Modality in Achi-Igbo

Abstract

The terms ‘mood and modality’ have been employed in widely differing ways by various authors at various times. Woodcock (1959-830 speaking primarily of Latin says “by mood as a grammatical term is meant the form which a verb assumes order to reflect the manners (modus) in which the speaker conceives the action”. On the other hand, the term ‘modality ‘according to Harris (1978:160), covers a whole range of nuances of meaning, which have in common the fact that they are opposed in some way to the most neutral semantic that a sentence may have, that is FACTUAL and DECLARATIVE. Such nuances can in principle be realized in surface structure in any one or more of variety of ways: intonational, morphological, syntactic or lexical. Modality, according to him, refers to elements of meaning which can be expressed through the grammatical category mood. In other words, mood is modality in some sense what tense and aspect are to time. Igwe (2003) in this paper, the national and the syntactic forms of modals are explored with the view to enhancing the standard igbo. The examples are given in Achi- Igbo dialect. Achi is a town in Oji River Local Government Area of Enugu state