SOAS Research Online

Abstract

Since s full appreciation of the part is not possible without an appreciation of the whole, me have considered it appropriate to supply the necessary background information to the main body of the thesis in Part I which, therefore, serves as an introduction to Part II, Part I comprises three chapters: Chapter 1 situates the dialect of Igbo being described here and gives an overview of Igbo language studies up to the present moment, pointing out their relevance to the subject of our investigation here - Noun Phrase Sentential Complementation. In chapter 2, we establish the phonological and morphosyntactic features of the dialect so as to make subsequent references to them easy, and also to draw attention to some fundanental differences between our dialect and that described by Green and Igwe (1963). The third end final chapter deals with Tone in Generative Phonology. Part II consists of six chapters, 4-9. Chapter 4 gives the theoretical orientation of the thesis, indentifies all the categories of Igbo Noun Phrase (NP) complements end argues for a deep structure generation of complementisers or the conjunctions functional in NP complementation. Chapter 5 deals with Indicative or Na complementation, the class of matrix (main clause) verbs involved, and provides syntactic evidence in justification of the factive-non-factive distinction as applied to Igbo. Chapter 6 examines the Interrogative or Ma2 complements (that is, embedded Yes/No questions) and reaches the conclusion that the Igbo equivalents of embedded English SH - Questions are not instances of NP complements, but of relative clauses. In chapter 7, we exemine Imperative or Si complofsentation and show that the possibility of embedding imperative structures as NPs is due to the fact that the complementiser in this construction type is si, a form of the verb is - 'to say.' Chapter 6 is the last of these chapters on the mechanics of complementation, and its subject is the subjunctive or Ka/Ma1 complementation; the fact that this is the only complement type that is subject to Equi - NP Deletion is an automatic consequence of the semantic features of the matrix verbs involved. The last chapter, 9, is rather discussive and speculative; its main concern is with how the description of languages such as Igbo might contribute to linguistic theory. The Bibliography gives a list of the works to which reference has been made in the course of this research. A sample lexicon as well as a chapter which argues that Igbo complementizers and function words must be verb-forms are contained in the Appendix.