ABSTRACT
Though acclaimed as a universal phenomenon, to the knowledge of the researcher, not many studies have discussed deixis in several languages, and, in particular, not Ígálà which is a member of the Kwa Language family. In order to capture the ways in which deictic terms function and are employed in Ígálà, the study investigated deictics in Ígálà and further determines whether or not these terms are positioned to aid the comprehension and interpretation, discourse/interaction in different contexts. This study examines the semantic features and pragmatic uses of personal, spatial, temporal and discourse deictic terms in Ígálà. Data used for this research were sourced from books, conversations/interactions and recorded events such as marriage ceremonies, market transactions, casual conversations, dispute settlements, motor park conversations and security meetings. The study investigates the use of deictics in different situational contexts outlining its distinctiveness in Ígálà. Adopting Halliday‟s (1985) Functional approach to linguistic studies and Cutting‟s (2002) discourse approach to analyse the collected data, the study examines also, how Ígálà deictics are positioned to aid the comprehension and interpretation of discourse in interaction in different contexts. Among the findings of the research is the lack of distinct gender representation in Ígálà. The lexemes (oun, í, e, un/he, she, and it) are used to distinguish one gender from the other. Also, in the spatial domain, Ígálà demonstrate a five - way system 'eí/èélá (this/that), èmí/òÌmóÌ (here/there, anumóÌ (over there) and two additional ones; anumóÌ-anumóÌ (distal from interlocutors), 'anumóÌ-anumóÌ-anumóÌ (farther from interlocutors)' in space. In addition, the study found that more of person deixis are used in conversation. Consequent upon the findings, the study upholds that though Ígálà, like any natural language has indexicals, some semantic features and pragmatic uses differ especially from one context to the other.
