IGBO VERBS OF SPEAKING

Abstract

There is yet no detailed study of the Igbo verbs of speaking. This has therefore created a lacuna in the study of this class of verbs in the language. The present study, though a preliminary one, is a detailed attempt at studying such verbs. The verbs used here come from the author’s intuitive knowledge of the language and from the story book, Ihe onye metere, by C.E. Ofomata. The present study examines these verbs in terms of their 
grammatical features. It also attempts a description of the grammaticalization process by which the complementizer s is derived from the verb s ‘say’. In the light of this, the study concludes that these verbs be further investigated to help shed more light on their characteristic features.