Abstract
This
work examines the pro-form system of Igbo Language. A number of items used to
replace other Linguistic elements such as noun/NP, PP and adverbials are found
and described. These gives us PN –NP, PRO-PP and pro-adverbials. These are by
no means exhaustive of all the pro-forms in the language. A simple descriptive
method of analysis is used in the analysis of data. Only the standard Igbo is
examined.
1.0 Introduction
For both grammatical and stylistic
reasons, different languages device different means of making references to
entities already mentioned or about to be mentioned in a grammatical construction or discourse such
reference mechanism reduce repetition and clumsiness and above all keep track
of grammatical relationship between elements in constructions, often, the
discussion of references by replacement is limited to pronouns alone. It has
been established in grammars of different languages that it is not only nouns
are substituted in constructions, hence the employment of a wider embracing
term pro-form to cover all instances of substitution of an element from
another.
Pro-forms refer collectively to the
items in a sentence which substitute for other items or construction (Crystal
2003:374). The term ‘Pro-form derives from the more central term ‘pronoun’,
which refers to items that substitute
for noun phrases. Such labels as pro-adjective, proverbs, pro-adverbs,
pro-sentence and interrogative Pro-forms are employed beside pronouns to cover the range of
grammatical items and constructions that can be substituted in languages.
This work looks at the syntax of
pro-form in Igbo with the view to exploring what gets substituted and how in
the language.
Pro-Forms
Pro-forms refer to the elements that
substitutes for another element in a sentence or discourse. Wikipedia (2013)
defines a Pro-form as a type of function word or expression that stands in for
(expresses the same content as) another word, phrase, clause or sentence where
the meaning is recoverable from the context. Fromkin, Rodman and Hyams (2000)
similarly define Pro-form as a word that replaces another word or expression
found elsewhere in discourse or understood from the situational context.
There are different types of Pro-form.
Five types are distinguished according to the kind of entities substituted.
They include
i)
Pronouns
ii)
Pro-adjectives
iii)
Pro-locatives
iv)
Pro-verb
v)
Interrogative
pro-form and pro-sentence
Of these, pronouns is the commonest and
most popular. Fronkin, et al (2003:592) state this when they say: “Pronouns are
the best known pro-forms …”. The popularity of pronouns makes it seem that only
NPs are substitutable from empirical evidence, it has been shown that several
other non-NP forms are replaced, and often times, very cupiously; but we hardly
notice them. Thus, we have beside pronouns those other pro-forms as listed
above.
Pro-adjectives or adjectival phrases. In
English for instance, the sentence “I am hungry and so also is my baby”, ‘so’
is a pro-adjective replacing ‘hungry’.
Pro-verbs are pro-forms that stand in
the place of verbs. Example ‘did’ in “we have done our homework and you did
too; so let us go fishing, replaced the verb phrase ‘have done our homework’.
A pro-locative refers to an element that
replaces a preposition or prepositional phrase, as in
(1)
‘Look’
for it in the cupboard and you will find it there” where ‘there’
is a pro-locative, replacing the pp, ‘in the cupboard’.
Interrogative pro-forms are those that
replace entities that are questioned. All question words are pro-forms.
Example:
(2)
(a)
I want to buy a house
(b) What
do I want to buy
The word ‘what’ in (b) is a pro-form
standing for the NP ‘a house’. In our view, what is defined as interrogative
pro-forms are simply interrogative pronouns, except for ‘how’ ‘why’ and ‘where’
which stand for adverbs, and prepositional
phrases.
A pro-sentence replaces a whole clause
or sentence, as in
3)
(a) He will not own again
(b) That is true
That in (b) replaces the entire sentence
(a)
The
full form of (b) is
4)
He will not win again is true
In the foregoing, only English examples
have been given. We in what follow, have deemed it necessary to look at the
Igbo Language with the view to describing the kind of forms ‘pro-formal’ system
of language.
Pro-Forms in
Igbo
True to the statement of Fromkin et
al that pronouns are the best known pro-forms, it seems that almost all the
discourse of referent system of Igbo focuses on pronouns. This work recognizes
subset pro-form to include:
1)
Pro-Nps
2)
Pro-Pps
3)
Pro-adverbials
Pro-Nps
Pro-Nps are substituting elements used
to replace noun phrases. This term is considered the most appropriate because
as Luraghi and parody point out, the so-called pronouns have the same
distributional properties of noun phrases. Consider the following example.
5)
Ulo gi kam chòrò
Ya kam chòrò
‘Ya’ obviously is a pro-Np replacing the
NP ulo gi not the noun ulo.
Although they do replace lexical nouns as in
6)
Moto,
kam chòrò; soso ya, kam chòrò
A paradigmatic considering of the word
‘moto’ in the context of the above example would show that it occupies a slot
of Np as a cross-linguistic examination would also show.
7)
Moto a
car NOT car in the above context. Thus, it can be argued that the word is
componentially +N+Det.
Moto a
car NOT car in the above context. Thus, it can be argued that the word is
componentially +N+Det.
There are many types of Pro-Nps in Igbo.
In the classification of Pro-Nps (Pronouns) by Emenanjo (1978) seven forms are
distinguishable, all of which can be grouped into three functional types-
pressure forms. Subject forms and the object forms. They can equally be grouped
into two on the bases of the inflectional categories of number of number –
singular forms and plural forms. We may touch on the details of these
characterization as we make further instantiation below.
Pro-Nps are sometimes classified on the
basis of the grammatical person they represent – whether the first, second or
third person. Some other times they are described and classified from the
perspective of the kind of referents or entities they represent and how they
designate them (Nwankwegu and Nwode, 2012) from this perspective, we have
personal pro-Nps, referring to those that stand for persons; reflective
demonstrative, interrogative, relative, distributive etc. we shall adopt this
last classification in our description of the Igbo Pro-Nps. We will
however limit our attention to personal
Pro-Nps, and few none Pro-Nps.
Personal Pro-Nps
in Igbo
According to okorji and nwankwegu,
(2010:32), the personal pronouns (person pro-Nps) are the most often and
commonly used. According to Radford (1997), this category of pro-form are
so-called not because they include grammatical properties of people (Cf Nwala
2006; okorji and Nwankwegu 2010).
According to Okorji and Nwankwegu,
Speakers (Interlocutors) use personal pro-Nps to refer to themselves, and the
person(s) or thing(s) spoken about. They are describable in terms of four major
parameters: person, number, case/morphosyntactic form and gender. The last
parameter mentioned is absent in Igbo.
In Pro-Np classification, using
person parameter, the speaker is usually the reference point. In this respect,
the speaker is the 1st person and the pro-Np he uses to refer to
himself, the 1st person pro-Np. The listener or addressee and the
person under discussion are called 2nd and their persons,
respectively. Pro-Nps are also indicative of number-whether singular or plural.
Their distribution or privilege of occurrence in the sentence in the sentence
is also reflected in their forms and may be described in terms of case as
subjective, objective or genitive/possessive. The table below gives an
at-a-glance view of the form of the Igbo Pro-Nps.
Table
I: Forms of Pro-Nps in Igbo
|
|
First
|
Person
|
Second
|
Person
|
Third
|
Person
|
|
|
Singular
|
Plural
|
Singular
|
Plural
|
Singular
|
Plural
|
|
Subject
|
m/mu (I)
|
Anyi
(we)
|
i/gi
(you)
|
Unu
(you)
|
ọ/o
(he/she)
|
Ha
(they)
|
|
Object
|
m(me)
|
Anyi
(us)
|
Gi
(you)
|
Unu(you)
|
Ya
(him/her)
|
Ha
(them)
|
|
Possessive
|
Nkem
(mine)
|
Nkwanyi
(ours)
|
Nke
gi (yours)
|
Nke
unu (yours)
|
Nke
ya (his/hers)
|
Nke
ha (theirs)
|
The Syntactic
Characteristics of Igbo Personal Pro-Nps
First Person
Pro-Np
This forms have both singular (Isg) and
plural (IP1). The first person pro-Nps maintain the same shape in the subject
and object positions.
Subject form
8)
(a)
M gbara oso (some how dialectical)
Agbara m
oso (standard)
I ran
The
standard form brings to mind the discontinuous appearance of the Isg as ‘a---m’
or ‘e---m’. the morphosyntactic intricacies around this does not bother us
here. We are interested in ‘m’ which is commonly known as the Isg in Igbo.
8(b) Anyi gbara
oso
Ipl runpst race
We ran
Object forms
9(a) Nye m egwu
Gwe Isg music
Give me music
(b)
Nye
anyi egwu
Give Ipl music
Give us music
Possessive Forms
The possessive forms of the Igbo pro-Nps
do not lend themselves to a straight forward explanation. In the first instance,
the intantiations in the table above shows that this form goes with Nke which
functionally nominal in the contexts.
Emenanjo (1998: 62) has posited that the
possessive forms are syntactically used as norminal modifiers. Okorji and
Nwankwegu allign with this position in respect of Izhi dialect. To us, there is
a different observation.
Recall from the definition of pronouns
that they are forms that replace the entities they stand for. What Emenanjo
describes or presents as possisive are rather possessive adjective, pronouns or
the Pro-Nps replaces entirely the norms or the Nps for which they stand.
Therefore, for instance, ‘anyi’ in
(10)
ulo anyi (our house) does not represent the entire Np. Even though it does, it
does not function syntactically as pronoun but as adjective modifying ‘ulo’
(house). A cross-linguistic comparison of the English our house (Det + Noun)
would make it easier to understand the argument in igbo ‘ulo anyi’ (noun+Det) –
Igbo being a head –initial grammar.
Therefore,
to us, the possessive pronoun in Igbo is a compound for comprising ‘Nke and the
appropriate pronominal element depending on person and number. Consider the
following:
11
(a) Oru gi bu iza ulo
Duty you be to sweep house
Your
duty is to sweep the house
b)
Nke gi bu iza ulo
Be to sweep house
Yours
is to sweep the house
Apart
from the personal pronouns, there are other Np substitutes such as ebe a (here), ‘ebe ahu’ ‘there’
as in
12)
(a) Ano m Enugu (I am at Enugu)
b) Ano m ebe a (I am here)
13)
Agara m Onicha (I went to Onicha)
A gara m ebe ahu (I went there)
Such
pro-Nps as these are deitic as their interpretations depend on the locations of
the speaker and the audience.
The
following items, usually called question words are dr. pro-Nps. ‘ebe’ (where),
‘gini’ (what), ‘onye’ (who) examples
14)
(a) Enugu ka m gara
Enugu
that I went
(b)
Ebe
kam gara?
Where that I went?
Where did I go?
15)
(a) Nna m bu Eze
Father I be king
My
father is a king
b)
Nnam bu gini?
Father I be what?
What
is my father?
16)
(a) Ebubechi came
Ebubechi came
In
the above, ‘Enugu’ ‘Eze’ and Ebube are nouns, respectively replaced with ‘ebe’,
‘gini’ and onye.
Other
pro-forms in Igbo
We
have dwelt on the Pro-Nps as though they are the only pro-forms. There are also
Pro-pps or otherwise pro-locatives are those substituting elements that stand
in the pre-positional phrases/ for example, in the sentences below:
17)
(a) Ulo nnam di na akuku osimiri
Naija
House father my be prep side rive Niger
My
fathers house is by the side of River Niger
b)
Ulo nnam di ebe ahu
House
father my be place that
My
father’s house is there
18)
(a) Ebiri m na mba ofesi afo ano
Live
I Prep land oversee year four
I
lived overseas for four years
b)
Ebirim ebe ahu afo ano
I
lived there for four years
The
form ebe ahu in set 9b) examples replaces ‘na akuku osimiri naija’ and
‘na mba ofesi’ both of which are prepositional phrases.
Pro- Adverbials
Pro-adverbial
are those pro-forms that substitute for adverbials. Example:
19)
Bulie ya elu elu
Lift it up up
Lift it up
Lift it up/high
b)
Bulie ya etu ahu
lift it how that
lift it like that
The
form etu ahu (like that) replaced the adverbial up/high. Therefore, it
is a pro-adverbial
We
have also found pro-sentence such as
20(a)
Kpoo m mgbe nna gi lotara
Call
me when your father returns
b)
Kpoo m mgbe ahu
call
me then
There are two independent clauses joined
by the relative ‘mgbe’ a coordinate linkeri kpoo m + nna gilotara. ‘ahu’ in (b)
sentence is a pro-sentence replacing ‘Nna
gi lotara’.
Summary and
Conclusion
We had tried to survey the pro-form
system of the Igbo language. Our choice of the term pro-form as against the
popular term ‘Pronoun’ is due to the observations already made in language that
not only nouns are replaceable. Preposition phrases and adverbial substitutes
are all found in Igbo hence the favour
of the term pro-form which is better
covering term for all kinds of substitutes in the language.
We have found that what gets replaced in
terms of nominals replacement is the Np, not just nouns as it has been made is
to adopt pro-Nps in place of pronouns of all the pro-Nps, the possessive pro-Np
is the one that does not land itself to a straightforward explanation. However,
we have agreed that the occurrence of the possessive pro-form after a noun (in
respect of the head initial parameter of the language) makes the possessive a
determiner, hence the phrase an Np. The replacing elements are usually Nke +
possessive adjective (nke m, nke ya etc).
Other non-Pro-Np types of pro-form found
are Pro-PP and Pro-Adverbials.
References
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D. (2003). Dictionary of Linguistics and
Phonetics (fifth edition). Oxford: Blackwell Publishing.
Emenanjo,
E.N. (1978). Modern Igbo Grammar.
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Fronkin,
V., Rodman, R. and N. Hyams (2003). An Introduction
to Language (7th edition). Boston: Thomson Wadsworth.
Lurafhi,
S. and Parodi, C. (2008). Key terms in
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Nwala,
M.A. (2006). Introduction to Syntax.
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Nwankwegu, J. and Goodluck Nwode, C. (2012). Effective use of English. Enugu: De
Envoy.
Okorji,
R. and J. Nwankwegu (2010). Descriptive
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Radford,
A. (1981). Transportation Syntax: A
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Wikipedia
(2013). Pro-form. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/pro-form_
(Linguistics). Retrieved 23/6/13.