has shifted attention from the detection of a form of
synthetic compound in Igbo; the thematic Compound which results from the
obligatory association of a theme argument to a derived noun as in (2):
2 a Infinitival noun
-ri nri
> Iri nri “food eating”
Vb compl.
b Agentive noun
-ri nri
> Ori nri “food eater”
Vb compl.
c Gerundive Noun
-ri nri
> Oriri nri
Vb compl.
“act of eating food”
d Instrumental noun
-gwu ji
> ngwu ji
“yam harvester”
Vb compl.
Our argument for this form of compund is based on the fact that the structures
are historically derived from sentential frames where the so called complements are
the theme of the verb stems. Thus, the compounding follows two derivational stages,
to be described in the course of this study.
De-verbative Nominals in Igbo Study
Igbo verb has recieved the greatest volume of analysis in derivational morphology,
being the most sourced lexical category to other words. Most of these studies also go
further to indicate the syntactic and semantic features of these derived nominals (see
for example, Emenanjo, 1975, 1978, 1983; Onukawa, 2000; Onumajuru, 2007).
However the analyses do not miss noting the incompleteness of the semantics of the
derivative in the absence of an accompanying complement. What has not yet been
accounted for is an analysis that integrates the accompanying complement to the
derived verb to form a constituent. Emenanjo (1978:142-146) forms a paradigm of
verb derivatives which include (2). He (Emenanjo, 1978, 1983) furthermore outlines
the morphological structure of the forms including their morphemic make-up. Such
derivations, he notes, are achieved through any or some of the following: prefixation,
prefixation and suffixation, prefixation and full reduplication and or prefixation and
partial reduplication of the verb stem. He agrees that each of the four derivative types
requires a complement, though observing that sometimes the the complements get
deleted: “ (vi) like the infinitive, the participle, the noun agent and the noun
instrument, the gerund is always used with its complement which, however, gets
deleted, at times.” Emenanjo’s (1978) remark and treatment of the complement as
separate from the derived noun underscores the fact that analysis has not been directed
towards accounting for how the grammar handles, according to Carstair-McCarthy
(1992: 109), “the evident parallels between argument-structure relationships in syntax
and certain relationships between elements within compounds and some derived
words.”
Anagbogu (1990) goes a step further in his treatment of the Agentive, and
Instrumental derivatives, what he calls OVS and NVS, to recognise the accompanying
complements as forming constituents with the base in the nominaliziation process to
form compounds. He gives the following as the structure of the derivation:
The OVS:
Ò + VS + {pat.}
{ PC}
The NVS:
Ǹ + VS + {pat.}
{PC }
He then formulates rules for deriving the gerundive nominal compound , his Derived
ORED, which for some unexplained reasons is not recognised with that term
compound:
Underived ORED:
( a) [ [ò +c1 + ≠[c1 v1]vs]N1 + [pat] N2 ]NOM
Or
(b) [ [pat.]N1 + [ò + c1 + [c1v1]vs ]NOM.
Where , Ò = a nominalising prefix;
Vs = verb stem;
N1 = Noun phrase;
Pat. = patient
P C = prepositional complement;
NOM. = Nominalization;
C = consonant
+
C = reduplicated syllable with its consonant and high vowel.
He agrees that compounding takes effect from the verb + Arg. as the input where the
Agent/Patient relationship operates. The N1 specifies the Agent/Instrument while the
N2 is the patient. He generates the compounds through a morphological process of
affixation of the nominalising prefix Ò-/ Ǹ- to the base; the verb stem plus its
complement including some tonal processes to realize:
[ [Ò /Ǹ- + [vs]N1 + oH + oL + [pat.]N2 ]NOM.
He reasons that this is so because the verb stem cannot occur without its complement.
Anagbogu’s (1990) conception of the derived nomianls and the present proposal are
related in that they present the derived nominals (at least his OVS and the NVS) as
compounds, i.e., verbal compounds. However, the present study differs from the
former in particularizing the recognized compounds to a type called the thematic
compound as well as recognizing more other derivatives in the group. The
characterizing features of this group are examined in the next section.
Thematic Compounds
Carstairs-McCarthy (1992) defines a thematic compound as one in which the second
element contains a verb stem and the first element appears to have a thematic role in
relation to that verb stem identical or very similar to the role it has in a corresponding
verb phrase. In addition, Carstairs-McCarthy’s (1992) English synthetic compound
(which forms the basis of his definition) also contains a morpheme suffixed to the
verb stem as in his example reproduced in (3):
3 a [eatbmeat]vp → meat-eater
b [drink coffee]vp →coffee-drinking
c [clear slum]vp → slum clearance
d [renew a licence]vp → licence renewal
e [write x by hand]vp → hand-written
f [go to parties]vp
→ party-going
Lieber (1983) gives an argument-linking account of the derivation of the
above English compounds under three analyses.
i where the agentive morpheme –er attaches to verb stem to form the
compound, as in 3a.
ii where the progressive morpheme –ing attaches to verb stem to form
compounds under two separate subcategorization frames of gerundive noun in 3b and
participial adjective in 3f. According to Lieber (1983), ing subcategorizing three
categories can attach to a verb stem to realize derived verbs (progressive) which can
itself compound with other words to form either a gerundive noun or a participial
adjective as shown in 3b and 3f respectively above.
iii where the passive participle morpheme –ed with its unpredictable
allomorphs attaches to a verb stem to form a participle which then proceeds to
compound with another stem as in 3e.
In Igbo, however, as in Ngas (Teke and Danjuma, 2004), the derivation of this
compound type has both its argument position and theta role filled in situ. As Teke
and Danjuma (2004) observe for Ngas, movement of the word in first sister position
to the left of the verb as in English (4 below) is blocked.
4 [[...] + eat + er ] [ meat] → [ meat-eater ] [ ϕ ]
Rather, in Igbo the verb stem combines with the theme argument to form an
intermediate derivative base, a verb-nominal complex (see Uwalaka, 1983) as in (5):
5 rinri “eat food”
Then the appropriate compounding morpheme is prefixed to the derivative base to
generate the thematic compound types as in (6):
6 a rinri
b rinri
c rinri
d gwuji
→
→
→
→
Ò + rinri
= Orinri
I + rinri
= Irinri
O + ri + rinri = Oririnri
Ǹ + gwuji = Ǹgwuji
“food eater”
“food eating”
“act of eating food”
“ yam digger”
In 6a the Agentive morpheme / Ò / is prefixed to the intermediate derivative or verbnominal / rinri / to derive the Agentive compound noun. Similarly, in 6b the infinitval
morpheme / I / is prefixed to the intermediate verb- nominal / rinri / to derive the
infinitival nominal compound. In 6c, the Gerundive morpheme is / Ò /, but added to
the operation is a reduplication process of the root verb before prefixation to the verbnominal derivative which now forms a base for the prefixation of the gerundive
morpheme. In 6d the instrumentalizing morpheme is / Ǹ /. The morpheme is prefixed
to the already formed intermediate derivative verb-nominal base to derive the
compound. However this compounding mechanism is not available for all verb types
as for example –ri in Ǹrínri, is not interpretable as “instrument for eating”, but a
plausible term for food pest, if such exists.
The derivative process is schematized as 7:
7 [[CMTH/L + [VS(2) +X] ID]] TMC
CM = compounding morpheme
VS = verb stem
X = theme argument (pat.)
Or
Prepositional complement (PC)
ID = intermediate derivative
TH/L = tone which may be high or low
( 2) = reduplication of root verb (optional)
TMC = Thematic Compound
The derivational rule is similar to the one that generates Anagbogu’s (1990) nominal
compound. However with the nomino-compounding rule above depicting the nature
of Igbo thematic compound, the earlier definition of the compound as handed down
from English example can no longer hold and thus will give way for the following:
A thematic compound is one in which an appropriate compounding
morpheme is prefixed to the derivative formed by a verb stem and
its theme argument.
Verb Types for Thematic Compounding
Thematic compound sets a complementing nominal which is a theme argument in the
compounding process which forms a verb-nominal constituent. By complement is
meant a noun element which does not necessarily act as object or subject but
obligatorily specifies or clarifies the meaning of the actions of the verb in that context
(Uwajeh 2003). However by theme argument is meant that the element must not be
any element but one that acts as a theme argument before a verb-nominal derivative
can be formed. It is necessary to examine the extent to which Igbo verb types
participate in thematic compound since (6) shows that not all the paradigm slots for
some verbs are available for the four compounding types, and the extent to which all
compounding of this sort are licensed from theme argument. It may even be possible
that certain verbs have fewer slots or are even blocked to the paradigm, while some
formed compounds seem to combine with any complement. An examination of the
categories of verbs in Igbo based on their transitivity is necessary to unravel these
puzzles in Igbo morphosyntax.
Theme/patient argument-taking verb is usually associated with the notion of
transitivity. In other words, a transitive verb is associated with a theme/patient
argument at the objective position of the underlying sentence. There are the canonical
transitive verbs described by Nwachukwu (1983: 104) as “verbs which can take an NP
object drawn from unlimited set of nominals within the bound of co-occurrence
restriction”, to make complete sense as in 8:
8a Obi gburu…
b Ngozi riri…
In 8 the second argument position of the verbs is not filled, rendering the sentence
incomplete. It must be obligatorily filled by the object argument for the sentence to be
semantically complete and meaningful as in 9:
9a Obi gburu ewu
b Ngozi riri ji
“Obi killed a goat”
“Ngozi ate yam”
It can be seen that the structures above fall within the type from which the
intermediate derivative nominal can be derived as 10 illustrates:
10a gbuewu
b riji
Thus our thematic compounding rule 7 generates the appropriate thematic compound
from structure 10 as obtained in example 2.
There are also a sub-set of verbs, as shown by Nwachukwu (1983) which can
be used either transitively or intransitively as in 11 and 12:
11a O mere ihe ukwu “He did a great thing”
b Ihe ukwu mere ”A great thing happened”
12a O siri ofe oma taa “She cooked a pot of good soup today”
b Ofe oma siri n’oku “A pot of good soup is cooking on the fire”
While the verbs in 11a and 12a have object NPs as arguments, the same verbs in 11b
and 12b have no object NPs and in fact it is the same objects in the (a) parts that turn
out to be the subjects, the only argument of the verbs. Also, while the verbs in the (a)
part form verb-nominal derivatives with the accompanying objects as in example 10,
such is not possible in the (b) part because there is no accompanying argument in the
objective position.
There are also the canonical intransitive verbs also identified by Nwachukwu
(1983) as unergatives, in which the surface subjects of the clauses are equally the deep
structure subjects, as in 13:
13a Miri zoro
“It rained”
b chi aboola
“It is daybreak”
c Ofe gwuru
“The soup is finished”
d Ite ahu juru na miri “that pot is filled with water”
As in 11b and 12b, verbs of example 13 lack accompanying objects that can be
drawn from unlimited set of nominal within the bound of co-occurrence
restriction. Formation of thematic compound is also blocked with this category
of verb. Rather, an associative construction with a base similar to Anagbogu’s
(1990) Arg. + V can be formed with what some Igbo speakers may consider
permissible as in the following 14 and 15:
14a miri izo
b chi ibo
c ofe igwu
d ite iju
“for rain to fall”
“for day to dawn”
“for soup to finish”
“for the pot to be filled”
15a miri ozuzo
b chi obubo
c ofe ogwugwu
d ite ojuju
“the falling of the rain”
“the dawning of the day”
“the finishing of soup”
“the filling of pot”
However, such nomino-verbal stems block the prefixation of compounding morpheme
to derive the aforementioned compound in 2. From the above “nomino-verbal”
structure, thematic compound can not be formed as the prefixation of the
compounding morphemes as outlined in 7 is blocked.
The next category of verb is the well documented inherent complement verb
(Nwachukwu, 1983, 1985: Uwalaka, 1983; Uwajeh, 2003) with a complement; a noun
element which does not necessarily act as an object, but specifies or clarifies the
meaning of the verb in such context (Uwajeh, 2003). As observed by Nwachukwu
(1983:112), the verbs of the inherent complement verbs are incomplete until the
appropriate complements are supplied, as in 16:
16 Igba aka
“to be empty-handed”
Ikpe ikpe
“to adjudicate”
Igba onu
“to starve”
Ikwe ukwe “to sing”
Two sub-categories of Inherent-complement-verb have been identified on the same
basis of transitivity (also see Ugoji, 2008). The intransitive types are characterized by
the fact that such verbs take only their inherent complements that are meaningspecifying alone and not co-terminous with NP objects, as in the following listed from
Nwachukwu (1983:115) in 17:
17a gba nguzo
b gba aka
c gba onu
d gba oto
“loiter”
“be empty-handed”
“starve”
“be naked”
The transitive types of the inherent-complement-verb obtain if they take NP objects in
addition as in 18:
18a tu anya “expect”
b ri amusu “practice witchcraft on”
c tu mai
“pour libation”
They can be accompanied by real theme objects as in 19
19a tu anya ha
b ri ha amusu
c tu ha mai
“expectation of them”
“practice witch craft on them”
“pour them libation”
The above analysis clarifies Uwajeh’s (2003) confusion on the occurrence of what she
refers to as two NPs in objective position; a fact she uses as an evidence to
discountenance inherent-complement-verb in Igbo. She gives the following
illustrations as in 20:
20a Ikechukwu mu Polina Nbo
“Ikechukwu pinched Paulina”
Name….. pinch Name… nail
b Adaolie shu ewu m Okwu
“ Adaolie burnt my goat”
Name…. burn my goat fire
c Akpana gba nwanne Ntutu
“Akpana injected her sibling”
Name… sting her sibling needle
Following the classification above what she regards as a puzzle in the inherentcomplement-verb analysis is just the sub-category that is transitive. If she tries the set
of verbs in 17 with the same criteria, it is certain that the verbs will not realize the
same structures. Thus what she regards as second objects in the constructions are the
specifying-noun elements of the inherent complement verbs. The first verbs are the
object arguments of the verbs. Thus the theme/patient argument-taking verb is the one
usually associated with transitive notion. In other words, transitive verb is associated
with theme/patient argument at the objective position and not just a specifying entity.
Incidentally, the intransitive inherent complement verbs yield the same
intermediate deverbative structures as the transitive verbs and their counterpart
transitive inherent complement verbs as 17:
21a gbanguzo
“loiter”
b gbaaka
“empty-handed”
c gbaonu
“starve”
d gbaoto
“be naked”
This poses a puzzle on the justification of theme argument as a diagnostics for the
formation of our thematic compound. It is interesting to survey whether the yielding
of the two forms to the same analysis indicates a difference that may be more defined
by verb semantic classification than transitivity (see Saeed, 2003: 259). The fact that
some classes of intransitive inherent-complement verb can associate with
complements to form verb-nominal derivatives complicates our deep understanding of
the diagnostics for the formation of thematic compound and begs for further research.
The Form-a-paradigm Constraint
Mbah (2004) is of the opinion that the Igbo nominals cannot form compound,
saying that this is because it does not accept inflection. This, he says, makes head to
head movement in nouns impossible. Igbo nouns, he says, have many privileges of
occurrence in the syntactic positions of the language. “Any time any Igbo noun
changes from one syntactic position to another, it invariably alters its grammatical
function and ipso facto its grammatical position in situ” He explains that when it
occupies the position of a noun, it functions as a noun and if it occupies a qualifier
position it becomes a nominal adjective. He notes that those advocating for Igbo
nominal compound are just being guided by the adaptive method of translating Igbo
world view expressed in their syntactic structure to English structure. The effect is
that whatsoever the English has a form, there has to be equivalence in Igbo even when
the language realizes the same concept by expression, whether periphrastic or not.
Mbah (2004) goes further to formulate a general rule, the form-a-paradigm constraint
to guide in deciding the syntactic pattern of words in relation to compounding.
According to him, no member of the paradigm for whatsoever reason shall be written
differently from the other members of the same paradigm. One of the words he picks
out for being wrongly compounded is omumaatu. He develops a paradigm of what he
believes are other complements of the root verb ma or its infinitive, ima as in 22:
22 ima (a) mma
to be beautiful
(b) Akwa
to tie cloth
(c) Ihe
to be intelligent
(d) Chukwu to know God
(e) Njo
to know evil
(f) Mmadu to know somebody
(g) Uzo
to know ones way
(h) Mmuo
tobe an initiate
(i) Nso
to know the law
To the extent that Mbah’s (2004) none compounding of nominals in Igbo is
restricted to non-derived nouns the thesis holds. However for complex nouns such as
omumaatu in which the theme arguments form complements at the base before their
specification by the compounding morphemes, the restriction does not hold. Secondly,
an examination of the paradigm above will show that apart from ima akwa, other
words drawn by Mbah (2004) as members of the paradigm does not associate with the
same ma, though homophonous, and therefore holds implication to the interpretations
of the two versions of ma at the logical form. The two ma do not derive from the
same logical form. For example, drawing from Nwaozuzu’s (2003) unitary
representation of concept, ima cannot stand for imaatu, but the stative ma can lead to
the inference of knowledge as in ma chukwu. While ma of Imaatu is an
active/dynamic verb, ma collocating with other complements except akwa (22b) is a
stative verb. Thus ima merges with its theme arguments when a compounding
morpheme is needed to prefix as in imaatu and (22b). This is not the case with the
stative ima as the complement is not a theme argument but a noun-specifying
element. The dynamic verb ima is available to our four thematic compounding types
as in 23:
23 a Infinitival compound
Imaatu
showing example
b Agentive compound
Omaatu
example giver
c Gerundive compound
Omumaatu
for example
d Instrumental compound
mmaatu
sample object
The line of differentiation between (23a) and (23c) is very thin to the point of
indistinguishable. Thus, as usual with infinitival and gerundive in Igbo, one can
substitute for the other in context.
Conclusion
The foregoing has examined the concept of thematic compounding in Igbo on
the backdrop of the controversy on the existence of nominal compound in Igbo. The
discussion, while agreeing that primary noun compounds may not be possible in Igbo,
employs a structural approach in illustrating the existence of this hitherto ignored
subject in Igbo. Many investigators have in the past merely mentioned this
phenomenon without describing or offering explanation for its form. In this study we
have strove to integrate the fragmenting constituents with one semantic reading into a
syntactic unit we called a thematic compound. This calls for a redefinition of the
status of the nominal complement of the complex head noun as noun at par,
combining with its derived nominal counterpart to form compound. In the course of
the investigation we have not dwelt much on the tonal characteristics that might have
arisen from the derivation, hoping that such can be handled as a separate
investigation. The puzzle thrown up by the specifying-noun element of the inherentcomplement verb yielding to the same compound as its theme/argument-bearing
counterpart also needs to be explored.
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