A Socio-Morphological Analysis of Koring Verbal Greetings

Abstract

This paper is a linguistic attempt to investigate an aspect of Koring culture: the phenomenon of verbal greeting. Koring belongs to the Upper-Cross group of the Delta-Cross sub-branch of the Cross River language family of the East Benue-Congo. It is the language of the Oring people who live in parts of Benue, Cross River and Ebonyi states of Nigeria. This paper examines the types of Koring verbal greetings. Twenty-one types of greetings were identified. The functions of greetings in the overall life of the Oring were also revealed. Data were collected in both planned and spontaneous settings. The planned setting involved contextualizing elicitation. This study identified a plural marker which is used only in greetings.