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Item Open Access GOVERNMENT AND BINDING APPROACH TO WH-QUESTION FORMATION IN MÀRGĺ(Department of Language and Linguistics, Nasarawa State University, Keffi., 2018-06-30) Gadzama, Hannatu MaiItem Open Access DESCRIPTIVE ANALYSIS OF ALAGO PHONOLOGY AND MORPHOPHONOLOGY(DEPARTMENT OF LANGUAGES AND LINGUISTICS, FACULTY OF ARTS, 2019-11-13) ASHIKENI, THOMAS OGAHThis study investigated the sound system and morphophonology of Alago. The inadequacy as well as the discrepancies associated with the earlier studies and pitfalls identified in the inventory of phonemes and other aspects of the phonology of the language motivated the reappraisal of the phonology of the language while the paucity of literature on the interface relationship between the phonology and morphology of the language motivated the description of its morphophonology. Recorded data for the study were elicited from five native speakers of the language using the Roger Blench wordlist of 1017 lexical items as an instalment. The basic principles of Structural Linguistics and Hayes’ (2009) descriptive procedures/methods for morphophonemic analysis and the interlinear morpheme-by- morpheme glossing principles were used for the analysis in keeping with the Leipzig Glossing Rules. The research discovered from the reexamination of its phonology that Alago has 26 consonant phonemes; five nasals /m,n, g, ji, ngm/ , ten plosives /p, b, t, d, k, g, kp, gb, kw, gw/, one affricate /(£/, one trill /r/, six fricatives/f, v, s, z, J, hi , and three approximants /w, 1, j/ and 7 oral vowel phonemes/ i, e, s, o, 0 , a, u, /. The language has three syllable structure types namely: V, CV and N, is a register tone language with three tonemes: high, mid, low and attests phonological processes such as nasalization, vowel elision, two types of glide formation, vowel lengthening and a partial vowel harmony system. The productive morphophonological processes identified include among others, tone suprafixation in lexicalization and effect of tone in plural formation characterized by the process of tone stability premised on the presumption that in the event that suffixation accounts for stress shift in instances such as selective > selectivity in English are considered as morphophonemic, it follows that in tone languages, such phenomena as prefixation which accounts for tone copying and tone stability as occurs in Alago, should equally be treated as morphophonemic. This constitutes the major breakthroughs and thesis of the study. With respect to verbs; tense and aspect are discovered to be lexicalized rather than inflected. The research objectives were achieved as the above findings reveal and contribute to discoveries in African LinguisticsThis study investigated the sound system and morphophonology of Alago. The inadequacy as well as the discrepancies associated with the earlier studies and pitfalls identified in the inventory of phonemes and other aspects of the phonology of the language motivated the reappraisal of the phonology of the language while the paucity of literature on the interface relationship between the phonology and morphology of the language motivated the description of its morphophonology. Recorded data for the study were elicited from five native speakers of the language using the Roger Blench wordlist of 1017 lexical items as an instalment. The basic principles of Structural Linguistics and Hayes’ (2009) descriptive procedures/methods for morphophonemic analysis and the interlinear morpheme-by- morpheme glossing principles were used for the analysis in keeping with the Leipzig Glossing Rules. The research discovered from the reexamination of its phonology that Alago has 26 consonant phonemes; five nasals /m,n, g, ji, ngm/ , ten plosives /p, b, t, d, k, g, kp, gb, kw, gw/, one affricate /(£/, one trill /r/, six fricatives/f, v, s, z, J, hi , and three approximants /w, 1, j/ and 7 oral vowel phonemes/ i, e, s, o, 0 , a, u, /. The language has three syllable structure types namely: V, CV and N, is a register tone language with three tonemes: high, mid, low and attests phonological processes such as nasalization, vowel elision, two types of glide formation, vowel lengthening and a partial vowel harmony system. The productive morphophonological processes identified include among others, tone suprafixation in lexicalization and effect of tone in plural formation characterized by the process of tone stability premised on the presumption that in the event that suffixation accounts for stress shift in instances such as selective > selectivity in English are considered as morphophonemic, it follows that in tone languages, such phenomena as prefixation which accounts for tone copying and tone stability as occurs in Alago, should equally be treated as morphophonemic. This constitutes the major breakthroughs and thesis of the study. With respect to verbs; tense and aspect are discovered to be lexicalized rather than inflected. The research objectives were achieved as the above findings reveal and contribute to discoveries in African LinguisticsItem Open Access A COMPARATIVE PHONOLOGY OF AMIYA-AGU ATA AND OHAFIA(department of language and linguistics, nasarawa state university keffi, 2016-10-19) Chibuzo, Benedith IlokaThis work is a comparison of the phonology of two Igbo dialects (Amiyi-Agụata and Ọhafịa). The scope is limited to the sound systems, the syllable structures, phonotactics and phonological processes. Two native speakers from each of the dialects were interviewed with the aid of the One Hundred (100) Culture Free Basic Words and the Ibadan 400 Word List of Basic Items. The principles of phonemic analysis of classical phonemics, minimal pairs, complementary distribution and analogous environment were used to establish the phonemes of the two dialects being compared. The rates of lexical relatedness of the two dialects were ascertained with the use of percentage. The comparative method of Newman (2000) research design basically patterned for reconstruction, especially of phonology and vocabulary was employed. This is because it is already an established fact that Amiyi-Agụata and Ọhafịa are dialects of the Igbo language; that is to say that both dialects are already demonstrated to be related. The major findings from both dialects reveal that the lexical difference between the two dialects is 57%, whereas the lexical similarities between them is 43%. The research established the following differences in the phonemes of Amiyi-Agụata and Ọhafịa: breathy voiced plosives /b d ɡ/, labialized bilabial plosives /pw bw/, fricatives /f z /, bilabial click / / and the vowel /ԑ/ are peculiar to Ọhafịa . The following phonemes: aspirated plosive /kwh/ aspirated affricate /tsh/ and fricatives like /ɣ v ṽ hw β/ are peculiar to Amiyi-Agụata dialect. The following phonological processes: aspiration, labialization and nasalization are attested in both dialects though not in similar segments and environments. This clearly shows that the two dialects are different. The import of a comparative work such as this is in its usefulness to language learners and teachers as the findings from such works could be applied in classroom experience. Scholars and researchers on dialectology will also find the piece useful since it went ahead of previous studies to establish similarities and differences in the phonological processes of the two dialects.Item Open Access X-BAR PERSPECTIVE OF NOMINAL AND PREPOSITIONAL PHRASES IN LONGUDA(Department of Languages and Lingustics, Nasarawa State University, Keffi, 2014-07-07) Adegboye, Oluseye OlusegunThis research undertakes a study of nominal and prepositional phrases of Longuda, a language spoken by about 100,000 people. It is spoken mainly in Guyuk area of Adamawa State, North-East, Nigeria. It belongs to the Adamawa Eastern group of Niger-Congo language family. The research applied Chomsky‟s theory of X-bar as reflected in Carnie (2013). The fieldwork involved eliciting data on nominal and prepositional phrases in the Longuda language. The analysis revealed the syntactic status of nominal phrases (NP) in Longuda by examining its various constituents, its syntactic positions and functions in the language. It was observed that the language has quite a number of constituents embedded in the NP which ranges from different types of determiners to the other phrases that the nominal phrase subcategorizes for in its domain. The determiners include articles, qualifiers, deictics, quantifiers, numerals among others. The syntactic positions of NPs in Longuda include subject (S), direct object (DO) and indirect object (IO) positions. The other phrases embedded in the domain of NPs in Longuda include adjective and prepositional phrases (PP).Longuda syntax manifests the following characteristics:The nouns in Longuda are head first and a single head first or head right generalization rule captures the order of nouns in Longuda. The prepositions in Longuda are head last and a single head last or head right generalization rule captures the order of prepositions in Longuda. The study showed that Chomskyan notion of X-bar is productive in duly accounting for nominal and prepositional phrases in Longuda.Item Open Access DESCRIPTIVE ANALYSIS OF ÀLAGO PHONOLOGY(Department of Language and Linguistics, Nasarawa State University, Keffi., 2017-07-26) Ayewa, Adokpa AyitonuOver the years, there has been a steadily growing interest in linguistic science. As a result, more and more languages of the world have come within the range of linguistic scrutiny. This research work entitled „A Descriptive Analysis of Alago Phonology‟ is a response to this linguistic development. This study investigates the segmental and the supra-segmental features in Alago phonology with respect to the southern dialect. Data gathering for the study commenced with the collection of handful of folktales in Alago in addition to other relevant data collected using the Ibadan wordlist of 400 basic items translated into Alago with respective words transcribed phonetically. The analysis shows that Alago has 32 segmental sounds consisting of 7 vowels and 25 consonants. At the supra-segmental levels, the syllable structures permissible in the language are v, cv, and Ṇ. Alago operates three tonal system which are high, mid and low. This research is a valid contribution to the study of Alago linguistics in general and phonology in particular. It is believed that the findings made especially on the phonemics of the language will be useful to policy makers and curriculum developers for the production of primers as well as texts that will be useful in the teaching of basic sounds of the language in primary and post primary schools as stipulated in the National Policy on Education (NPE).Item Open Access ASPECTS OF KÓRÒ WORD FORMATION PROCESSES(Department of Language and Linguistics, Nasarawa State University Keffi., 2019-03-08) Peter, UwumarogieThis dissertation investigates the concept, structure and formation of the Koro (Migili) words. The analysis is based on the interview from Koro (Migili) speakers, wordlist and checklist of the Koro (Migili) language which were analysed using the descriptive method of analysis. The dearth of research on the morphology of Koro (Migili) triggered a research of this sort in view of the relevance of word formation to syntax and the development of the orthography of any language. The study first examines the concept of Koro (Migili) words, their structure and classifications. The analysis of the data identifies compounding, reduplication, prefixation, clipping, nominalisation and borrowing as productive morphological processes in Koro (Migili). The analysis of the collected data shows that prefixation plays both inflectional and derivational roles. Based on the analysed data, Koro (Migili) derivational prefixes in Koro (Migili) are í, mú, nyí-, nyε- and mù- and four of them are nominalising prefixes: í-, mú-, nyε- and mù-. The analysis of the data proves that n- is not a plural prefix and also disclaimed previous claims that nyí - and í- only play inflectional roles in Koro (Migili). The analysis of the data also shows the extent to which Koro (Migili) language has borrowed from the English language and how the loanwords undergo phonological changes in the course of adaptation into Koro (Migili). This study has addressed the foundational levels of the morphology of Koro (Migili) by exposing some of the morphological patterns of Koro (Migili) and laying the ground for the study of syntax of Koro (Migili) which scholars and students of Koro (Migili) will find very useful for scholarly and pedagogical purposes.Item Open Access COMPARISON OF LINGUISTIC PATTERNS AND METAFUNCTIONS IN THERE WAS A COUNTRY BY CHINUA ACHEBE AND WAITING FOR AN ANGEL BY HELON HABILA(Language and Linguistics department, Nasarawa State University Keffi, 2019-05-01) Oji, Joanah IheomaThis thesis is a stylistic study undertaken of the linguistic patterns and metafunctions in Chinua Achebe‘s There Was a Country and in Helon Habila‘s Waiting for an Angel. The aim was to seek explanation for their differences or similarities in the choice of words and sentences in their exposition on a common subject matter: the Nigerian military in governance since Independence; and to find out if their language choices of patterns and metafunctions were attributable to their differences in age, education, socio-cultural background or writing experience. For the comparative and contrastive analyses, the Systemic Functional Grammar theory of M. A. K. Halliday in conjunction with the Critical Discourse Analysis and Chomsky‘s Transformational Generative Grammar, was used. Samples of patterns and examples of metafunctions were selected from the first 200 pages of There Was a Country and the first 100 pages of Waiting for an Angel. These samples were analysed under specific linguistic patterns, i.e, lexical semantic patterns, as well as the interpersonal metafunction. At the end of the analyses the findings showed that the two authors converged in what can be termed the language universals but also diverged greatly in their sampled linguistic patterns and usages. The explanation was adduced to the fact that while There Was a Country is Achebe‘s autobiographical work, Waiting for an Angel is a debut historical fiction by an author who is at least thirty years younger and still writing and honing his skills. The researcher found Habila‘s deliberate abandonment of grammatical and syntactic rules to depict different socio-economic and educational backgrounds of the characters creative, compared with Achebe‘s laid back déjà vu style which consistent with a valedictory memoir. The conclusion drawn from the study was that social context was indeed a significant variable between the two writers under review in their use of language to depict relationships between social groups. Thus Halliday‘s Systemic Functional Linguistics theory was found tilting toward the Systemic Functional Generative Grammar (SGG) of Fawcett (1973) which combines attributes of SFG and TGG, illustrating that no two individuals use language in identical ways. The comparison showed that in factual story telling such as There Was a Country Achebe was restricted in his choice of patterns, a restriction that is not required in the nonfiction, Waiting for an Angel. Suggestions were made to encourage further studies in two-author comparative studies in stylistics and discourse analysis, so as to increase the repertoire of knowledge in this branch of applied linguistics.Item Open Access CONTRASTIVE STUDY OF ASPECTS OF MORPHOLOGICAL PROCESSES OF IGBO AND EGGON LANGUAGES.(DEPARTMENT OF LANGUAGES AND LINGUISTICS, FACULTY OF ARTS, NASARAWA STATE UNIVERSITY, KEFFI, 2019-01-21) Umennaike, Chika ChidiIt is a known fact that in spite of the universal characteristic‟s languages share in common, they tend to display parametric differences at all levels of linguistic analysis. This study titled “Contrastive study of aspects of Morphological Processes of Igbo and Eggon languages” aims at investigating and identifying areas of convergence and divergence between the morphological processes of the two languages and the pedagogical implications these may have. The study focused on the Owerri dialect of Igbo and the Wana dialect of Eggon from which data were collected from five native speakers from each of the languages under study. The Blench wordlist of 1017 lexical items was the instrument used for the interview to generate corpora for the comparison of the morphological processes of the two languages. The prescribed steps of Contrastive Analysis of Lado (1957) were used to accomplish the findings and the descriptive method of interlinear morpheme -by-morpheme glosses were used for the analyses of data in keeping with Leipzig Glossing Rules. The productive morphological processes compared were: Affixation, clipping, Reduplication compounding and Pluralization. The study revealed that Prefixation performs both inflectional and derivational functions in Igbo while it performs the inflectional roles of plurality of nouns and verb tense marking in Eggon. Whereas Igbo employs suffixation for verb tense marking, Eggon does not have suffixes. Interfixation performs both inflectional and derivational functions in Igbo but is not productive in Eggon. Suprafixation performs both lexical and grammatical functions in Igbo and Eggon. Clippingand Compounding are also productive in both languages. Complete reduplication performs both derivational and inflectional roles in Eggon but plays a derivational role in Igbo. Partial reduplication performs both inflectional and derivational functions in Igbo and in Eggon it performs an inflectional role in marking plurality. Furthermore, plurality is generally marked by the morphological processes of prefixation, reduplication and suprafixation in Eggon while in Igbo number is expressed by the use of quantifiers. These discoveries are very useful for classroom instruction as they could guide teachers and students alike in predicting likely areas of errors in L2 instructionItem Open Access SOCIOLINGUISTIC ANALYSIS OF EBIRA PROVERBS(DEPARTMENT OF LANGUAGES AND LINGUISTICS FACULTY OF ARTS NASARAWA STATE UNIVERSITY KEFFI, 2019-12-21) Zuberu, Noel NdaGlobally, proverbs are symbolic expressions of people. In Nigeria, proverbs are influenced, to a large extent, by the linguistic and socio-geographical experiences and orientations of the diverse people that make up the country. The imagery in proverbs, their forms and context of use as well as aesthetics reflect the peculiar natural environment of the users, whether from the Northern or Southern regions of Nigeria where hundreds of languages are spoken or elsewhere in the world. Deploying Sperber and Wilson’s ‘Relevant” model of speech analysis, fifty-six (56) Ebira proverbs were purposefully selected and subjected to content analysis in this study. The researcher selected the proverbs through critical observation, note taking and recording. At the end of the research work, it was revealed that proverbs are not only the palm oil with which words are eaten according to Achebe but are the very words on which wisdom is built. This is because the researcher discovered that proverbs has a lot of roles to play in terms of peace building and several other things which has been examined in this research work.Item Open Access STYLISTIC ANALYSIS OF THE NIGERIAN CRIMINAL CODE ACT AND SELECTED SUPREME COURT JUDGEMENTS(DEPARTMENT OF LANGUAGES AND LINGUISTICS FACULTY OF ARTS NASARAWA STATE UNIVERSITY KEFFI, 2019-12-17) Zubairu, Halima YahayaThis work, The Stylistic Analysis of the Nigerian Criminal Code Act and the Selected Supreme Court Judgments’ examines the style and features of the Nigerian Criminal Code Act. It is a general perception that legal texts are characterised by the use of highly formulaic, stereotypical, archaic, unusual and difficult vocabulary, impersonal constructions, nominalisations, passive constructions, multiple negations, long and complex sentences, wordiness, redundancy and so on. This usually scars lay people away from even attempting to read any legal document including constitutions and acts that are supposed to be for public consumption. This is antithetical to the cliche that “there is no excuse for ignorance” which is often said in legal settings because there is no way one could be in the know of something he/she is not familiar with. This motivated the study of the Nigerian Criminal Code Act and the Selected Supreme Court Judgments to find a linguistic solution to the unfamiliarity. However, a critical examination of the Nigerian Criminal Code Act proves that not all legal texts are marred with this peculiarity. Contrary to the expectations, the Nigerian Criminal Code Act is not as complex as people think. Though the document shares some features like nominalisation, impersonal constructions, passive constructions, multiple negations, and in some cases, long and complex sentences, with other legal texts, it does not share other intricate features that usually scare people away such as the use of highly formulaic and archaic words. Similarly, foreign and unusual vocabularies are rarely found in the document. The data were primarily collected from the Nigerian Criminal Code Act and secondarily collected from the selected case reports in Nigeria. The study used the Systemic Stylistics Theory proposed by Halliday (1985) and Checklist Stylistics Theory proposed by Leech and Short (2007) to explore the style of the Nigeria Criminal Code Act. The Checklist Stylistics Theory was used to analyse graphological and lexical style of the document and the Systemic Stylistics Theory to analyse the sentential style of the document. The document like other legal documents, consists of peculiar sentence structure such as long sentences consisting of many embedded segments. However, the document has relatively simpler words with no loan words which makes the document more approachable. The study concludes that the document is not as difficult as people perceive legal documents. This study is important because it tries to break the barrier between the Nigerian Criminal Code Act and the society for which the document is meant. The study is beneficial to linguists, law students as well as other educated people. It recommends that more studies should be carried out on other Nigerian legal documents such as Nigerian Constitution, different reports of court cases in Nigeria, to familiarise people with the law of the land.Item Open Access COMPARATIVE PHONOLOGICAL ANALYSIS OF WARRI AND IKOM VARIETIES OF THE NIGERIAN PIDGIN(DEPARTMENT OF LANGUAGES AND LINGUISTICS, FACULTY OF ARTS, NASARAWA STATE UNIVERSITY, KEFFI, 2018-10-23) Orisa, ruthThis study compared the phonological varieties of Ikom and Warri varieties of the Nigerian Pidgin. The historical evidence of the emergence of Nigerian Pidgin in Calabar and the seeming creolisation process NP has undergone in the Warri variant prompted the need to carry out this research. The theoretical framework adopted for this work is the theory of mass comparison, data were elicited using checklist, organized group discussions and recorded speech of selected members of Warri and Ikom speech communities. The software (sound level meter) was used to get the intonation of speakers. The descriptive method was used for data analysis. A total of 30 sounds were established in both varieties of the NP; twenty three (23) consonants and seven vowels (7). It was discovered that users of both variants speak the same language in unique ways through the use of words with socially invented meaning and also through deletion, assimilation and insertion. Based on the findings, the study concluded that differences in tone and intonation assigned to words during utterances results to the unique ways language is used in both variants. In addition, phonological processes, such as free variation, are attestable only in the Warri variant, while de-voicing is at testable only in the Ikom variant. The study concluded that there are differences and similarities in both varieties of the Nigerian Pidgin. The work contributes to knowledge by listing the differences and similarities that exist in both variants amongst other things, it is recommended that greater efforts be made on a generally agreed orthography for the language based on how the language is spoken and not the way it is influenced by its superstrate source language (the English Language