VERBS OF FISHING IN IJAW

ABSTRACT

This analyses fishing verbs in the Mein/Egbema dialect of the Izon/Ijaw language. It investigates the manifestation of fishing verbs in the dialect. The study of the verbs use for fishing (fishing verbs) has been a neglected area of study and little or no work has been done based on fishing verbs in Ijaw language,, This is why the focus of this work is very significant. The theoretical framework used in this project is Chomsky 1965 model of transformational generative grammar. This theory is described as a linguistic theory that considers grammar as a system of rules that is intended to generate the combinations of words which form grammatical sentences in a given language. The methodology used for data collection is the primary and secondary data, where by data were gathered majorly from competent native speakers of the language and gathering little or no data from textbooks and online materials. The study found out that there is the pre-fishing activities, main fishing activities and post-fishing activities, fishing verbs are categorize into: Hooks and lines, cages, traps, baskets, nets, hand and others. The Ijaw language/dialect is very rich in the vocabulary of fishing because of the cultural value of fishing. This study will serve as a pre-cursor to deeper investigation in the study of verbs of fishing.