On enclitics in the Igbo Language

Abstract

Clitics are generally known to resemble words but cannot stand on their own as words could. To function, they depend on a neighbouring word. The relation between them and the words they depend on is close to the relation between affixal elements and their bases or roots. Hence, the following major classification of the clitics has been made: proclitic and enclitic. While the proclitic depends on a following word, the enclitic depends on a preceding word. This study focuses on the enclitic in the Igbo language with a view to determining their distribution and function. This provides more material to support existing account of the elements in the language. The data for the study are from library sources and are verified by the authors who are native speakers of the language. The data are descriptively analyzed. The study confirms the finding in previous studies that the enclitic in Igbo could take any word from any of the word classes as its host. However, it discovers that enclitics could take prepositions as their hosts contrary to the claim that this is not possible. In other words, the Igbo enclitics take all word classes as their hosts. As determined, the primary function of enclitics is semantic. They modify the meaning of their hosts and in many cases modify the meaning of the entire structure in which their hosts occur.