A Descriptive Analysis of Particles in Edo Basic Clauses

Abstract

The present paper concerned the modifying scope of particles otherwise known as functors in the Edo language. The motivation for the study was to determine the constituents that are modified by the selected particles in Ẹdo basic clauses. The constituents under studied were sentential and lexical constituents. The objectives of the paper include to determine the semantic definition of particles in Edo, ascertain the scope of their modification when used in Ẹdo basic clauses among others. The data for the study were collected from primary and secondary sources; native speakers living in Evbareke quarters, Uselu and Ogida, Benin City and Ẹdo literature texts. The data collected consisted of particles or functors in the language. The particles were applied in Ẹdo basic clauses to ascertain their grammatical functionality as well as their modifying scope. The study found out that particles in Ẹdo have descriptive and lexical meanings which are actually partial translations of the overall grammatical content of the particles investigated. That is, some particles were translatable in English using one word (this we termed lexical meaning) while others needed to be translated using several words (this we termed descriptive meaning). Also, it was established that particles in Ẹdo are of three categories with respect to the scope of their grammatical modification in Ẹdo basic clauses, namely; clausal, nominal and verbal modifiers. Clausal particles modified the whole clause, nominal particles modified the noun of the NP and verbal particles modified the verb of the VP. The study concluded that a semantic study of Ẹdo particles in areas such as pragmatics and semantics will open up new information with implications of the role and reference operations within the Ẹdo basic clause as well as establish a typology of the grammatical functions of particles in Ẹdo basic clauses.