Editing Igbo language (section)

== Vocabulary ==

=== Word classes ===
Lexical categories in Igbo include nouns, pronouns, numerals, verbs, adjectives, conjunctions, and a single preposition.<ref name=":2">{{cite book |last1=Green |first1=M. M. |last2=Igwe |first2=G. E. |year=1963 |title=A Descriptive Grammar of Igbo |publisher=Deutsche Akademie der Wissenschaften zu Berlin: Institut für Orientforschung}}</ref> The meaning of {{lang|ig|na}}, the single preposition, is flexible and must be ascertained from the context. Examples from Emenanjo (2015) illustrate the range of meaning:

{{interlinear|number=(1)|lang=ig
|O bì '''n''''Enugwū.
|3sg live '''PREP'''-Enugwū
|'He lives '''in''' Enugwū.'}}

{{interlinear
| number = (2)
| lang = ig|O bì ebeà '''n''''ogè agha.|3sg live here '''PREP'''-time war|'He lived here '''during''' the time of the war.'
}}

{{interlinear|number=(3)|lang=ig
|Ndị Fàda kwènyèrè '''n''''atọ̀ '''n''''ime otù.
|people Catholic believe '''PREP'''-three '''PREP'''-inside one
|'The Catholics believe in the [[Trinity]].'<ref name=":0" />}}

Igbo has an extremely limited number of [[adjective]]s in a [[closed class]]. Emenanjo (1978, 2015)<ref>{{cite book |last=Emenanjo |first=Nolue |year=1978 |title=Elements of Modern Igbo Grammar - a descriptive approach |location=Ibadan, Nigeria |publisher=Oxford University Press}}</ref><ref name=":0">{{cite book |last=Emenanjo |first=Nolue |title=A Grammar of Contemporary Igbo: Constituents, Features and Processes |location=Oxford |publisher=M and J Grand Orbit Communications |year=2015}}</ref> counts just eight, which occur in pairs of opposites: {{lang|ig|ukwu}} 'big', {{lang|ig|nta}} 'small'; {{lang|ig|oji}} 'dark', {{lang|ig|ọcha}} 'light'; {{lang|ig|ọhụrụ}} 'new', {{lang|ig|ochie}} 'old'; {{lang|ig|ọma}} 'good'; {{lang|ig|njọ}} 'bad'.<ref>{{cite encyclopedia |first=JR |last=Payne |year=1990 |title=Language Universals and Language Types |editor-last=Collinge |encyclopedia=An Encyclopedia of Language}}</ref> Adjectival meaning is otherwise conveyed through the use of stative verbs or abstract nouns.

Verbs, by far the most prominent category in Igbo, host most of the language's morphology and appear to be the most basic category; many processes can derive new words from verbs, but few can derive verbs from words of other classes.<ref name=":0" />

Igbo pronouns do not index gender, and the same pronouns are used for male, female and inanimate beings. So the sentence, {{lang|ig|ọ maka}} can mean "he, she or it is beautiful".