VERB SERIALISATION AND CONSECUTIVISATION IN IGBO

The research investigates verb serialisation and consecutivisation in Igbo. The objectives of the study are to: (i) determine the semantic types of verb serialisation and consecutivisation in Igbo, (ii) establish the syntactic structures of verb serialisation and consecutivisation in Igbo within Revised Extended Standard Theory (REST) and (iii) find the differences and similarities between verb serialisation and consecutivisation in Igbo. The study adopts descriptive-analytical design. It collects data from primary and secondary sources. The primary sources comprise researcher’s intuition and personal interviews from the eight major dialect clusters of Igbo while the secondary source is library materials. The study identifies nine types of verb serialisation and five types of consecutivisation using semantic criteria. The syntactic structures of verb serialisation and consecutivisation identified are argument sharing, tense-aspect marking, negation marking and auxiliary marking on the verb sequences. The analysis of verb serialisation and consecutivisation within the framework of REST and Semantic Component Rule shows that verb serialisation and consecutivisation are derived from two or more underlying sentences via some transformational rules. The study finds out seven differences between verb serialisation and consecutivisation based on intervening variable, forming V-V compound, semantic notions present, object sharing, occurrence with –rV past tense suffix, progressive and continuous actions and sources of derivation. The study also reveals five similarities between verb serialisation and consecutivisation based on subject sharing, symmetry in tense and aspect, behaviour of subject NPs in perfective aspect constructions, placement of auxiliary and negation markers. The study recommends further research on the verbal categories involved in verb serialisation and consecutivisation and the functions they perform, and also on the explanations of what main and subordinate verbs are in verb serialisation and consecutivisation.