Linguistics & African Languages
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Item A pragma-semiotic analysis of the Catholic bishops’ communiqué on the Ebola epidemic: Impact on the University of Ibadan Catholic faithful(Lulu Press Inc., 2017) Solomon-Etefia, P. O.; Nweya, G. O.This paper examines the extracts of the communiqué made by the Ibadan Catholic Bishops to the congregation on the Ebola epidemic. The paper identifies the practs, gives a semiotic interpretation of the signs visible, and discusses the impact of the communiqué on the Catholic faithful in the University of Ibadan, Nigeria. The data were collected from the Catholic Sunday Bulletin and the interviews conducted with, and the field notes collected from, the Catholic faithful informants (N=30) in the University of Ibadan. It utilised Mey’s pragmatic acts theory (PAT) and Saussure’s model of semiotic signs as the theoretical framework. The study shows that the communiqué is information motivated discourse on Ebola which comprises of direct acts that make use of the contextual features of shared situational knowledge, inferences, relevance, shared cultural knowledge, and references thereby exhibiting the pragmemes of cautioning, commanding, counselling and threatening; the semiotic sign ‘Holy Communion’ signifies the Body and Blood of Jesus Christ present in Bread and Wine, the semiotic sign ‘self-signing of oneself with holy water’ signifies spiritual cleansing, and the ‘sign of peace’ signifies love and unity among the people of God in the Church. Both the pragmemes and the semiotic signs have an impact on the Catholic Faithful in University of Ibadan.Item Plural strategies and devices in Igbo(University of Kansas, 2016) Nweya, G. O.This study examines strategies and devices adopted in Igbo to mark plurality on lexical items at both word and phrasal levels. The study provides additional evidence, adequate description, and explanation, as well as a theoretical background to the phenomenon which hitherto was not provided by earlier studies. Data were collected through observation, oral interview, and from existing literature. Data were analysed based on the principles and operations of the Minimalist Program. The study finds that five basic strategies could be employed to mark plurality in Igbo. These include merging of singular nouns with plural words or morphemes, via reduplication, use of conjunctions, use plural sensitive verbs, and context of speech. Plural devices include nouns with an inherent PL feature such as ndi ‘persons’ and umu ‘offspring’; the third person plural pronoun, ha; quantifiers such as niile/dum ‘all’; numerals abuo ‘two’ and above; mass nouns, igwe/igwurube ‘group’; clitics ga and nu ; reduplicated nouns; conjunctions na ‘and’; and plural-sensitive verbs such as chita ‘bring’, and ju, ‘be’. The study concludes that Igbo belongs to the set of languages that syntactically mark plural by using independent morphemes/words; i.e. plural words.Item Sentential Negation in the Imilike Dialect of Igbo(University of Ibadan, 2015) Nweya, G. O.; Solomon-Etefia, P. O.In spite of the fact that negation is a universal principle of human language, the process of negation and negative markers tends to be distinct across languages and dialects. This descriptive study therefore examines the process of achieving sentential negation in the Imilike dialect of the Igbo language. Its specific objectives are to identifying negative markers and negative polarity items; and show how negators interact with other functors in the dialect. Data for the study were collected from native speakers through oral interview and observation. Analysis is based on the verb forms identified in the dialect in relation to their affirmative counterparts. The results show that negative markers in the dialect are - ga/-g~ and -le/-If! which are suffixes. The former is used in the indicative, progressive and future tense/aspectual forms, while the latter is employed in imperative constructions. Tense/aspect markers such as the past, the perfective, the progressive and the future have negative forms which cooccur with the main negator in negative constructions. The study shows the rich inflectional and phonological properties of the dialect such as affix sequencing and vowel harmony. The study concludes that the process of negation and negative markers in Imilike Igbo is noticeably distinct from those of standard lgbo.Item An Ethno-Statistical Analysis of Direct and Indirect Acts in Catchy HIV/AIDS Campaign Messages in Benin Metropolis(International Journal of Humanities and Cultural Studies, 2015) Solomon-Etefia, P. O.; Nweya, G. O.Catchy HIV/AIDS campaign messages in Benin metropolis exhibit the characteristics of direct and indirect acts. These acts play pragmatic roles in peoples’ understanding of catchy HIV/AIDS campaign messages in Benin metropolis. This paper investigates direct and indirect acts in HIV/AIDS catchy campaign messages in Benin metropolis from an ethno-statistical perspective; it assess respondents’ understanding of the campaign messages with the features of directness and indirectness. The data for the study were collected using the questionnaires from five LGAs in Benin metropolis. These are Oredo, Ikpoba-Okha, Ovia-North-East and Ovia-South-West and the data was analysed using the simple percentages. The paper reveals that some respondents could not understand some of the messages because of the pragmatic indirectness. It was also observed that background characteristics (age, education, gender, and ethnic group), understandable language for reading and writing of respondents and how HIV/AIDS messages were known play a major role in understanding the direct and indirect acts in the messages. The paper concludes by advising the message provider to write in simpler form for the effectiveness of these campaign messages, creating of messages in native languages is also encouraged.Item On the vowels of Imilike Dialect of the Igbo Language(Unizik Journal of Arts and Humanities, 2015-01) Nweya, G. O.This is a study of the vowels of Imilike dialect, a variety of Northern Igbo dialect. Its specific objectives include identifying the vowels of the dialect, determine their phonemic status, distributional pattern and phonotactic constraints and as well compare them with those displayed by the standard Igbo. Data for the study were collected using unstructured interview and observation. Data were analysed in the framework of generative phonology. Minimal pair test was conducted to identify the vowels of the dialect. The study reveals that the dialect displays eleven vowels including the open mid front unrounded vowel /£/ and the central vowels, [a] and [a]. AH except the central vowels are phonemic in the dialect. The central vowels are in free variation with other vowels in the dialect. AH the vowels occur in word initial, word medial and word final positions except the central vowels which do not occur in word initial position. The study also attests to the strict operation of vowel harmony in the dialect as in other Northern Igbo dialects. The study concludes that Imilike dialect displays more vowels than the standard Igbo.Item Mmetuta Usorookwu Na Echiche N'asusu Igbo(2013-06) Nweya, G. O.This paper examines inflection in the Imilike dialect of the Igbo language with emphasis on the verb inflection. The study adopts a descriptive approach based on surface structure analysis. Verbs were inflected for tense/aspect, mood and polarity in Imilike. The paper reveals that some inflectional affixes and strategies of achieving inflection in the dialect when compared with the standard Igbo and consequently influences the choice of affixes used to achieve inflection of verbs. The dialect employs strategies such as the optional use of the Open vowel prefix a/e, affix sequencing and more of the role suffixation to achieve inflection in the dialect. Tone plays a significant role in achieving inflection in the dialect as in the standard Igbo. The study points to the profound insight available from the study of various Igbo dialects.Item Inflection in the Imilike dialect of Igbo(Igbo Scholars, 2013) Nweya, G. O.This paper examines inflection in the Imilike dialect of the Igbo language with emphasis on the verb inflection. The study adopts a descriptive approach based on surface structure analysis. Verbs were inflected for tense/aspect, mood and polarity in Imilike. The paper reveals that some inflectional affixes and strategies of achieving inflection in the dialect when compared with the standard Igbo and consequently influences the choice of affixes used to achieve inflection of verbs. The dialect employs strategies such as the optional use of the Open vowel prefix a/e, affix sequencing and more of the role suffixation to achieve inflection in the dialect. Tone plays a significant role in achieving inflection in the dialect as in the standard Igbo. The study points to the profound insight available from the study of various Igbo dialects.Item Non verbal predication in Igbo(Crown Goldmine Communications, Ibadan, 2014) Nweya, G. O.This paper discusses non-verbal predication in Igbo. Predication captures the process of complementation that exists in SVO languages. The theoretical framework adopted for the analysis is the Minimalist Program (MP) of linguistic theory. The study identifies non-verbal predicates as nominal, adverbial and prepositional predicates in Igbo. In Igbo different morphosyntactic and predication categories make use of different copulas. These copulas obligatorily occur in nonverbal predication structures. On the structural relations, the paper' assumes, following Bowers (2001), that the relation of predication is better expressed if there is a functional category Pr whose function is to relate the subject to the predicate. In Igbo, the Pro is null; it attracts the NP/AdvPIPP object to adjoin to it due to its strong affixal features forming a complex head (p\ pImerges with the subject to form the PrP. The computation continues to generate a proposition thus, providing a descriptively and explanatorily adequate structural analysis of nonverbal predication structures in Igbo.Item Revisiting the mother-tongue medium controversy(Montem Paperbacks, Akure, 2010) Fadoro, J. O.A number of studies carried out on 'Primary School Dropouts' in Nigeria and elsewhere attributed the dropout phenomenon (which ranges from 40% to 60%) in certain countries to premature introduction of English as a language of instruction at the primary school. In the National Policy on Education (Revised in 1981), the mother-tongue medium policy was clearly and unambiguously stated for the first time. Since then, several experiments have been carried out to prove the efficacy of mother tongue as medium of instruction in the primary school. Notable among these is the Ife Six-Year Yoruba Primary-Project (SYYPP) 1970- 1975. This study provides answers to the following questions: (i) Are the proprietors of Private Nursery and Primary Schools aware of the mother-tongue medium policy? (ii) What is their attitude towards it? (iii) To what extent is the policy statement adhered to? (iv) If the policy is not-adhered to, what are the reasons given for not adhering to it? (v) What is the status of the so-called major languages and languages of the immediate community in these schools, that is, are they being taught as subjects? (vi) How many periods are allotted to them per week on the timetable, compared with exoglossic languages like English and French? (viii) What are the implications of all these on the so-called major languages of Nigeria and the languages of the immediate community? Answers to these questions form the basic thrust of this paperItem The Nigerian language policy: theory or practice?(The Linguistic Association of Nigeria, 2013) Fadoro, J. O.The language provision in the National Policy of Education (l977) prescribes among others that 'in the interest of national unity, each child should be encouraged to learn one of the three major languages' (i.e. Hausa, Igbo, and Yoruba), Scholars have frowned at the language used in couching the recommendations. For instance, Bamgbose (2000b) opines that some 'escape-clauses' were woven into the recommendations, such that stakeholders in education can violate them with impunity. This study was carried out to find out whether the three major languages are being taught in secondary schools as subtly prescribed by the language policy. In the course of the study, thirty-five schools spread across three states - Oyo, Ogun, and Lagos - were sampled. Information gathered show that Yoruba is taught in all the schools, whereas Hausa, Igbo and Yoruba are taught only in four of them, while Igbo is taught in seven of them. From this, we deduced that only four schools teach the three major languages. Three of them are located in Lagos State while one is located in Oyo State. None of the schools visited in Ogun State teaches the three major languages