ABSTRACT

Aktionsart and aspect are essential parts of studies in Igbo verbs. Aktionsart is an important aspect of the classification of Igbo verbs which was first classified by (Vendler, 1957). According to Amalia Moser (2011), aktionsart and aspect are both perceived as being associated with the internal temporal constituency of situations.

(Agbo, 2010) previously worked on verb classification and aktionsart in Igbo though his work was based on developing six syntactic tests for determining verb classes and aktionsart in Igbo, he applied a test on the verb classes using a causative verb, adverbs and the progressive marker na'. (Agbo and Onuorah, 2021) also worked on semelfactivity in Igbo. Their interest lay on the relationship between semelfactives and inherent complement verbs.

Ikegwuonu (2019) worked on Aspect: An element of INFL phrase in Igbo syntax where she examined aspect as an element of INFL phrase in Igbo. Maduagwu (2016) worked on tense, aspect and negation markings in ogbalu dialect of Igbo. She revealed that tense, negation and aspect was functional in the language as opposed to previous studies.

The objective of this work which is purely descriptive is to analyze aktionsart and aspectual classes, to determine their representation in the structure of Igbo and to examine their differences and similarities, if any.

In this work, igbo language, a major language in Nigeria is used as a case study. The method of data collection used was that of qualitative method. The data for the study was descriptively analyzed and obtained through introspection and native speaker intuition.

Aktionsart which is inherent in Igbo is different from aspect which is morphological but with copious data the fact that aspect is embedded within aktionsart due to its derivational nature has been established.