Browsing by Author "Aworo-Okoroh, Joy"

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    DISCOURSE TACTS IN SELECTED INAUGURAL ADDRESSES OF NIGERIAN PRESIDENTS
    (Department of English, Nasarawa State University Keffi, 2019-10-10) David, Stephen O.; Aworo-Okoroh, Joy
    All over the world when Presidential elections are conducted and a winner emerges, the President-elect gives an inaugural address which is used as a road map or statement of intention by the incoming government to inform the electorates and the generality of the people of the country what the new administration intends doing in the course of their tenure in office. The writers of this paper randomly selected three presidential inaugural speeches (Shehu Shagari, Goodluck Jonathan and Muhammadu Buhari's speeches) and subjected them to Adegbija's (1995) eight discourse tacts to test the conformity of the speeches to the tacts. After analysis, findings reveal that six out of Adegbija's eight tacts were fully conformed to while two were not conformed to by the speeches. The writers conclude by recommending that Adegbija's discourse tacts be used subsequently to measure whether an inaugural speech is good or not.
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    Negation in Màda: An X-bar Perspective
    (Department of Lanaguages and Linguisitcs, Nasarawa State University Keffi, 2019-01-01) Samuel, Nuhu Baba; Aworo-Okoroh, Joy
    This paper discusses negation patterns in Màda, a Benue-Congo language spoken in Nasarawa State, Nigeria. It investigates the structure of negative constructions in Màda and how negation is marked in simple declarative sentences and on negative polarity items. Moreover, the aim of this paper is to describe the particles that are used to negate a clause in Màda within the X-bar theoretical model (Chomsky, 1970). Within the X-bar model, negation projects a negative phrase (NegP) which hitherto c-commands the VP and its internal elements. Data for this study were collected using monolingual and introspective method. The study reveals that Màda shows a unique pattern using the discontinuous morpheme la…yo to negate a clause. However, the structure of negation in Màda is S-Neg-TVO-Neg. The first morpheme precedes the V while the second morpheme occurs preferably at the end of a clause. The second negation functions to reinforce negation in Màda. The paper concludes that the discontinuous morphemes also known as templetic morphemes are obligatory, as such function to mark standard negation in Màda.