Perspective-Taking With Directional Suffixes in Igbo

Mbanefo Chukwuogor, Chinedu Uchechukwu

Abstract


The study of the interaction between space and language has led to numerous findings especially in the cognitive sciences. The domain of space is reflected in language through the linguistic forms (nouns, verbs, adverbs, prepositions, e.t.c.) that are used to show direction. In Igbo, extensional suffixes have been shown to involve directionality. However, none of the studies have touched on the construal associated with this class of affixes. Consequently, this paper explores the phenomenon of directional affixes in Igbo viz a viz how they encode different perspectives of a directional-motion scene. The study analyzes a corpus of Igbo texts and employs a combination of qualitative and quantitative methods to examine the usage patterns of directional affixes with a special focus on the construal expressed by these suffixes. The findings show that this class of suffixes involve two different perspectives or viewpoints of the directional scene. The first and primary perspective involves focusing on the direction toward the speaker as the deictic center, while the second perspective is secondary and less specific.

Keywords


Igbo; Space; Direction; Deixis; Suffixes; Perspective

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References


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DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.3968/13135

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