A descriptive analysis of nouns in Ẹdo

Abstract

It is a fact that several interactions abound in the generation of well-formed and acceptable constructions in any human language. These interactions are dependent on the rules governing the positioning and functions of these elements. They have their basis on
the nature of words in a language. Grammatical categories also known as parts of speech refer to the classification of elements based on certain linguistic features in a well-formed, acceptable construction.This study specifies the modalities for the classification of word
classes like nouns, verbs, adjectives and so on in the Edo language with a view to outlining their roles in the grammar of the language. Data for this study are obtained from conversational contexts and selected Ẹdo songs by Adviser Nowamagbe, this was complemented by data from published works like the Ẹdo-English Dictionary by Agheyisi and Melzian. The study draws the boundary between the two components of grammatical categories – lexical and functional categories as they affect the generation of sentences in Ẹdo language with special emphasis on the lexical class of words, noun.