Echo questions in the Igbo language

Abstract

Echo question (EQ) refers to the type of question formed by repeating an earlier utterance, hence, the name ‗echo‘.Scholars have different views concerning the meaning of the concept of echo question. Some see it as the question that repeats wholly or partly a previous utterance of any sentence type while others see it as the structure that questions inferences drawn from previous utterances. Researches on echo question dwell more on the debate of whether echo questions have syntactic properties or pragmatic properties. Noted also is the fact that majority of the studies done on echo question concentrate on the echo question of the English language with little or no attention paid to the African languages in general and the Igbo language in particular. Consequently, the present study aims at examining and describing the operation(s) of echo question in the Igbo language.