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A Phono-semantic Account of the Igbo ‘take’ Verbs wè and chị 

 

Cecilia Amaoge Eme 1 Iwuchukwu Chinenye Uwaezuoke2 

Nnamdi Azikiwe University, Awka1 Ebonyi State University, 

Abakiliki 

ca.eme@unizik.edu.ng1 iwuchukwuchinenye@yahoo.com2 

 

Abstract 

Many researches have been done on the Igbo verb as the verb is 

central and prolific in the study of Igbo language spoken in South 

East Nigeria. The centrality of the verb in the Igbo language has 

caused the language to be referred to as a verb-centred language 

(Nwachukwu, 1983). These facts of the Igbo verb notwithstanding, 

none of the numerous researches has investigated the role of verbs 

in the expression of plurality and countability in Igbo. This paper 

sets out to fill the research gap. It gives a phono-semantic account 

of the Igbo verbs wè and chi ̣́ in order to establish the semantic 

imports they carry besides ‘take’, which is often seen as their 

conventional meaning, and the role of tone in the achievement of the 

meanings. The data for this study are collected from ten Igbo native 

speakers and are descriptively analysed. The research discovers 

that the verbs perform interesting semantic functions in Igbo which 

range from the expression of singular and plural to portraying 

countable and uncountable notions. On tone, wè and chị in their 

canonical form, that is, when used as roots bear the low and high 

tone respectively. However, when the root is combined with affixes 

or other roots to yield complex or compound verbs with further 

meaning, the tone may change in accordance with the established 

behaviour of tone in Igbo grammar (Nwachukwu, 1995; Eme, 1998). 

This study adds to the existing knowledge on verbal plurality and 

countability in language. 

mailto:ca.eme@unizik.edu.ng1
mailto:iwuchukwuchinenye@yahoo.com


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Keywords: Igbo verb, phono-semantic account, plurality, 

countability, verb-centred 

 

1. Introduction 
The Igbo language of Nigeria is spoken by over 29 million people 

(Eberhard et al, 2021). The speakers are predominantly in the south-

east comprising five states: Abia, Anambra, Ebonyi, Enugu and Imo 

States. Igbo speakers are also in some other states in Nigeria such as 

parts of Delta and Rivers States. Igbo belongs to the Kwa group of 

the Benue Congo Family within the Niger-Congo language phylum 

(Williamson and Blench, 2000). It is one of the developed 

indigenous languages of Nigeria and has received a lot of linguistic 

researches in the course of its development. Virtually all the aspects 

of the language have been studied in one way or the other. For the 

Igbo verb, researches have touched on verb generally or on some 

specific verb or verbs. In fact, many scholars have shown interest in 

the study of Igbo verbs, as the verb is central and prolific in the Igbo 

language. The centrality of the verb in the Igbo language has caused 

one of its foremost linguists, Prof. Philip A. Nwachukwu, to refer to 

the language as a verb-centred language (Nwachukwu, 1983).  

These facts concerning the centrality of the Igbo verb and 

the numerous researches already conducted on the Igbo verb 

notwithstanding, none of the researches, as much as this paper’s   

researchers know, delved into finding out how the verbs contribute 

in the expression of plurality and countability in Igbo. The need to 

fill the research gap prompts this paper, which gives a phono-

semantic account of the Igbo verbs wè and chị. It is in order to 

establish the semantic imports wè and chị carry outside ‘take’, often 

seen as their usual meaning. Also, as tone is crucial in Igbo studies, 

not only because the language is a tone language but because “tone 

is at the core of Igbo grammar; and any accurate account of so many 



A Phono-semantic Account of Igbo ‘Take’ Verb: - Eme & Uwaezuoke 

 

324 

 

syntactic phenomena in Igbo must take tone into account” 

(Nwachukwu, 1995), we shall investigate the role of tone in the 

achievement of the said meanings by the wè and chị verbs in Igbo 

sentence structures. 

We collected the data for this study from ten Igbo native 

speakers randomly selected irrespective of their dialects. The data 

were authenticated by the researchers using their native speaker 

intuition. For the analysis of data, we adopted the descriptive 

approach. The tone marking convention used here is that of Green 

and Igwe (1963); high tone is left unmarked while low and downstep 

tones are marked with grave accent [ ̀ ] and macron [  ̄ ] respectively. 

 

2. Earlier Studies on Verbs 

The verb, a grammatical category, refers to a word that conveys 

action, occurrence or state of being in grammatical constructions of 

language. It is, therefore, a universal phenomenon. Ikegwuonu 

(2021) explains that the functions of verb vary according to 

languages; in many languages, verb takes different forms to depict 

tense, aspect, mood and voice while in some languages, it may also 

agree with the person, gender or number of some of its arguments, 

such as subject, or object.  

Hofherr (2010) investigates plural marking on verbs and 

distinguishes between expressing many events together, termed 

event plurality, and using verbal markers in expressing multiple 

events, which she refers to as verbal plurality. She explains that such 

verbal markers can also be called pluractional markers. In her 

examination of what is meant for a single event to be plural, she 

distinguishes between distributive and non-distributive plurality, 

event-internal and event-external plurality, and event number and 

participant number. This is to say that one event can have multiple 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Word
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Language
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grammatical_tense
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grammatical_aspect
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grammatical_mood
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voice_(grammar)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grammatical_person
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grammatical_gender
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grammatical_number
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Argument_(linguistics)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Subject_(grammar)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Object_(grammar)


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events “due to distribution over plural times, spatial locations and 

participants.” She gives the following examples: 

 Distribution over time: 

1) John sang a song, and then he sang the song again, and then 

again. 

Distribution over space: 

2) John planted trees in different places. 

Distribution over participants: 

3) John sang two French songs: John sang the Marseillaise 

and then he sang 

 “Je ne regretterien”. 

4) John and Mary baked a cake: John baked a cake and Mary 

baked a cake. 

 

Plural meanings through verbal plurality can also be achieved 

through such other means as repetitiveness, repeated occasions and 

events, persistent consequences, distributed quality and continuity. 

Lee’s (2016) work examines pluractional verbs in Ranmo 

(Papuan) by investigating the morphological, syntactic, as well as 

semantic properties of root alternation in the language. 

Pluractionality is the term that refers to the situation of verbs being 

morphologically marked for plurality; and plurality “covers a range 

of meanings, whether in connection to multiple participants, times 

or locations”. The language of investigation, Ranmo, is “a Papuan 

(non-Austronesian) language, spoken by approximately 300 people 

in Yenthoroto village, Western Province, southwest Papua New 

Guinea.” Like the Igbo language, Ranmo is an SVO language. Only 

‘extended’ roots of Ranmo exhibit pluractional verb characteristics. 

According to Lee, all pluractionals must have two components 

clearly defined in the semantics—PL(ural) and DEG(ree). DEG(ree) 



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is for large quantity; not necessarily simple plural. He points out that 

across languages, pluractional verbs are commonly formed through 

reduplication.  

Concerning the verbs of the Igbo language, several scholars have 

delved into the study from different research perspectives. Let us 

look at a few of these studies. Emenanjo (1978) examines the Igbo 

verbals, verb phrase and verb forms. Under verbals, he discusses 

auxiliaries, participles and verbs. He explains, among other things, 

that the Igbo verb is the head of the VP, precedes its complements, 

can be nominalized, and is “the only part of speech that takes 

affixes.” This is to say that all the other form classes do not accept 

affixation. According to him, the Igbo verbs, like suffixes and 

enclitics, begin with consonants; unlike nouns which usually begin 

with a vowel or a syllabic nasal. He classifies the Igbo verb stems 

into simple and complex, with reference to the number of elements 

or morphemes they contain- the former contains one element (5a-i) 

while the later contains more than one element (6a-d): 

 

5) a. za ‘answer’,  

b. me ‘do’,  

c. ri ‘eat’,  

e. zà ‘sweep’,  

f. bà ‘enter’,  

g. pu ̀ ‘go out’,  

h bịa ‘come’, 

i. hie ‘tie up’ 

 

6) a. bufè ‘carry across’,  

b. tụpụ ̀wa ‘begin to throw out’, 
c. buwe ‘begin to carry’, 



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  d. rọgọ ̀ ‘bend’. 
 

According to Ume, Ugoji and Dike (1989), the Igbo verb expresses 

future, past and perfective aspect as well as tense. They point out 

that scholars classified Igbo verbs in different forms using specified 

criterion. For them, Igbo verbs can be classified according to the 

number of morphemes they possess. Thus, there are simple verbs 

and complex/compound verbs. Whereas simple verbs have only one 

morpheme, complex/compound verbs have two or more 

morphemes. 

According to Izunwa (2019), the verb is language universal, 

since it is a grammatical category found in all languages.  He 

explains that in classifying the Igbo verbs using their morphological 

make-up, we have simple verbs, complex verbs and compound 

verbs. Each of these classes of verbs can be inflected for tense, 

mood, aspect, negation and ergativity. A verb that is in its citation 

form only is a simple verb; a complex verb has the citation form plus 

one or more affixes; and a compound verb has two or more 

independent simple verbs. 

According to Mbah (2018), cited in Ikegwuonu (2021:217), while 

talking on the structure and behaviour of Igbo verbs avers, ‘‘A 

simple verb form must not change its form by vowel harmony rules 

in any morphological alternation’’. The simple verb form comprises 

a consonant at the onset and a vowel at the peak. In other words, the 

structure of the simple verb form in Igbo can be represented as 

consonant (C) + vowel (V) (i.e. CV structure). Thus, the simple Igbo 

verb root has a CV structure. The Igbo ‘take’ verbs we are 

investigating, wè and chi ̣́, align with this CV syllable structure.  

 

 



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3. Data Presentation and Analysis 

The ‘take’ verbs wè and chị can be realized in different morpho-

syntactic forms to give complex verbs and different meaning 

realizations. Our data and their analysis substantiate this claim. 

7) i-wè ‘to take’ 

8) ị-chị ̄ ‘to take’ 

 

In (7) and (8), wè and chị are in the infinitival form, marked by the 

prefixation of the harmonizing vowel prefix i- and ị- for wè and chị 

respectively. The prefix is determined by the phonetic feature of the 

vowel of the verb; as the Igbo vowels harmonize in terms of the 

phonetic feature of advancement or retraction of tongue root [ 

+ATR]. Although they have the same semantic notion of ‘to take’, 

the nuances in their meanings have the implications of singularity 

and countability for wè, while chị indicates plurality and or 

countability, depending on the noun involved. This will become 

clearer in our further analysis of the data. On their tone, observe that 

wè retains its inherent tone after the prefixation of the infinitive 

marker while the tone of chị changes from H to a downstep. This is 

in line with the behaviour of Igbo tones during affixation for 

infinitive formation; where a low tone CV root retains its L tone 

while a high tone CV root has the i/ị prefix on H tone while the H 

of the root steps down to a downstep tone.     

9) wè-re ‘take’ 

10) chi ̀-rị ‘take’ 

 

In (9) and (10), the verbs are realized in their imperative form. 

Unlike the imperative form of most Igbo verbs, that is, CV + open 

vowel suffix, wè and chị take the -rV suffix for their imperative, that 



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is, ‘r’ followed by a harmonizing vowel. This explains why we have 

wère and chi ̣̀rị. As we can see, the suffix is on H tone. Semantically, 

the verbs mean ‘take’. However, whereas wère commands the 

hearer to take the only one item or one item out of the countable lot 

like yams and bales of cloth, chi ̣̀rị implies that the hearer should 

collect, sometimes with both hands, uncountable items such as sand, 

groundnut, roasted breadfruit, and quantity of firewood. 

 

11) a. wèèrè    ‘took’ 

b. chi ̀i ̀ri ̀    ‘took’ 

12) a. wedà / chịdà   ‘take down (from a 

height)’ 

b. wepụ̀ / chịpụ̀   ‘take out/take away’ 

c.  wèga / chi ̀ga   ‘take to’ 

d.  wèli / chi ̀li   ‘take up’ 

e.  wetù / chịtù   ‘take down’ 

f.  wèkpu / chi ̀kpu  ‘take inside’ 

g.  wèla / chịla   ‘take home’ 

h.  we(ghà)chi/ chị(ghà)chi ‘take back’ 

    

13) a. i - wè - gà = iwègà / ị - chị - ga = ịchịga 

 ‘to take to’ 

b. i - wè - kpù = iwèkpù / ị - chị - kpu = ịchịkpu

 ‘to take inside’ 

c. i - wè - lì = iwèlì / ị - chị - li = ịchịli  

 ‘to take up/ to raise’ 

d. wè - gà - rà = wègàrà / chị - ga - rà = chi ̀gàrà 

 ‘took to’ 

e. wè - kpu - rù = wèkpùrù / chị - kpu - rù = chi ̀kpùrù

 ‘took inside’ 



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f. wè - li - rì = wèlìrì / chị - li - rì = chi ̀lìrì 

 ‘tookup/ raised up’ 

 

The -rV past tense marker can also be suffixed to the wè and chị verb 

roots to depict past tense, as seen in (11a, b). Here, wè and chị again 

behaves differently from most Igbo verbs that form their past by the 

-rV suffixation only. For wè and chị, the vowel of the root is 

reduplicated before the -rV suffix is attached. However, like other 

Igbo verbs, the tone is L for the verb and its inflections. This L tone 

of the -rV past suffix differentiates it from the -rV of the wè and chị 

imperative (seen in 11 a, b), which is H tone. Both wèèrè and chi ̣̀i ̣̀ri ̣̀ 

mean ‘took’. Further description of what was taken could show the 

‘took’ meaning to have nuances of number and countability. For 

instance, if ‘it’ is the pronoun of what was taken, it implies one 

countable item or a bundle or pack of an uncountable entity. In this 

case, wè can be used in all the options, excluding chị when one 

countable item is involved. In fact, chị when used for a bundle or 

pack of an uncountable entity would subtly imply that the bundle or 

pack was loose and so not intact. However, if ‘them’ is the pronoun 

for what were taken, an idea of plurality emerges for both verbs. 

This would, therefore, imply that what were taken were two or more 

pieces of the countable item or two or more bundles or packs of an 

uncountable entity: 

 

14) a. O wèèrè ya/ Ọ chi ̀i ̀ri ̀ ya  ‘He/She took it (e.g. cloth, 

rope)’. 

b. O wèèrè ha/ Ọ chi ̀i ̀ri ̀ ha ‘He/She took them (e.g. 

tubers of yam, books, goats)’. 

 

Furthermore, the Igbo ‘take’ verbs wè and chị can combine with 

other simple verb roots to form compound verb structures. This can 



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be illustrated with the verb forms in Example 4. Each of the items 

comprises two roots, giving the syllable structure of the compound 

verb as CVCV. Item 4 (h) has an optional element, ghà, between the 

two CVCV roots; hence the realization of we (ghà) chi/chị (ghà) chi 

‘take back’. In all the items, the idea of ‘take’ inherent in wè and chị 

verbs still manifest; further information about the ‘take’ is then 

given by the additional root. For instance, in (12a) weda / chịda 

achieves its meaning of ‘take down (from a height)’by the 

combination of wè ‘take’ and dà ‘fall (down)’. For wepụ / chịpụ 

(seen in 12b), the idea of ‘take out/take away’ comes in because of 

the addition of pụ ‘go (out/away)’. For the meaning got for 12 (c) 

wèga / chi ̀ga ‘take to’, it is clear because of the meaning of the CV 

root ga ‘go to’. 

The items in Example (13) show that the Igbo compound 

verbs can be inflected. Whereas (13a-c) show the verbs assuming 

infinitive forms by the addition of the infinitive marker i/ị, (13d-f) 

show simple past tense by the suffixation of the L tone past tense 

morpheme, rV suffix, to the compound verbs. 

3.1 Further Discussions 

The verb wè in its canonical form cannot be used to indicate present 

tense in Igbo sentences. This is because only the infinitive form of 

the verb iwè ‘to take’ can occur in the present time meaning. In the 

expression of ‘take’ in the present tense, wè is not acceptable but is 

substituted with jì which has the basic semantic import of ‘take’. 

Examples are shown in below: 

14) Ike   jì    akwà   èje     ahịa 

Ike take cloth pref-go market 

‘Ike takes cloth to the market’ 

 

15) Ike   jì    akwụkwọ     èje     ụlọ akwụkwọ 



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Ike take   book       pref-go house book 

‘Ike takes a book to school’ 

 

16) Ògbu  ehi     jì    ehi    èje       ahịa 

killer  cow take cow pref-go market 

‘The butcher takes cow to the market’ 

 

 

17) Ede   jì       ụkwà         èje     ahịa 

Ede take breadfruit pref-go market 

‘Ede takes breadfruit to the market’ 

 

18) Ede   jì     àhụekere      èje       ụlọ akwụkwọ 

Ede take  groundnut pref-go   house book 

‘Ede takes groundnut to school’ 

 

19)  Ede  jì     ajao ̀to ̀        àrụ         ụlo ̀ 

Ede take soil clay pref-build  house 

‘Ede builds house with clay soil’ 

 

In the above data (14-19), the verb jì relates to the actions/events 

that are current or that are happening or taking place at the time of 

utterance or at the time of speaking. The verb jì depicts singularity 

in (14-16), which invariably influences the object in the sentence to 

become singular. It, however, is neutral to countability, as it can be 

used with countable (singular) and, as seen in (17-19), uncountable 

nouns. This shows that one of the grammatical functions of the 

substitute take verb jì in Igbo is to mark singularity for the object 

NP in the sentence. In the data above (14-16), cloth, book and cow 

are singular and collocate with the verb jì. Also, the data (14-19) 

show that the ‘take’ verb is usually followed by the object NP. This 



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makes for ease of transfer of action from the subject to the object 

thereby making the verb transitive in that sense. Let us look at the 

chị ‘take’ verb in sentences below: 

20) Ibè   chị     akwà      èje       ahịa 

Ibè  take cloth(es) pref-go market 

‘Ibe takes a cloth/some clothes to the market’ 

 

21) Ibè    chị      akwụkwọ     èje      ụlọ  akwụkwọ 

Ibè take(pl)    book      pref-go   house-book 

‘Ibe takes some books to school’ 

 

22) Ibè    chị       ehi     èje      ahịa 

Ibè  take(pl) cow pref-go market 

‘Ibe takes some cows to the market’ 

Examples (20-22) illustrate the plurality of the chị ‘take’ verb in the 

present tense. The verb’s depiction of plurality invariably influences 

the object NP in the sentence to become plural, though not overtly 

marked in Igbo. So in the data (20-22) above, clothes, books and 

cows are in the plural. We must point out that in (20), the meaning 

could be in the singular; for whatever noun that could be described 

as long/wide and flexible is usually associated with chị. Other 

example in that category is u ̀do ̀‘rope(s)’. 

The ‘take’ verbs wè and chị can be used in certain sentential 

constructions or contexts to relate to the actions or events that took 

place in the past at the time of utterance. In such cases, wè and chị 

change to their past form wèèrè and chi ̣̀i ̣̀ri ̣̀ respectively. It is, 

however, acceptable for wè to be substituted with the verb jì, as in 

(23-25); and chị being retained but with L tone in line with the tone 

structure of Igbo past tense verbs, to realize chi ̣̀ to give the plural 

forms, as in (26-28). This is illustrated below: 



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23) Àda   wèèrè/jì    akwà   je   ahịa. 

Ada   take-pst    cloth  go market 

‘Ada took cloth to the market’ 

 

24) Ànyị  wèèrè/jì  ehi   je   àkwamozu 

1pl    take-past cow go    funeral 

‘We took a cow to the funeral’ 

 

25) Onye      nche     wèèrè/jì    egbè   je   ọrụ 

person security   take-pst    gun    go work 

‘The security man went to his work placewith a gun.’ 

26) Àda     chı̀        o ̀kụko ̀   je   ahịa. 

Ada   take(pl) chicken go market 

‘Ada took some chickens to the market.’ 

 

27) Ànyị    chı̀      ehi   je    àkwamozu 

1pl    take(pl) cow go     funeral 

‘We took some cows to the funeral’ 

 

28) Onye    nche        chì      egbè  je   ọrụ 

    person security take(pl) gun   go work 

   ‘The security man went to his work place with some guns.’ 

 

The above data (23-28) indicate that the actions or events have 

happened in the past at the time of speaking. This implies that the 

actions have ceased to happen at the time of speaking. The verb is 

followed immediately by the object NP and gives the object NP its 

form of singularity (in 23-25) or plurality (in 26-28). 



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Example (29a and 29b) illustrate the structures where wè and 

chị change to their past form wèèrè and chi ̣̀i ̣̀ri ̣̀ respectively, by the 

suffixation of the -rV past tense morpheme, to express past tense. 

Examples (29a, 30a and 31a) explain wèèrè while (29b, 30b, 31b) 

illustrate chi ̣̀i ̣̀ri ̣̀: 

 

29) a. Òbi   wèèrè    akụ      

Obi take-pst kernel      

‘Obi took a kernel nut’     
 

b. Òbi      chı̀ı̀rı̀        akụ 

Obi  take(pl)-pst kernel 

‘Obi took some kernel nuts’ 

 

30) a. Ha    were      ụ̀dọ̀      

3pl  take-pst   rope      

‘They took a rope’      

 

b. Ha       chı̀ı̀rı̀        ụdọ 

3pl  take(pl)-pst  rope 

‘They took some ropes’ 
 

31) a. O    wèèrè     akwụkwọ     

3sg take-pst    book      

‘He/She took a book’      

 

 

b. Ọ         chı̀ı̀rı̀        akwukwo 

3sg  take(pl)-pst    book 

‘He/She took some books’ 

 



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All the data items in Example (29a, 30a and 31a) and (29b, 30b, and 

31b) above indicate past time meaning because of the attachment of 

the past tense suffix -rV to the wè and chị verb roots.  

The wè and chị ‘take’ verbs can be inflected to depict 

different negative semantic realizations by attaching the negative 

suffixes to the verb roots. The general negative marker ‘-ghị’ and 

the perfective negative marker ‘-beghị’ as well as the imperative 

negative marker ‘-la’ are the negative suffixes that can be used to 

achieve negation with the Igbo wè and chị ‘take’ verbs. Examples 

are shown below in (32-34) with ‘-ghị’ negative marker for wè and 

chị respectively: 

32) a. Ò      weghı̀      akwụkwọ ahụ̀    

3sg  take-neg      book       dem    

‘He/She did not take the book’   
 

b. Ò         chịghị         akwụkwọ ahụ̀ 

3sg   take(pl)-neg    book       dem 

‘He/She did not take the books’ 

 

33) a. Uchè       ewèghı̀           mkpụrụ    akwụ̄   

Uche   pref-take-neg       seed     palm nut  

  

‘Uche did not take palm nut’    

 

b. Uchè        achịghì            mkpụrụ     akwụ̄ 

Uche   pref-take(pl)-neg   seed     palm nut 

‘Uche did not take palm nuts’ 

 

34) a. Ì           weghı̀   akwà    gị     

2sg    take-neg  cloth    2sg    

‘You did not take your cloth’    



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b. Ì       chịghī           akwà    gị 

2sg  take(pl)-neg  cloth    2sg 

‘You did not take your clothes’ 

 

We illustrate the suffixation of the perfective negative marker ‘-

beghị’ to wè and chị ‘take’ verbs in Examples (35-37) below: 

 

35) a. Ò         webèghì        akà    ahụ̀    

3sg   take-perf-neg  bead  dem    

‘He/She has not taken that bead’   

 

b. Ò           chịbèghì            akà    ahụ̀ 

3sg   take(pl)-perf-neg  bead  dem 

He/She has not taken those beads’ 

 

36) a. Akụ       ewebèghì            akwà  ahụ    

Aku  pref-take-perf-neg   cloth  dem   

‘Aku has not taken that cloth’    

 

b. Akụ    ewebèghì              akwà  ahụ 

Aku pref-take-perf-neg   cloth  dem 

‘Aku has not taken those clothes’ 

 

37) a. Ò       webèghì         ụ̀dò     

  

3sg take-perf-neg    rope    

‘He/She has not taken a rope’    

 

b. Ò         chịbèghì             ụ̀dò  

3sg take(pl)-perf-neg   rope 



A Phono-semantic Account of Igbo ‘Take’ Verb: - Eme & Uwaezuoke 

 

338 

 

‘He/She has not taken the ropes’ 

In (38-40) below, we show that the wè and chị ‘take’ verbs can 

inflect with the imperative negative maker ‘-la’ for a different 

semantic interpretation. This is illustrated thus: 

 

38) a. Ewèlà                          ji    

  

pref-take-imp-neg    yam     

‘Do not take a yam’     

 

b. Achīla                           ji 

pref-take(pl)-imp-neg yam 

‘Do not take yams’ 

 

39) a. Ewèlà                       òkè    m     

pref-take-imp-neg   share 1sg     

‘Do not take my share’    

 

b. Achīla                          òkè    m 

pref-take(pl)-imp-neg share 1sg 

‘Do not take my shares’ 

 

40) a. Ewèlà                     akwụkwọ   m ̄    

pref-take-imp.neg     book      1sg    

‘Do not take my book’    
 

b.  Achīla                         akwụkwọ  m ̄ 
pref-take(pl)-imp.neg    book      1sg 

‘Do not take my books’ 

 



          Awka Journal of Linguistics and Languages, Special Edition 1,  2022 

 

339 

 

Although we have glossed (38a, 39a and 40a) for singular and (38b, 

39b and 40b) for plural, it is pertinent to note that (39b) could also 

imply single entity. For example, if pieces of meat are shared into 

slots whereby a slot could contain ten pieces, one is right to use the 

sentence as in (39b). We see, however, that in this instance, we are 

referring to a singular entity or set containing many pieces, hence 

the use of chị ‘take’ verb. This issue is further exemplified in the 

following paragraph. 

The wè and chị ‘take’ verbs can be used with certain nouns 

to depict both singularity and plurality. In this sense, both wè and 

chị can be used as singular and also as plural. In such a case, the 

verbs denote the nature of the noun, which often involves something 

long or wide that requires folding together or items in a set, such as 

cloth, rope, a share of pieces of meat, heap of groundnuts. This is 

illustrated in the examples below: 

41) a. Wepụ̀         akwà     

take-leave  cloth      

‘Take away the cloth/clothes’    

 

b.  Chịpụ̀         akwà 

take-leave  cloth 

‘Take away the cloth/clothes’ 

 

42) a. Wepụ̄   ụ̀dọ̀      

take-leave rope      

‘Take away the rope/ropes’    

 

b.  Chịpụ̄         ụ̀dọ̀ 
take-leave  rope 

            ‘Take away the rope/ropes’ 

 



A Phono-semantic Account of Igbo ‘Take’ Verb: - Eme & Uwaezuoke 

 

340 

 

43) a. Wère       òkè    m     

take-imp share 1sg      

‘Take my share/shares’    

 

b. Chìrị         òkè    m 

take-imp  share 1sg 

‘Take my share/shares’ 

 

4. Conclusion 

The research is a phono-semantic account of the Igbo ‘take’ verbs 

wè and chị. It discovered that the verbs perform interesting semantic 

functions which range from the expression of singular and plural to 

portraying countable and uncountable notions. On tone, wè and chị 

in their simple structure bear low tone and high tone respectively. 

However, when the root is combined with affixes or other roots to 

yield complex or compound verb forms and portraying further 

meanings in declarative, imperative, perfective and negative 

constructions, the tone may change. The change in tone is as 

expected, as it aligns with the already established behaviour of tone 

in Igbo grammar in some of the earlier studies on the Igbo verbs, 

including the fact that Igbo verb + -rV past suffix is always on a low 

tone. This study adds to the existing knowledge on verbal plurality 

and countability, not just in the Igbo language but in language in 

general. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 



          Awka Journal of Linguistics and Languages, Special Edition 1,  2022 

 

341 

 

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