18

Obolo
(Lower Cross, Delta Cross, Cross River)

Derek Nurse

18.1 General
Some 100,000 people speak varieties of Obolo in a group of more than twenty islands in
the extreme southeast corner of the Niger Delta in SE Nigeria, facing the Atlantic Ocean.
Obolo refers to the language, the people, and their homeland. The government name is
Andoni. Obolo is closely related to better known Lower Cross languages such as Ibibio
and Efik. Until recently many Obolo spoke Igbo and Ibibio as second languages. The
younger generation speaks Nigerian Pidgin English and/or Nigerian Standard English
beside Obolo. Our analysis relies entirely on Faraclas (1984, 122 pages).
Obolo distinguishes an extra high (circumflex accent), a high (acute accent), and a
low tone (unmarked)1. The tonal shape of some verb forms is the sum of the tones of the
SM, any AM marker, and the tone of the root, but in many forms there is a superimposed
tonal shape so that the tonal contour is not the sum of the tones of individual morphemes.
Tone is very important in verbal distinctions. Also, “Obolo utterances are divided into
stress groups and each such group receives one stress. Stress groups are usually centered
around a verb […] Stress is normally marked by an extra high or a gliding tone”.
The central role of tone in the verb system can be illustrated by considering the
structure o-tele (2s-leave). It occurs in several different surface tonal shapes, e.g. ó-télé
„you leave/left‟, íkpá -télé „letters that you left‟, o-téle íkpá „you left the letters‟. We do
not attempt below to describe tone patterns fully.
The Obolo consonant system is unexceptional for the area: it has only two
fricatives (/f, s/) and lacks any /p/. There are six vowel qualities, (/i, e, a, , o, u/). All
occur short and long, the long ones being relatively rare and tending to shorten in many
contexts. Syllables in Obolo can have these structures only: V, N. (only in prefixes), CV,
CVC, CV:C, CGV, CGVC.

18.2 Word order

Obolo is predominantly S V O Other. O has the order DO V2 IO, where either or both
parts can be nominal or pronominal. DO, IO, and adverbials can be fronted for emphasis.
Questions can be fronted (relativised) or not:

1 Faraclas says each of the three has two major allotones: for the extra high, a level extra high tone or a fall
from extra high to high; for the high, a level high or a fall from high to low; and for the low, a level low or
a rise from low to high. The contexts for these allotones are not given so we simply refer to the three tones
as extra high, high, and low.
2 O has the order DO IO, where DO and IO have to be separated by a verb, often „give‟, so a construction
with V DO IO is like a serial verb construction: -ge íkpá ínyí emi iyákwut „He wrote the letter to me
yesterday.‟ lit. „He write letter give me yesterday‟.

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(1) a i-gé3 kké
3s-write what
„What did 3s write?‟

b kké ké -gé
what that 3s-write
„What did 3s write?‟

We did not find examples where use of an auxiliary led to inversion of V O.

18.3 Verb structure

The canonical verb structure is: M - SM - NEG - AM – root.

M: m- “Weak future”. A preverbal #ke# does or may occur before subjunctive forms.

SM: 1s N-, 2s o-, 3s is i- in most contexts but o- in contexts including subjunctive and
preverbal focus. The most common SM for 1/2/3p is e- (most often H-or extra-H-toned).
Other plural SM markers are mi-, i-, and me-, each occurring in a limited range of
contexts. Since plural SMs are neutral for person, they have to be preceded by an
independent 1/2/3p pronoun.

NEG: the plural NEG /kpe/ always occurs verb-initially, preceded by an independent
pronoun, not an SM. The other negative formatives occur after the SM (see §6).

AM:  FAC; -ki- IPFV (always high- or extra-high-toned); -ké-kí-4 HAB; -g(-k)- or -
m(-k)- PRG; -ke-bí- PRESSIMUL5; -ba- “strong future”, conditional; -ba-kí- “strong
future” IPFV; -ba- or -ri-, optionally followed by -bé- or -ré-, followed by infinitival í-
PFT.
As can be seen, the AM position can be filled by zero, one, two, or, exceptionally,
three 6 morphemes in a string. Most markers with two (or three) syllables are visibly
sequences of single morphemes. IPFV -kí- comes last in a sequence.

Root: verb roots have these shapes: CV, CVC, CGV, CV:C, CVCV. The commonest type
CV, and CGV are always H-toned, whereas the other types can be H or L. In CVCV
verbs, the vowel of the second syllable is that of the first. The few three syllable verbs
involve reduplication.
Productive root reduplication reduplicates the initial consonant and the initial
vowel, /i, u/ of the root lowering to /e, o/. For the function of reduplication, see §5.3,
below. With the possible exception of -na, only occurring on monosyllables, Obolo verbs
do not have suffixal extensions.

3 In all examples we follow Faraclas in using four verbs, shown with their basic/lexical tone: -gé „write‟
and -télé „leave‟, -fuk „read/count‟ and -bk „receive!‟.
4Faraclas regards ké-kí as reduplication of -kí-, with accompanying lowering of [i].
5 Abbreviation PRESSIMUL is used in this chapter for Faraclas‟ “present simultaneous”, an apparently
subordinate form, explained and exemplified below (§18.4).
6The one three-morpheme combination is an alternative Progressive form, omitted here.

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18.4 Aspect, mood
Faraclas shows a total of forty-two positive forms contrasting indicative, subjunctive,
aspect, modal futures, focus, and imperative. Six of these are regional or are variants
(often short), reducing the total to thirty-six.
He distinguishes two basic aspects, completive and continuative, and several
tenses: “present”, “present simultaneous”, three “futures” (weak, strong, very strong), and
“past anterior”. Following the general practice in this book we accept completive and
continuative as (the basic) aspects but re-label them as Factative (FAC) and imperfective
(IPFV), respectively. FAC is the unmarked member; IPFV is marked by adding kí and
changing the tone pattern. Faraclas shows all forms as basically FAC or IPFV, plus their
other categories. This includes subjunctive and imperative (seen §18.5, below), which are
Factative, but can be made imperfective.

(2) a -ge íkpá

1s-write letter
„I write/wrote a letter‟7 (FAC)

b n-kí-ge íkpá
1s-IPFV-write letter
„I am/was writing a letter‟ (IPFV)

We reinterpret his “tenses” as aspects or modals. This reinterpretation has to be tentative

because forms are described and illustrated briefly – in line with his intent “to provide an
adequate, though by no means exhaustive, description of the grammatical structures of
the languages” (p. vii) – and there is no body of texts that would enable us to more fully
explore the functions of the “tenses”.
We interpret his “futures” as modal forms rather than future tenses (and thus gloss
these morphemes as M). This is because their primary function is not simply reference to
future time but a combination of time reference with a strong modal component. Thus he
says of the “weak future” patterns that they “often express desire or speculation about the
future, rather than what will actually come to pass”, and translates them by “will” or
“want to”. The “weak future” is also shown in sentences translated by English
conditionals. The “weak future” is encoded by a morpheme /ma/ at the verb-initial M
slot, where it combines with following SMs like this: 1s m-, 2s and 3s m-, plural m-.
The ma that occurs in the “weak future” derives from the independent verb -má „like,
love‟.
He talks of the “strong future” in two ways: 1. “used to express actions or states
of being that the speaker is sure will occur in the future”, and 2. “conveys a very strong
sense of obligation to realize an action or state of being in the future”. It is represented by
the morpheme /-ba-/, which shows the same range of vowels as the “weak future”.
Examples of “weak futures” (3a-e), “strong futures”, (3f-g)”, both in (3h):

7We follow Faraclas‟ glosses. It should be noted that he varies between singular and plural glosses for
nouns, and between English present and past glosses for verbs.

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(3) a m-gé íkpá
1s.M-write letter
„I will (want to) write a letter.‟

b owu m-tele íkpá

2s 2s.M-leave letter
„You will leave a letter.‟

c om m-fuk íkpá „3s will read a letter.‟

d eji m-bk íkpá „We will receive a letter.‟

e ke má-gég íkpá
ke 1s.M-write letter
„I should (could, will) have written a letter.‟

f m-b-ge íkpá „I will write a letter (it‟s a sure thing).‟

g m-b-g íkpá „I will write a letter, I will have to write a letter.‟

h mé mgb m-b-ge íkpá om m-nu

by time 1s.M-M-write letter, 3s 3s.M-come
„By the time I will begin to write a letter, he will have come.‟

Despite our interpretation of his futures as modals we will continue to refer to

them as the “weak” and “strong” futures. We interpret his “present tense”, “present
(simultaneous) tense”, “past anterior tense” as aspects: progressive, progressive
(subordinate), and perfect, respectively. The “present” can hardly be a present as it
translates as both present and past, so on the evidence of the one sentence available we
see it as a progressive:

(4) owu o-ga-ki-télé íkpá „You are leaving a letter‟, or „You were leaving ...when..‟

The “present (simultaneous)” can likewise refer to past or present situations but
has an additional component which, judging from Faraclas‟ few examples, appears to be
a dependent status: it appears only in subordinate clauses, and indicates an action ongoing
at the same time as the main verb. (These are the only examples):

(5) a -ke-bí-gé íkpá, n-k-gwén owu

1s-PRESSIMUL-write letter, 1s-NEG-call you
„As I am writing a letter, I didn‟t call you.‟

b owu ó-ke-bí-télé íkpá, n-k-gwén owu

2s 2s-PRESSIMUL-leave letter, 1s-NEG-call you
„As you were leaving a letter, I didn‟t call you.‟

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 c íkpá é-ké-bí-bk míwá „The letters that we are receiving are many.‟

There also appears to be what is best described an habitual, illustrated but not
formally recognized by Faraclas:

(6) n-k-kí-gé íkpá „I am/was always writing letters, used to write letters.‟

Finally, although Faraclas has a tense called “past anterior”, the four examples
given are translated by the English perfect, which inclines us to regard this as perfect
(aspect):

(7) a -ra-í-gé íkpá „I have written a letter (already).‟

b owu ó-ba-í-télé íkpá „You have left a letter.‟

c -ra-bí-fuk íkpá „3s has read a letter.‟

d ji m-ba-bí-bk íkpá „We have received a letter.‟

It is possible that eastern varieties of Obolo have a real past tense. Faraclas gives a
number of eastern examples that involve ka (variants ko, ke) and are translated by
English pasts, not perfects (p.78):

(8) a -k-gé íkpá „I wrote a letter.‟ (cf (2), above)

b ogwú o-k-ge íkpá „Person who wrote books…‟ (cf (16), below)

c íkpá n-k-ki-gé.. „Letter that I was writing...‟ (cf (16), below)

In summary, we see Obolo as a language with aspects and moods, but no tense
contrasts. Thus it has a basic FAC : IPFV distinction, plus two modal “futures”, two
progressives (one used in main clause, one in subordinate), an habitual, and a perfect.
There is (possibly), a conditional (see §18.5.5).

18.5 Other categories

18.5.1 Imperative
Singular imperatives are morphologically unmarked and have their root tone (except if
said in isolation, where stress intervenes to produce an extra high tone). Plural
imperatives add the plural prefix i-. The negative formative is -ka-, and the root takes a
H. The basic imperative is Factative but can be made imperfective in the usual way, by
adding k.

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(9) FAC NEG IPFV NEG

Singular gé íkpá ka-gé íkpá kí-gé íkpá ka-k-gé íkpá

„Write a letter!‟ „Be writing a letter!‟

Plural i-fuk íkpá í-ka-fúk íkpá i-ki-fúk ípká í-ka-k-fúk íkpá

„Read a letter!‟ „Be reading letters‟!8

18.5.2 Subjunctive
Subjunctives, focus forms, and relativized verbs mainly differ tonally from corresponding
indicative, neutral focus, and absolutive forms, respectively9. The tone differences affect
SMs and/or stems, the latter having a consistent high-low surface pattern in the
subjunctive. The “relative conjunction” ke may also occur before a “subjunctive”, in
which case the tones are sometimes not those typical of the subjunctive. Examples:

(10) Indicative -fuk íkpá „He reads/read a letter.‟

Subjunctive m-r om fk íkpá

3s.M-make 3s 3s-read.SBJ letter
„He will make him read a letter.‟

SBJ + verb focus m-r om í-fófk íkpá „He will make him read a letter.‟

SBJ + IPFV m-r om í-kí-fk íkpá

3s.M-make 3s 3s-IPFV-read.SBJ letter
„He will make him to be reading…‟

but -gé íkpá „I write/wrote a letter‟, and ke -gé íkpá „I should have written a letter‟10

18.5.3 Focus
Verbs may be focus neutral, that is, no particular part of the utterance is emphasized, as
in the pair in (2), repeated here as (11):

(11) a. -ge íkpá „I write/wrote a letter.‟ (FAC)

b. n-k-ge íkpá „I am/was writing a letter.‟ (IPFV)

Verbs may also have “prefocus, postfocus, verb focus, or auxiliary = aspect
focus”. The differences are mainly tonal: a few cases may involve the use of pronouns:
verb focus also involves reduplicating the initial consonant and vowel of the root: and
aspect focus may also reduplicate what Faraclas calls the auxiliary, which we label AM

8Faraclas translates this and its negative equivalent with “letters”, not “a letter”.
9The 3s has i-, for indicative o-.
10Faraclas labels this as “subjunctive”, but his reason is not clear.

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(Aspect-Mood). Pre- may not co-occur with post-focus, nor verb with aspect focus, but
prefocus or postfocus may co-occur with verb or aspect focus.
Prefocus “puts emphasis on elements occurring in the same sentence, but
preceding the verb”. Faraclas‟ prefocus examples put emphasis on the subject or are
relative clauses where the nominal object precedes the verb. Prefocus is usually marked
by emphasis, resulting in a high or extra-high tone, on the SM. When the subject is
emphasized, an independent pronoun is often used as well11. Examples, with emphasis
underlined:

(12) a owu ó-kí-télé íkpá

2s 2s-IPFV-leave letter
„You were leaving a letter.‟

b íkpá (bé) o-télé míwá

letters (REL) 2s-leave many
„The letters (that) you left are many.‟

Postfocus puts emphasis on elements following the verb in the same sentence.
Faraclas‟ examples put emphasis on the object or the complement in relative clauses
whose nominal subject precedes the verb. The tonal patterns of postfocus forms differ
from those in focus neutral forms but the details are not clear to us. Examples:

(13) a n-g íkpá iyákwut

1s-write letter yesterday
„I wrote the letter yesterday.‟, or „I wrote the letter yesterday.‟

b ogwú o-g íkpá „Person who writes books…‟

Verb focus is marked in all cases by reduplicating the verb stem. Whether verb focus
forms share tonal properties is unclear to us. Examples:

(14) a n-gge íkpá „I wrote a letter.‟

b íkpá -fofuk i-k-má „The letter he read he didn‟t like.‟

c b
i-b k íkpá „Receive the letter!‟

Auxiliary/aspect focus most often has a compound or double morpheme at AM.

Sometimes this involves reduplication, in other cases an apparent sequence of
morphemes. Faraclas regards the “strong future” as [+ auxiliary focus]. Examples:

(15) a. n-k-kí-gé íkpá „I am/was always writing letters‟ (HAB, reduplicated kí)

b. n-g-kí-gé íkpá „I am writing a letter‟ (PRG)

11 In this case the 3s SM is o-, not i-.

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 c. m-b-ge íkpá „I will write a letter‟ (stronger than m-gé íkpá)

18.5.4 Relatives
Relative clauses are have three formal characteristics: 1. they differ tonally from
absolutives, 2. they have different SMs in some cases from those in absolutives, and 3.
they optionally involve the use of “relative conjunctions” (such as ké, bé) or
demonstratives pronouns (such as eyí). We ignore 3. in the display in (16). (16) presents
examples of absolutives (2nd column), object relatives (where the head noun and the
object of the relative clause have the same referent: 3rd column), and subject relatives
(where head noun and subject of the relative clause have the same referent: 4th column).

(16) Relatives

Absolutive Object relative Subject relative

Factative -fuk íkpá Íkpá -fuk ogwú o-g íkpá
Neutral focus „3s-reads/read letter.‟ „letter 3s-read‟ „person who-writes
-gé íkpá íkpá  n-gé letters‟
„I-write/wrote letter.‟ „letter I-wrote‟
Factative n-gge íkpá Íkpá -fofuk ogwú o-gge íkpá
Verb focus „I-wrote letter.‟ „book 3s-read‟ „person who-writes
i-ffuk íkpá letters‟
„3s-read letter.‟
Imperfective n-kí-ge íkpá Íkpá 
n-kí-gé ogwú o-kí-ge íkpá
Neutral focus „I am/was writing letter.‟ „letters I was writing‟ „person who-is/was-
i-kí-fuk íkpá íkpá -kí-fuk writing letter‟
„3s is/was reading letter.‟ „letters 3s was
reading‟
“Weak future” m-gé íkpá Íkpá m-g
„I.will-write letter.‟ „letters I.will-write‟
om m-fuk íkpá
„3s.will-read letter.‟
“Strong future” m-b-ge íkpá Íkpá m  -ba-ge
„I-will-write letter.‟ „letters I-will-write‟
i-b-fuk íkpá íkpá -bo-fuk
„I-will-read letter.‟ „letters 3s-will-read‟

It is not easy to generalize about the tonal patterns in (16), partly because in any row or
column several factors are at play (focus, aspect, person, etc), partly because the tones
shown above, taken from Faraclas‟ paradigms, sometimes differ from the same or similar
forms shown elsewhere in his text in a sentence context, partly because the tonal
generalizations he himself makes, while mostly accurate, do not always seem to
correspond to the forms he shows.
Nevertheless, starting from the assumption that the absolutive column represents a
relatively unmarked set of forms, it seems to be true that: what characterizes the object

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relative is an extra high or an additional high tone, mostly on the SM, occasionally
displaced on to the first stem syllable; what characterizes the subject relative is that the
SM always has a low tone, and that some SM differ from those in the absolutive.

18.5.5 Conditionals/Subjunctive?

Faraclas has three forms translated by English conditionals:

(17) a ke -gé íkpá „I could (should, will) have written a letter.‟

(neutral focus)

b ke -gég íkpá
(as preceding but verb (written) focus)

c ke om ó-fofk íkpá „3s could (should, will) have written a letter.’
(verb focus)

d ke má-gég íkpá „I could (should, will) have written a letter.‟

(also with verb focus)

While he translates these by English conditionals, he labels them “subjunctives”.

It is not clear to us why they are so labeled, for several reasons: Their tones do not
correspond to the tones of any other subjunctives shown in the book; if all persons, not
just the first person as illustrated, are compared to all other structures and tones shown in
the book, they correspond to none (subjunctive or indicative); the 3s for the first two has
anomalous o-, not the i- that occurs in other subjunctives. Finally, he says that this ke can
occur with other subjunctives, and refers to it (p.58) as the “relative conjunction”, but its
tone is low, while that of the relative conjunction is high. While we are therefore not sure
that these are subjunctives, we are not sure of their status because none appears in
context, so we prefer to call them conditionals.

18.6 Negation
Faraclas shows twenty-two contrastive verbal negatives, roughly half the number of
positives, which means that some positive forms are neutralized in the negative. There
are three morphological patterns in verbal negation12. 1. The commonest involves -ka-,
which occurs in the singulars of all non-“futures” and also in the plurals of the
subjunctive, imperative, perfect, and “present simultaneous”. 2. With the exceptions just
listed, all plural persons, including those in the “future”, are marked by kpe-, and
preceded not by a SM but by the independent pronoun. 3. In both “futures”, singulars are
marked by one of /-kaba-, -kpa, -kpaba-/. The result is an interlocking pattern illustrated
in (18), with the negative morphemes underlined:

12 All three patterns have [a] in 1s, [o] in 2s and 3s, and [e] in plural forms. It is tempting to posit that [kpa]
is related to or derived from [ka] but it is not clear how. The “future” formatives [kaba] and [kpaba] seem
to consist of [ka, kpa] plus [ba], which latter also occurs in some positive “future” forms. There does not
appear to be a single tone associated with /ka/ or /kpa/.

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(18) Negatives

Positive (s) Negative (s) Positive (p) Negative (p)

-gé íkpá n-k-gé íkpá eji m-fuk íkpá eji kp-fuk íkpá
„I wrote a letter.‟ „We read a letter.‟
o-ggé íkpá o-ká-gég íkpá eji é-bbk íkpá eji kpé-bb
k íkpá
„You wrote a letter.‟ „We received a letter.‟
gé íkpá ka-gé íkpá i-fuk íkpá í-ka-fúk íkpá
„Write a letter!‟ „Read a letter!‟
n-gég íkpá -ka-gég íkpá k íkpá
eji é-b eji é-ka-bk íkpá
„Let me write (SBJ).‟ „Let us receive a letter.‟
m-gé íkpá n-ká-ba-ge íkpá, eji m-bk íkpá eji kp-bk íkpá
„I‟ll write a letter.‟ or kp-g íkpá „We will receive a letter.‟

The differences in these patterns do not seem really significant to us because they
do not correspond to differences in aspect or mood, as they do in other languages
examined. They either reflect singular versus plural (1. versus 2., above) or, in the case of
[k] versus [kp] or [ka-ba] versus [kpa], possibly result from vowel loss and consonant
assimilation. The vowel alternations seen in singular [ka] versus plural [kpe], and 1s
[kaba] versus 2/3s [kobo] also occur in other morphemes at AM, e.g. in both modal
“futures”, so again do not seem significant.

18.7 ‘Be’, auxiliaries

Faraclas (55-6) suggests that five verbs correspond in some way to English „be‟: -wá
„(there) is/are‟; -ré equational/copula „be‟, also „arrive‟; -kúp/-kwéek „sit, sit down, be,
be located temporarily‟; -lk „be located (permanently)‟; 3s postfocus form of -bét „be
like‟ plus lék „body‟ renders „seem, appear, be like‟. Examples, all Factative13:

(19) a ogwú íjjee om ó-wá

person teacher (=INF+ verb focus) 3s.PRO 3s-be.FAC
„There is a teacher (there).‟

b Áyija i-re ogwú íjjee

Ayija 3s-be.FAC person teacher
„Ayija is a teacher.‟

c Ntíja -kup me Átábá

Ntija 3s-sit.FAC in Ataba
„Ntija is staying in/is visiting Ataba.‟

13 They are Factative simply because none contains the Imperfective marker /kí/. We note in passing that
„be‟ in other Niger-Congo languages examined does not always behave as other verbs in terms of FAC
versus IPFV.

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 d Ntíja -lúk me Átábá
Ntija 3s-be.FAC in Ataba
„Ntija lives in Ataba.‟

e i-bét lék m-ge îkpá

3s-be.like.FAC body 1s.M-write letter
„It seems that I will write a/the letter.‟

Neither auxiliary nor modal verbs seem to play any central role in Obolo. Obolo
has many serial verb constructions, in which the first verb inflects and all others are
infinitives, as in:

(20)  -fuk í-gé

m í-kwéé í-sibí
1s-read INF-write INF-study INF-go.out
„I read, wrote, studied, and went out.‟

„Go, come, do first, do repeatedly, do again, bring together, begin‟ often occur as the first
verb in such constructions ((21a-d)), and „finish, do more than, do most, do a lot, do fully,
be many‟ often follow other verbs ((21e-g)). Verbs corresponding in meaning to English
modal meanings often occur followed by one infinitive: „know, be able, want, must,
begin‟ ((21h-j)).

(21) a -sí í-gé íkpá

1s-go INF-write letter
„I went (and) wrote a letter.‟

b -ní14-gé íkpá
1s-come.INF-write letter
„I came (and) write a letter.‟ (it came to pass that…)

c. m-kpkpk í-kí-gé íkpá

1s.RED.repeat INF-IPFV-write letter
„I kept on writing the letter.‟

d m-kpkpk í-yá í-kí-gé15 íkpá

1s.RED.repeat INF-do.again INF-IPFV-write letter
„I rewrote the letter.‟

e -gé íkpá í-sáá

1s.write letter INF-finish
„I finished writing the letter.‟

14 Nú „come‟ + í INF > [ní].

15 As (21d, i) show, the infinitive can be IPFV (kí) or verb focus (RED).

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 f -gé íkpá í-gak ogt
1s.write letters INF-surpass 3s
„I wrote more letters than 3s did.‟

g -gé íkpá í-wá

1s-write letters INF-be.many
„I wrote many letters.‟

h n-ry í-gé íkpá

1s-know INF-write letters
„I can/know how to write letters.‟

i m-week í-gge íkpá

1s-want INF-RED.write letter
„I want to write a letter.‟

j m-béné í-gé íkpá

1s.begin INF-write letter
„I began to write a letter.‟

References
Faraclas, N.G. 1984. Obolo Grammar. Bloomington: Indiana University Linguistics
Club.

Obolo ~ Chapter Eighteen Page 12