TONE AND PREFIXATION: A PARADIGM SHIFT IN NEGATION IN ORSU DIALECT OF IGBO

Abstract

There are some concepts in linguistics like negation among others, which are a sine-qua-non for everyday human communication. The implication of this existence is its universal nature as all languages of the world adopt a unique negative particle. GHI has been established as the negative particle used in the Igbo language, which is usually a type of affix known to be suffix. Hence, this paper aims at revealing the peculiar strategy used by Orsu dialect of the Igbo language in achieving negation for various constructions. The researchers contracted about five different native speakers for the data using a voice recorder. The native speakers were in the age bracket of 50-70 years comprising of three men and three women, as the young native speakers don't speak the Orsu dialect anymore. The researchers visited the native speakers severally in order to get an authentic equivalent of the sentences written down in Standard Igbo. Having researched on the Orsu dialect of Igbo, we observed that the dialect basically adopts tone variation as a strategy for marking negation. Then, the prefix gla/dri/gri which is usually used only for the formation of the subjunctive sentence is also a sign of consonant cluster, and an unusual situation in Igbo to mark negation. This claim is in line, and can be justified by Obiamalu’s (2013) paper on the role of tone in Igbo negation in Nneewi and Onicha lects. The researchers, therefore, register that tone as well as vowel lengthening and prefixation are the paramount strategies for negation in Orsu.