EBONYI JOURNAL OF LANGUAGE
EJLLS Publication
EJLLS| Title: | The Verb Ri(Eat) as a Source of Metaphor in Igbo |
| Author(s): | Maduabuchi Sennen AGBO |
| Abstract: | A number of cross-linguistic studies have shown the relationship between the meanings of linguistic forms and the categorisation of the world which a knowledge of these meanings entail. In many languages, verbs of ingestion are rich sources of metaphorical extensions into a number of semantic domains. Studies demonstrating how the verbs of ingestion are linked to human conceptualisation seem to be rare in Igbo. This study therefore accounts for metaphorical mappings of syntactic constructions with the verb ri? ‘eat’ in Igbo. It adopts the theoretical orientation of Cognitive linguistics which approaches the study of language with the view that language is grounded in human cognition. Therefore, the study of language is a systematic study of cognition. The data was purposively selected from published Igbo prose fiction and poetry collections. The collected data were categorised and analysed within the theoretical framework adopted. The findings show that the basic activities of eating can be mapped onto various target domains which serve as metaphor in the language. These domains can be broadly categorised as, actor-oriented and undergoer-oriented. The actor-oriented category shows that the metaphoric elaborations depend on the encoding of the action of the verb on the subject NP, while the undergoer-oriented extensions derive their meaning from the adversative features of the object NP. The study concludes that the Igbo world view can be revealed through the grammar of the language. |
| Keywords: | Igbo Verb, Eating, Metaphor, Cognitive Linguistics |
