MOTION VERBS IN IGBO AND THEIR LEXICALIZATION PATTERNS

Abstract

Not much work has been done on Igbo motion verbs, especially from the perspective of cognitive semantics. The effort in this paper therefore is to analyze the motion verbs of the language from the cognitive semantics angle in order to ascertain their possible lexicalization and conflation patterns. The data for the analysis is drawn from two Igbo dictionaries through the simple extraction of the Igbo equivalents of English motions verbs. The application of Talmy’s lexicalization framework could confirm that Igbo motion verbs exhibit six different lexicalization patterns: motion+manner, motion+cause, motion+path, motion+two semantic components, as well as motion and numerousity. The conclusion is that 
the application of Talmy’s framework holds a great promise for further work on the motion verbs of the language.