The classification of Igbo verbs by prominent scholars of Igbo grammar has been as contentious as it has been interesting. Even more controversial has been the question of transitivity in Igbo (Ubahakwe, 1976, Uwalaka, 1984, Nwachukwu, 1984, Emenanjo, 1975, 2005 and other works). Following Emenanjo (2005), we highlight the relevance of complementation rather than transitivity in the classification of Igbo verbs.
Given further insights and superior arguments on derivation and convergence issues, Chomsky (1995) abandons his (1981) derivational constrains in preference to a few Economy Principles within the Minimalist Program. This paper sets out to evaluate the adequacy of these principles as global filters vis-a-vis
Lamnso’ and Hausagrammar with emphasis on how they accommodate the idiosyncrasies of each language within our concept of Universal Grammar. The paper advocates for the parameterization of convergence filters, which ensure well- formedness and agreement related issues.
Between 1881 and 1914 the “scramble for Africa” attracted European traders, colonisers and missionaries to the African continent. Some of these Europeans began to study and classify the languages of Africa. At the dawn of independence, the ex-colonial languages had become the languages of governance, education, commerce, etc. in the new independent countries. The indigenous African languages were largely viewed as old-fashioned, non-prestigious and as catalysts to national disintegration within multilingual and multi-ethnic nation-states.
Language is an integral part of a people’s culture. It is the pivot around which the values and the worldview of such people revolve. Like the economist’s concepts of utility and scale of preference, attitudinal factors among other parameters tend to lead either the polyglot or a multilingual society in making preferences in language choice situation. The thrust of this paper is to evaluate the linguistic implications of adopting French as Nigeria’s second official language. The study therefore assesses the reasons why Nigerians should prefer French in a language choice situation.
Linguistics is a field in which there has been constant growth in conceptual derivations and analysis. Such renovative insights have led to the revision of fundamental methods and theories in the analysis and explanations of language structures and derivational processes. Recently, these analytical approaches have recognized that each language has its peculiarities and idiosyncrasies given the pattern in which lexical units are combined. Put differently, every language has its own grammar.
Proverbs are linguistic devices employed in conversation to achieve specific communication
goals that commonplace phrasal computation in the language cannot attain. Among the Nso'
people, the competence of a speaker is ascertained only when the individual can adequately
employ and understand proverbs in a conversation. Proverbs are structurally complex, couched
in standard metaphorically paradigmatic forms that represent logical relationships in life. They
embody truisms representing the thoughts of a people, their views and interpretation of the world
The High Tone Syllable (HTS) has attracted a lot of attention, research and debate from several Yorùbá scholars. It has been identified as a V-syllable with a high tone regularly located immediately after the subject NP and directly before the verb in Yorùbá declarative sentences. Following previous analysis (Bamgbose 1990, Awobuluyi 1992, Adewole 1998 and many other Yorùbá scholars), this paper re-examines the form and the function(s) of the HTS in Yorùbá grammar.
Before the ‘scramble for Africa’ the African continent consisted of ethnic groups, each bonded by a common ancestry, culture, language and worldview. The creation of nation states in Africa was partially an attempt to erase ethnic boundaries through the arbitrary establishment of national boundaries for nation states. In some territories such boundaries split families and ethnic groups into separate countries. Part of the strategies employed by colonial masters to domesticate their colonies was the imposition of their own languages and cultures on the colonised people.
The standard variety of Yorùbá has been well documented. Some of its plethora of dialects have not benefited from the same attention. Regrettably, there exists an underlying assumption that the grammatical derivations in the standard variety are easily applicable to its dialects. This paper attempts to isolate the derivational idiosyncrasies of negated clauses in Ṣúpárè. It interprets negation as a binary parameter that affects the truth or falsity of clausal propositional content. The paper identifies and examines the Low Tone Syllable (LTS) in Ṣúpárè.
The Computational System (CHL) within the Chomskyan Minimalist Program has brought to the fore the sets of lexical units that can constitute a lexical item in a given language. In addition, the array of lexical choices open for combination in the derivation of larger constituents has continuously attracted the interest of analysts. This paper is set to contribute to the ongoing debate on possible lexical argument structures. It does so by examining the internal composition of transitive and intransitive verbs in Lamnso’2.
