Scholarly Works
Permanent URI for this collectionhttps://repository.ui.edu.ng/handle/123456789/347
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Item Varepsilon kú mask: Integrating Yorùbá cultural greetings into machine translation(ArXiv, 2023) Akinade, I.; Alabi, J. O.; Adelani, D.; Odoje, C.; Klakow, D.This paper investigates the performance of massively multilingual neural machine translation (NMT) systems in translating Yorùbá greetings (" kú 1), which are a big part of Yorùbá language and culture, into English. To evaluate these models, we present IkiniYorùbá, a Yorùbá-English translation dataset containing some Yorùbá greetings, and sample use cases. We analysed the performance of different multilingual NMT systems including Google Translate and NLLB and show that these models struggle to accurately translate Yorùbá greetings into English. In addition, we trained a Yorùbá-English model by finetuning an existing NMT model on the training split of IkiniYorùbá and this achieved better performance when compared to the pre-trained multilingual NMT models, although they were trained on a large volume of data.Item Womanism or Humanism: The Exploration of Pamela Smith’s Translation for Ogun Qmode(Matrix Publications Nig. Enterprises, 2024) Odoje, C.O.; Ganiyat, A.; Idris, A.Language choice in translation may be informed by many factors. Some scholars have alluded this to translator’s educational background, faithfulness to source text, their personality in the area of religious preference, condition of service and so on. The examination of the impact of gender or the sex of the translator on the language choice in the translation has not been as prominent. This paper explores the translation of Pamela Smith with the view to determining whether her gender influences her choice of words and style within the theoretical framework of natural equivalence. It was found that the language choice of the translator was full of compassion, romanticism and dynamism, which are a blend of womanism and humanism.Item Bilateral Audiometric and Acoustic Analysis of High Frequency Fricatives in Students with Speech Impairments(Department of Linguistics and Nigerian Languages at the University of Nigeria, 2024) Nweya, G. O.; Adiboshi, A."Some scholars assume that it is possible for people who have impaired perceptions to distort fricatives. Although this assumption has been investigated in other climes; it has attracted little or no attention in the Nigerian context. This study, therefore, investigates high frequency fricatives in students with speech impairments using bilateral audiometric and acoustic analysis with a view to determining whether speech impaired persons that cannot perceive high frequency can distort fricatives as widely assumed. The audiometry was used to test the average pure tone threshold of twelve students who gave their consents and six were purposively selected. The nature of data that was elicited contained lexical items with fricatives: Is, f, f, v, zI. It was called by the researcher for the subjects and they repeated it while their voices were recorded into Praat directly for spectrographic analysis. It was reported that speech impaired persons distorted the fricatives Is, f, f, v, zI in varying degrees. For instance, subjects A, B, and C, distorted the sound Isl as It!, in soap IS'Jup/, as top, !.Qmh..respectively. In the word sheep IflP 'I"", If I was distorted as It I and Itfl, as in: [ipu, chitem and choyon by the subjects, respectively. The findings support the claim that it is possible for people who have impaired perceptions and cannot perceive high frequencies to distort fricatives.Item The eye as source of conceptual metaphors in Igbo(Department of Igbo, African, and Asian Studies, Nnamdi Azikiwe University, 2024) Nweya, G. O.; Ejinwa, S. O."This study examines how the eye (ányá) body part in Igbo is variously conceptualized and used metaphorically to express abstract concepts. Existing works on body part metaphors in Igbo were based on the traditionalist perspectives which sees metaphor as a rhetoric or figurative device with little attention from the conceptual metaphor perspective which sees metaphor as a systematic cognitive device used in the understanding of abstract concepts through the application of concrete ones. Data for this study were collected from 20 native speakers of Igbo through oral interview and observations and subjected to semantic analysis. It was discovered that the eye (ányá) body part is a source domain or concrete concept used in mapping out or expressing abstract concepts in Igbo such as intelligence, love, hope, time/distance, greed, among others. It was further discovered that metaphor is a powerful cognitive tool that help in expressing the Igbo worldviews which comprises of their culture, belief system, core values, and morals, among others. The study therefore concluded that the Igbo language is rich in the use of metaphors in everyday conversation and in expressing and understanding the worldviews of native speakers of the language.Item "Eleven vowels of Imilike Igbo including ATR and RTR schwa "(Cambridge University Press, 2024) Akinbo, S.; Ozburn, A.; Nweya, G.; Pulleyblank, D."In this paper, we examine the acoustics of vowels in the Imilike [-m-l-ke$] dialect of Igbo (Igboid, Niger-Congo), which has not previously been done. While Standard Igbo has eight vowels, previous auditorily-based research has identified eleven vowels in Imilike. Like Standard Igbo, Imilike contrasts vowels in Advanced/Retracted Tongue Root (ATR vs. RTR). We find that there are eleven vowels, distinguished most reliably by F1, B1, energy (dB) of voiced sound below 500Hz and duration. The results of this study also suggest that RTR vowels in Imilike might involve the laryngeal constriction and movement that accompany pharyngealization. The ATR and RTR schwas have similar phonological distribution and acoustic patterns as the other ATR and RTR vowels in the language.Item The structure of Ibìbìò determiner phrase(West African Linguistic Society, 2022) Ubon, A. E.; Nweya, G. O."The Determiner Phrase (DP) is a syntactic category headed by a determiner. Its internal structure has attracted scholarly attention across languages. Although, various aspects of Ìbìbìò grammar have been examined by scholarly works, the syntax of the Determiner Phrase has not been given much attention. This study, therefore, investigates the Determiner Phrase in Ìbìbìò with a view to examining its internal constituents and hierarchical structure. Primary data for the study were elicited through interviews with the aid of the Ibadan 400-word list and syntactic checklist while secondary data were collected from existing literature. Data were analysed qualitatively based on the DP hypothesis and Chomsky’s Minimalist Program. The study identified ten determiner elements in the language. They are numbers, particularisers, as well as cardinal and ordinal numerals. Some are marked for specificity or definiteness (e.g. étó ádò) while others are marked for indefiniteness (étó kèèd). The difference between the former and the latter is definiteness and indefiniteness triggered by the determiners kèèd ‘a’ and ádò ‘the’ respectively. Other determiners identified in the language are: articles, demonstratives, quantifiers, genitives, pronouns, and bare nouns. Based on the distribution of the internal constituents of the DP, the hierarchical structure of the Ìbìbìò Determiner phrase is- DP>PartP>NumP>PossP>Num’rP>DemP>NP. The study concludes that DPs take NP complements in Ìbìbìò.Item Articulated structure of the Igbo tense phrase domain(West African Linguistic Society, 2021) Nweya, G. O."The tense phrase (TP) domain is the domain that expresses grammatical tense, aspect and mood. Existing studies concentrated on describing the morph-syntactic features of the Igbo TP categories with little attention paid to their interaction and hierarchical order. This study, therefore, investigates the morpho-syntactic features and interaction of the functors with a view to determining their hierarchical order in the clause structure. Primary and secondary data were collected and subjected to syntactic analysis. Three main functors, Tense, Aspect and Negation, overtly occur in the Igbo TP area as verbal affixes and they exhibit two opposing patterns of morpheme order: V-T-ASP-NEG and T-ASP-NEG-V. The former, where the functors follow the verb, requires obligatory movement of the VP to spec TP, while the latter requires no such movement since the functors precede the verb. The study demonstrated that these morpheme orders are derived syntactically via operation merge with surface order corresponding to the hierarchical order. This is in contrast to preceding studies which assume mirror image where the linear order is the inverse of the hierarchical order.Item Linguistic Analysis of Selected Folk Ballads of Mike Ejeagha(Department of Linguistics, Nnamdi Azikiwe University, Awka, 2020) Oraegbunam, C. U.; Nweya, G. O.Some earlier studies on Igbo folksongs focused mainly on the thematic and literary study of Igbo folksongs with little attention paid to the linguistic study of Igbo folksongs. To this end, this paper examines some linguistic properties of nine randomly selected works of Mike Ejeagha (ME) that are popular among his audience, with a view to identify and describe the linguistic quality of Igbo folksongs using ME as instance. Data used in the study were collected from ME’s records, transcribed, translated and subjected to descriptive linguistic analysis at the phonological, morphological and syntactic levels. Two phonological processes; vowel assimilation and syllable elision, were identified in the selected works of ME. Reduplication was identified at the morphological level. The syntax of ME arts reveals four syntactic process in his works, such as, topicalisation, negation, question formation and ellipsis to be instrumental in the aesthetics of ME’s art. The study showed that ME employed these linguistic processes repeatedly and consistently to show creativity and achieve stylistic effect in his folk ballads.Item Towards Machine Translation for Security Surveillance(Faculty of Arts, University of Benin., 2021) Odoje, C. O.; Nweya, G. O.Global insecurity is one of the main challenges facing the world in recent times and Nigeria is among the most affected with thousands of deaths and loss of property worth billions of naira. Studies show that countries are achieving better security through the use intelligence reports where languages play significant roles than through the use of arms and ammunitions. However, previous studies on Nigerian languages have concentrated on language description and language documentation with little attention paid to language use for security surveillance and intelligence gathering This paper, therefore, evaluates Google translate, from the perspective of the Igbo and Yoruba languages. with a view to determining its level of efficiency in translating for the purpose of security surveillance or intelligence gathering, identifying its potentials for achieving better security and the challenges facing its use. The study reveals that Google translate could be used for security surveillance if properly adapted despite the shortcomings of its output. Factors such as multilingualism, inadequate funding, insufficient language resources and poor infrastructural development are some of the challenges facing the proposal. The implication is that the Nigerian government at all levels can harness the potentials of this tool towards overcoming its security challenges if it invests more in security especially at the State and Local Government levels.Item Applicative Constructions in Igbo(Department of Linguistics, African & Asian Studies, University of Lagos, 2020) Nweya, G. O.The structure of applicative constructions has been in debate due to diverse opinions regarding the categorial status and distribution of the applicative morpheme. Previous studies have focused on the morphemic structure with scant attention paid to the distribution and interaction of the applicative morpheme with other inflectional affixes. This study examines the syntactic distribution of the Igbo applicative morpheme with a view to determining its categorial status and base position in relation to other inflectional affixes such as tense, aspect and negation. Employing the split verb phrase hypothesis of minimalist program, the study reveals that Igbo applicative morpheme is a functor that projects maximally as an Applicative Phrase, showing up after the verb in the process of interacting with other inflectional elements. The study concludes that in deriving applicative constructions in Igbo, the verb enters the derivation with unvalued tense and applicative features which get valued as the verb moves from one head to another while the affixes get merged to the verb.