The morpho-syntactic coding of motion events in Igbo?

Abstract

The phenomenon of motion events is universal in human cognition and language. These events are coded in the verbal structure of human language. This work builds on the past study of Igbo motion verbs and seeks to investigate the interaction between morphology, syntax and semantics in the description of Igbo motion events. Igbo verbal morphosyntax codes four categories of motion events. The first category, which includes verbs like ba?a? ‘enter’ and la?a? ‘go home/go to destination’, code the FIGURE, PATH and GROUND in the motion event. The second category includes verbs like zo?? ‘transplant’ and kwa? ‘push’ which code FIGURE and GROUND in the motion event. The third classification contains verbs like fe? e?fe? ‘flying’ and gbe? i?gbe? ‘crawling’ which code FIGURE and MANNER in the event. The last category consists of verbs like n?a? a?n?a? ‘wobble’ and so?? go??no?? go??no?? ‘stagger’ which code FIGURE, MANNER AND CAUSE. The study concludes that motion events in Igbo are coded morphologically. This conclusion is foundational to the further investigation of the core components of motion events in Igbo that is, PATH and MANNER. In other words, it is the groundwork of the contribution of Igbo to the study of the cross-linguistic phenomenon of motion events.