| Abstract: | Perhaps there are two types of ideophones in Igbo, the static ones and the non-static ones. The static ones are those with fixed lexical tones, with fixed and determinable meanings and begin either with a vowel or the syllabic nasal. The non-static ideophones, on the other hand, neither have fixed lexical tones nor fixed determinable meanings, their elusive tones and meanings being 'syntactically' and 'semantically' conditioned. Unlike the static ideophones, the non-static ones begin with a consonant. While the static ideophones seem to have been fully-assimilated into the nominal class, the non-static ones superficially appear to be peripheral to the Igbo verbal system. This paper pays attention to the non-static Igbo ideophones, because these constitute an interesting speech pehnomenon in the language. Primarily predicative in significance these words are used to describe and/or dramatize and/or comment upon actions, processes or states. Notes, tab. |
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