Enoima Edet Etteokon’s scientific contributions

This chapter examines verb juxtaposition with special focus on aspect of serial verb construction in Ibibio (New Benue-Congo). Serial verb construction is construed as consisting of successive independent verbs in a complex sentence without any overt connective or sub-coordinating marker. The aim of this paper is to analyse the syntactic structure of serial verb construction, and highlight the different classes of serial verb construction in Ibibio. Also, the paper analyses the negation of serial verb construction. The theoretical framework adopted in this paper is the descriptive model. The data were gathered from the library, listening to acclaimed speakers of central Ibibio and my intuition as a native speaker of Ibibio. An application of the descriptive model reveals that the order of occurrence of the verbs is paramount to the understanding of the envisaged meaning of the sentence. Since any reversal of the verb-position may result in semantic differences or grammatical ambiguity. Besides, consequential serial verb construction violates the subject-hood hypotheses of the serial verb construction (SVC). Furthermore, we identified two types of negation in Ibibio involving the effect of the scope on it constitute or the entire sentence.

This discourse analyses the syntactic and semantic structures of connectives in Ibibio. Connectives are linguistic items that interlink grammatical items in Ibibio. The data for this study were collected from open market square and native speakers of the speech form in focus. The data so gathered were then categorized into syntactic and semantic component structures. The analysis was based on the eclectic-model composed of descriptive analysis and the theory of cohesion propounded by Halliday and Hasan (1976). The syntacmatic component of the analysis reveals that Ibibio connectives are highly productive and systematically structured. However, from the analysis, it is observed that in Ibibio connectives rarely appear at the final position of the sentence. Two different contrasting connectives can appear in one sentence. The analysis equally shows that there is a significant interrelationship between syntax and semantics, thereby justifying the title of this paper. On the whole, Ibibio is a creative and growing language. The analysis also shows that certain connectives in Ibibio are derived through some grammatical processes.

This paper explores the structural analysis of adverbials of manner in Ibibio. In view of the fact that adverb or adverbial phrase of manner is an expression that supplies more information which qualifies the verb and answers the question 'how' and 'in what way' the action of the said verb is executed. It is pertinent to note that Ibibio is a growing language, spoken in Akwa Ibom State of Nigeria. The data used in this research were sourced from the Library, communication and interaction with the indigenous speakers of the speech form characterized as the Central Ibibio and recordings of special Ibibio programmes on radio and television, such programmes include Ntia-Ntia asakka, Akpan Mma Udobot and mbɅk mfin. The data so collected were carefully categorized based on my intuition as a native speaker of the speech form in focus. These were then classified and analyzed under the Eclectic Model consisting of a descriptive theory and the extended standard theory. The structural components of the analysis reveal that adverbials of manner are highly productive and can be systematically grouped based on their meanings, the sound associated with the word to a comparison process with appropriate scenarios. It is germane to point out that at the phrasal level the combination of adverbials of manner with either adjective or noun does not lead to any sematic ambiguity. Besides, like in some other African Languages, there are no adverbial affixes in Ibibio, as their inherent functions are subsumed by ideophones or reduplication. The existence of ideophones and onomatopoeic words in the lexicon indubitably confirms the claim that Ibibio is a creative and has the potential of rapid and consistent growth if empowered.

The paper described the morphology and semantics of copula verbs in Kana. The analysis was done utilizing a formal linguistic framework. The paper reported that three morphological variants of the copula verbs occur in the language: the overt copula, the null copula and the pseudo copula. The paper found that there are two forms of the overt copula, lu and lè with complementary syntactic distribution. Lu occurs in predicative constructions while lè occurs in existential and locative constructions. The paper showed that the null copula occurs in discourse contexts in which a sentence lacks an overt subject in surface syntax; while the pseudo copula occurs as a lexical variant of the Kana copula verb. The paper also found that Kana copula verbs express predicative, locative, existential and equative meanings in discourse structure. The paper claimed that the locative copula in Kana cannot occur in the progressive aspect which is a marked contrast to the situation in most Niger-Congo languages as a number of these languages permits progressivity in locative structures.