ABSTRACT
The human body and it's part, has been a very important topic for discussion across various discipline, and also in linguistics. Since language across the world differs in their linguist structure, so is body part terms viewed differently across languages and one cannot use the findings of one language structure of body part terms to infer the same for another language. This study therefore, describes and investigate body parts terminology of the Agbarho Urhobo dialect of Deltas state, a major language in the south region of Nigeria. Although there has been a research work done on the social linguistics aspect of the language, but the linguistics aspect of the language has not been fully explored, let alone the linguistics structure of body part terminology of the language.
This study, focus on the semantic aspect of body part, some of the roles ascribe to body part, their shared relationship, how they are classified. we would be analyzing the data for body parts terminology of the language, I have gathered, to show how body parts operates within the confines of this language, showing also the linguistics terminology for conceptualization of body parts in the language. A thorough literature review was fine, of topic relating to this study. A primary and secondary methodology was employed; the first being data collected from indigenous speakers of the language and the other from consulted text books, and published online works on the said topic. From my finding, I discovered that the body parts terminologies in Urhobo are semantically determined by some factor, either that they are in relationship with other body parts or their functions.
In conclusion, body parts terms in Urhobo, are semantically structured, based on their shared relationship with others, while some are with regards to their functions.
