Troponymy of the Verb Root-gbu 'kill' in Compound Construction in Igbo

Troponymy is a type of sense inclusion specific to verbs. In the Igbo language, a west Benue-Congo sub family of the Proto Benue-Congo language family, troponymy includes sense ranges of the verb root- gbu 'kill' relating to ' manner verb-manner - manner result' ' and ' manner verb-manner verb' ' relations. This study examines the nature of troponymy that involves the verb root - gb & uacute; across different semantic domains and verb classes. The aim is to ascertain whether the sense of negativity, , 'kill' that is encoded in this verb is also visible in the compound constructions that involve the verb root. Compound constructions involving the verb root were extracted from a corpus using the AntConc software, and the data analyzed using the descriptive method of analysis. The findings of the study reveal that the manner and how an action is carried out are depicted in all the sense ranges when the verb - gb & uacute; forms a compound with another verb class, and the sense of negativity is retained, whether the verb that forms a compound with it encodes positivity or not. In addition, the troponym-hypernym relation of - gb & uacute; 'kill' is clearly delineated where - gb & uacute; as the hypernym is used to describe the different manners of killing somebody. However, when it occurs with other verb classes, what is observed is simply a troponymic relation in which the sense ranges denoting stativity and place are simply metaphorical extensions.