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Oron Verb Morphology

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  21 August 2012

Donald C. Simmons
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Extract

The Oron, who call themselves ɔrɔ, number approximately 50,000 individuals, and inhabit 90 villages in Calabar Province, Nigeria. Lexicon and morphology establish the affiliation of Oron with the Ibibio-Efik dialect cluster recognized by Westermann and Bryan, and with Efik in the Central Branch (Cross River languages) of Greenberg's Niger-Congo family.

The material is based on the speech of Mr. Okon Ukam of Eweme village. Since the informant did not speak English the writer communicated with him through Mr. Dimo Udoh Eyo, an Ibibio from Etobodom, Uyo District, who became conversant with the Oron language in his youth. Between March and May 1953, 10,000 words of text and a vocabulary list of approximately 1,700 morphemes were transcribed. Although it is not assumed that all possible tenses or tone permutations have been obtained, it is believed that most of the tenses are described. The writer acknowledges his indebtedness to Ward's study of Efik, and Lounsbury's study of Oneida verb morphology since each has served as a model for the presentation of certain aspects of Oron morphology.

Résumé

LA MORPHOLOGIE DES VERBES ORON

Les Oron, un groupe de 50.000 personnes environ, habitent la province de Calabar dans la Nigéria. Leur langue est apparentée à l'ibibio et l'efik. L'auteur, qui a travaillé parmi eux pendant trois mois au cours de 1953, par l'intermédiaire d'un interprète ibibio qui connaissait la langue oron, a rassemblé un nombre considérable de mots et de morphèmes. Utilisant comme base d'analyse l'ouvrage de Ward intitulé Phonetic and Tonal Structure of Efik, il donne une description des temps des verbes oron et expose leur formation au moyen de préfixes, d'infixes et de suffixes, ainsi que les modifications tonales que subissent les racines des verbes. Il constate neuf tons différents dans l'oron, dont trois ne se trouvent que dans les interrogations. Un premier tableau indique l'ordre des affixes et un deuxième classifie les tons des racines des verbes et des affixes pronominaux, et il indique si ces tons subissent une modification ou restent inchangés.

Type
Research Article
Information
Africa , Volume 26 , Issue 3 , July 1956 , pp. 250 - 264
Copyright
Copyright © International African Institute 1956

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References

page 250 note 1 The writer desires to thank the Nigerian Government for permission to conduct ethnological research in Calabar Province, the Church of Scotland Mission and its missionaries for their many kindnesses, the Department of Anthropology, Yale University for a grant which aided his research, the American Council of Learned Societies for a scholarship enabling him to attend the 1951 summer session of the Linguistic Institute, and Messrs. Dimo Eyo and Okon Ukam for their co-operation.

page 250 note 2 Forde, D., and Jones, G. I., The Ibo and Ibibio-speaking Peoples of South-Eastern Nigeria, London, 1950, p. 86.Google Scholar

page 250 note 3 Westermann, D., and Bryan, M. A., Languages of West Africa, London, 1952, p. 135.Google Scholar

page 250 note 4 Greenberg, J. H., ‘Studies in African Linguistic Classification. I. The Niger-Congo Family’, Southwestern Journal of Anthropology, vol. v, 1949, pp. 79–100.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

page 250 note 5 Ward, Ida C., The Phonetic and Tonal Structure of Efik, Cambridge, 1933.Google Scholar

page 250 note 6 Lounsbury, F. G., Oneida Verb Morphology, New Haven, 1953.Google Scholar

page 254 note 1 The infixes -saŋa- and -diki- are believed to be the verb roots for ‘walk’ and ‘follow’ respectively here used as auxiliary infixes.

page 256 note 1 The inherent tone pattern of a noun changes if modified by an adjective or another noun, but unlike Efik (vide Ward, op. cit., pp. 41–42) the tone changes caused by adjectival modification are different from those caused by another noun.

page 259 note 1 The method of graphical presentation of affixes has been adapted from Lounsbury, op. cit., pp. 45, 60–61, 71, 89.