Tense and agreement markers in Bekwarra
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.60787/jnlp-v5-50Keywords:
Language Family, Bèkwárra, Agreement, TenseAbstract
The concept of tense and agreement have remained a controversial issue particularly in languages that exhibit a close relationship between the two concepts. Studies have revealed that while some languages mark a distinction between the two concepts, they are closely knitted in languages that do not mark a clear distinction between the two concepts and it becomes difficult to separate
them. This study examines the concept of tense and agreement in Bèkwárra, a language spoken in the Northern part Cross River State, Nigeria. The study adopts the descriptive model of analysis. Findings revealed that completed and ongoing actions make use of verbs in their base forms without any inflection with the agreement markers a, e and o, while progressive aspect is marked through verbal inflection by replacing the verb that ends with either i, e. u or o with a and the agreement marker a changes to i. Perfective tense is marked with the tense marker ma while future tense is marked with its marker bá.
References
Comrie, B. (1985). Tense. Cambridge: University Press.
Lyons, J. (1968). Introduction to Theoretical Linguistics. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Maduagwu, G. O, & Obiamalu, G. O. (2016). On Tense Aspect and Negation Markings in
Ògbahù Dialect of Ìgbò Unizik Journal of Arts and humanities. http://dx.doi.org//10.4314/ujah.v17i 2.9
Odey, I. O. (2007). Bèkwárra: Fundamentals of Traditional Education. Calabar: Achu.
Odey, K. O. (2016) African Culture and Tradition: A Coliseum of Bèkwárra proverbs, Apothegms, Adages, Idioms and Aphorisms. Jochriisam.
Solomon-Etefia, P. O. & Evbayiro, O. V. (2017). Tense and Aspect in IkÁ Dialect of Ìgbò Language. in Inquiry in African in Inquiry inAfrican Languages and Literature (INQALL),Department of Linguistics and Languages, Adekunle Ajasin University, Akungba-Akoko. No.10. PP. 54-67.
Stanford, R. (1967) The Bekwarra Language: Grammatical Perspective. London: University of London.
Talbot, P. A. (1969). The Peoples of Southern Nigeria: A Sketch of their History, Ethmology and Languages with an Abstract of 1921 Census Language and Statistics. Vol. 4. London: Frank Cass.
Ushie, G. O. (2001) A Contrastive Analysis of Morphological Processes in English Language and Bèkwárra Language. An M.A. Thesis, University of Calabar, Calabar, Nigeria.
Ushie, G. O. (2017) The World-View of Ethnography of Communication of Bèkwárra People of Northern Cross River State. In Archive for Social and Behavioural Sciences. Vol.6, No. 2, pp.1-11.
