Gbari Personal Names: A Communicative Act and Rhetorical Features Analysis

This study is concerned with the communicative acts and rhetorical patterns analysis of Gbari Personal Names, henceforth GPN, of the Gbari of North Central Nigeria. Using a small-sized corpus of one hundred (100) GPNs, the study deploys a concatenated framework which adapts and tweaks elements mainly from Austin’s (1962) Speech Act Theory and Bach and Harnish’s (1979) Mutual Contextual Belief; in order to combine communicative and rhetorical insights on the analysis of GPNs. Data collection consists of drawing a sample from the population of the study using the quasi-formal interview method to obtain information from the respondents from the Federal Capital Territory, Abuja-Nigeria which comprises of three out of the five Area Councils where the Gbari are in the majority namely: (1) Gwagwalada, (2) Kwali and (3) Kuje. Study findings indicates that GPN system is now highly productive. New GPNs which have never been produced can be constructed especially that on the basis of current theophoric Gbari personal names, many Gbari Christians can (re)construct corresponding names either by: a recourse to the system of affixation such as Sokwo-gaa+ She-kwo-nu-che-sayi = Sokwo-nu-che-sayi/Only God gives a testimony. This name, as yet probably not an actual Gbari personal name, like many variations of personal names, are potential Gbari personal names. Also, morpho-syntactic repositioning or shifting of the subject NP (She-kwo) of many Gbari sentence names to either the middle or final positions and/or its replacement with other grammatical classes or even NPs are possible; hence many more GPNs could be generated. Consequently, study indicates there is both a resurgence as well as a decline of GPN; a resurgence due principally to Gbagyi Christians who nearly completely bear all names Gbagyi-personal as well surnames while for Gbagyi Muslims, there is an almost complete obliteration of Gbagyi names.