Download `MOTION` AND `MOTION VERBS` IN IGBO: A CROSS

‘MOTION’ AND ‘MOTION VERBS’ IN IGBO:
A CROSS- DIALECTAL EXPLORATION AND DOCUMENTATION
BY
ILECHUKWU, CHINASA DORATHY
1.
BRIEF BACKGROUND OF THE STUDY
Motion verbs have not been a major research topic in Igbo language studies, neither has there
been any effort to examine the cross-dialectal dimensions of this group of verbs. To the best of my
knowledge, my MA thesis was like the first incursion into it. This is the main motivation for my wanting
to delve more into it. Moreover, a couple of ideas were conceived in the course of the MA research
which point to the fact that there is room for more research in the area.In addition, the amount of
findings that resulted from the first research and the positive remarks it attracted are additional
motivating factors for the proposed research.
2.
AIMS AND OBJECTIVES
This research shall investigate various Igbo dialects with a view to documenting the motion
verbs that exist in them, examining their lexicalization patterns using Talmy’s (1985, 2000) framework,
and comparing them with each other so as to establish the dimensions of the coding of motion in the
Igbo language. The project shall also lay the foundation for further works in the area of Igbo lexicology
and lexicography.
3.
METHODOLOGY
The approach here is in three parts. First, is a brief review of the literature on the key concepts,
followed by a review of the framework that will be adopted in the proposed research.The third is the
description of the method through which the data for the proposed research shall be collected.
In layman’s terms, motion refers to ‘movement’. An average English language dictionary like
the Oxford Advanced Learner’s Dictionary defines it both as ‘the act or process of moving’ or ‘the way
something moves’ and also ‘to make a movement, usually with the hands or the head to show somebody
what you want them to do’. In the natural sciences, especially in physics, motion according to Nave
(2014) refers to the change in position of an object with respect to time and it is described in terms of
displacement (x), time (t), velocity (v) and acceleration (a). He lists types of motion to include Periodic
motion, Linear motion, Reciprocal motion, Random motion, Brownian motion, Circular motion, Rotary
motion, Curvilinear motion, Rotational motion, Rolling motion, Oscillation and Combination or
Simultaneous motion. The proposed research shall also examine these types of motion in order to
establish the ones that are expressed in the Igbo language;this is an area the first research did not cover.
Motion verbs on the other hand refer to those lexical itemsof a language that denote movement.
According to Pablo and Gutiérrez (2001), they are words which describe the situation in which an object
moves with regard to a reference point, following a trajectory. Harley (2002) describes them as those
verbs that involve motion or change of position as a whole,whilethey are also referred to as words that
can describe motion through space(O’ Grady and Archibald 2008:203). However, Schalley (2002),
points out that for a verb to qualify as a motion verb, there has to be a movement of the whole body.It
can either be a movement along a path as in walking or movement at a location as in jumping.Levin
(1993) identifies and classifies the English motion verbs comprehensively into seven types which
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include verbs of inherently directed motion, leave verbs, manner of motion verbs, verbs of motion
using a vehicle, waltz verbs, chase verbs and accompany verbs with some of them having subclasses.
With regard to the Igbo language, Ụwalaka (1988) identifies and classifies some Igbo motion verbs into
two main groups which are concrete motion verbs and abstract motion verbs with concrete motion
verbs having direction of motion verbs and manner of motion verbs as its subclasses. Prezi (2012)
also examines some Igbo motion verbs and classifies them based on three criteria which are
morphological, tonal and semantic. The subclasses under the morphological criterion include: Simple
motion verbs, Compound motion verbs and Complex motion verbs. Those under the tonal criterion are
High tone motion verbs and Low tone motion verbs, while those under the semantic criterion are Path of
motion verbs, Manner of motion verbs and Manner-path motion verbs. These two works on the Igbo
motion verbs were a strong basis for my MA thesis which focused on identifying and morphologically
classifying the Igbo motion verbs and examining their lexicalization patterns.
With regard to the concept of lexicalization (which is a major concept in the proposed research),
it is viewed and used in the diachronic and synchronic senses. Authors that use it in the diachronic sense
include Bauer (1983), Antilla (1989), Lewandowski (1992), Lessau (1994), Bussmann (1996), Wischer
(2000), Blank (2001), Lehmann (2002), Plag (2003) and Brinton and Traugott (2005). Their views can
be summarized in five ways. First, lexicalization is the process by which new linguistic entities, whether
simple or complex, become conventionalized on the level of the lexicon, or when a lexical item receives
a permanent listing in the mental lexicon and can be recalled from there for use. The second view is that
it belongs to the ordinary processes of word formation like compounding, blending, conversion,
derivation and so on, all of which create new lexemes in a language. The third view is that it is the
unification of a syntactic phrase into a single word or the process whereby monomorphemic words are
formed from more complex constructions. For the fourth view, it is a process that moves a compound
away from being pragmatically interpretable to being indivisible lemmas which might not be possible to
be analyzed on the level of structural representation. This view is also seen as idiomatization which
occurs when the original meanings can no longer be deduced from the individual elements of a lexical
item.The fifth and final view, is when a linguistic form falls outside the productive rules of grammar by
taking a form which it could not have if it had arisen by the application of productive rules or when
complex forms must (for semantic, morphological or phonological reasons) be listed separately rather
than generated by a productive set of rules.
On the other hand, the authors that have used lexicalization in the synchronic sense areLyons
(1968), Rappaport and Levin (1998), Talmy (1985, 2000) and O’ Grady and Archibald (2008).They
view the term as the coding of conceptual categories, the process whereby concepts are encoded in the
words of a language or the fusion of meaning components into a single lexical form.In this synchronic
sense, lexicalization is used interchangeably with ‘conflation’. Talmy (1985, 2000), whose framework
shall be adopted in the proposed research, points out that lexicalization is a process commonly found in
motion verbs of languages.He describes the ways in which this process occurs in the motion verbs of
languages and refers to these ways as the lexicalization patterns of motion verbs.According to him,
various semantic elements are conflated in the motion verbs of various languages. Such elements
include; ‘the figure’ which is the salient moving entity, ‘the ground’ which is the reference frame against
which the figure moves, ‘the path’ which is the course followed by the figure, ‘motion’ which is the
situation denoting movement and soon. It is the various patterns in which these semantic elements
conflate that make up his framework.
Talmy’s (1985, 2000) framework positseight (8) patterns in which concepts conflate in the verbs
of motion as well as three (3) systems in which these conflation patterns may occur in languages in the
course of expressing motion events. The patterns in which concepts conflate in motion verbs include the
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following: (1)Motion + Manner where the concept of motion and the style in which the motion takes
place are encoded in a verb. (2)Motion + Cause where the concept of motion and the cause of that
motion are encoded in a verb. (3) Motion + Path where the concept of motion and the direction in
which the motion takes place are encoded in a verb. (4) Motion + Figure where the concept of motion
and the particular moving entity are encoded in a verb.(5) Motion + Ground where the concept of
motion and the ground object or the reference frame on which the motion occurs are encoded in a verb.
(6) Motion + Two semantic components where the concepts of motion as well as two semantic
elements are encoded in averb. (7)Motion + No further semantic component where the concept of
motion alone is expressed by a verb without the conflation of any other semantic element. (8) Motion +
A minimally differentiated semantic component where the concept of motion conflates with any other
element that has not already been mentioned above; such elements may be the numerousity of the figure
that moves or the speed at which the movement takes place.
According to Talmy, the systems in which these conflation patterns may occur in languages in
the course of expressing motion events include; (1) Split system of conflation which is when a
language characteristically employs one type of conflation for one type of motion event and employs a
different conflation type for another motion event type. (2) Parallel system of conflation which refers
to when a language uses different conflation types for different types of motion event with a roughly
comparable colloquiality. (3) Intermixed system of conflation which occurs when a language exhibits
no consistent pattern of conflation for some type of motion event, but rather intermixes different forms
of conflation for the various members of that motion event type.
The framework above has been adopted in quite a number of researches. While some of these
researches were based on identifying the motion verbs of languages alongside establishing their
lexicalization patterns, others were based on exploring other issues relating to the already established
lexicalization patterns. The researches that were based on identifying the motion verbs of languages and
establishing their lexicalization patterns include Schaefer (1985), Narasimhan (1998), Weschler (2004),
Dillon (2004) and Adjei (2013) who investigated Tswana, Hindi, Korean, Nigerian Pidgin English and
Ewe language respectively, just to mention a few. Other researches that were based on issues relating to
the already established lexicalization patterns of languages include Gennari, Sloman, Malt and Fitch
(2002) who investigated English and Spanish to establish whether their different lexicalization patterns
of motion events predict how speakers of these languages perform in non-linguistic tasks.Also,
Meinschaefer and Kelling (2004) studied French and English to establish how the systematic crosslinguistic variations in terms of lexicalization patterns can be related to a language production model in
such a way as to predict the syntax of their motion verbs. No research however has been carried out
using this framework on the Igbo language apart from my incursion into it in my MA thesis. There I
focused on identifying and morphologically classifying the motion verbs of standard Igbo, establishing
their lexicalization patterns as well as exploring the relationship between the lexicalization patterns and
the Igbo serial verb construction. The proposed research goes further at the theoretical level to
investigate and establish the additional configurational pattern of the Igbo language as either verbframed or satellite framed.
The data for this proposed research shall be collected from chosen dialects of all the Igbo
speaking states which are Abia, Anambra, Delta,Ebonyi, Enugu, Imo and Rivers using a questionnaire
structured from Levin’s (1993) list of English motion verbsin addition to the Igbo motion verbs
extracted from Igbo dictionaries. Also, oral interviews shall be recorded for the documentation of
sentences involving the use of the identified motion verbs.
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4.
EXPECTED OUTCOMES
The following are the expected results from the project:
i.
The establishment of a general cross-dialectal pattern of lexicalization in Igbo.
ii.
Based on the established lexicalization patterns, the categorization of Igbo as a verb-framed or
satellite-framed language.
iii. A cross-dialectal documentation of Igbo motion verbs in the form of a dictionary of motion verbs
in Igbo.
5.
REFERENCES
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Dillon, Caitlin. 2004. Verbs of motion in Nigerian Pidgin English: Manner, Direction and
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