DEPARTMENT OF LINGUISTICS AND AFRICAN LANGUAGES

This study investigates the phonology of Uvwie, an endangered language spoken in parts of Delta State, aiming to construct orthography for the language. Orthography is a system which facilitates the writing of a language, and its documentation. It also facilitates literacy in the language. It refers to the agreed system (of alphabets) used to represent the spoken form of a given language. Literacy as well as documentation as means for revitalising or maintaining an endangered language requires the creation of a writing system for the language (Cf. Grenoble and Whaley, 2006).The study is thus motivated, in part, by the need to codify the language. In addition, implementing Nigeria’s policy on language of instruction in pre-primary and early primary education (See NPE, 2004) in the Uvwie Local Government Area of Delta State also requires that a writing system should be constructed for Uvwie, the ‘language of the immediate environment’; hence this study. The process employed in designing the proposed orthography in this work is not haphazard but follows certain principles and procedures: main research tools are Sociophonology (cf. Awonusi, 2007; Milroy, 2001; Ugorji, 2009) and the Principles of Orthography (Williamson 1984). Data were drawn from native speakers using the SIL wordlist, and phonetically transcribed.The outcome of the analyses is an inventory of ‘sociophonemes’ and tonemes, to which orthographic equivalence are assigned for the purpose of writing the language.

This study begin with the first chapter, this chapter shows the historical background of the language and the people. This chapter also went further to talk about the purpose of study, the limitation of study, the method of data collection and also the significance of the study to linguistics in general. The second chapter, features the review of relevant literature as regards to the noun phrases in Etuno language. The third chapter, examines the theoretical framework used in the which is the x-bar theory. The fourth chapter depicts the presentation of data and the analysis of the data using the x-bar theoretical framework. This chapter focuses on examining the internal structure. This chapter focuses on examining the internal structure of the Etuno noun phrase with the aim of investigating how different constituents that make up the noun phrase are combined together. The major results of this study are: - that the language is an headfirst language. - that the language is a tone language. - that the language share linguistic affinity with Igarra and most importantly Yoruba. - With Etuno language shares no linguistic affinity with any of it neigbhouring villages such as Uneme, Okpe Somorika, Ssasaro etc not even with any language in the whole of Edo State.

This Research effort focuses on some aspects of the phonology of the Igbanke language. a language spoken in the Niger Delta area of Delta State as well as in Orhiomwon Local Government Area of Edo State. The Igbanke language is actually spoken in six speech communities which are: Omulual, Ahe, Igbontor, Obiogba, Ottah and Idumuodin. This work aims at examining the Phonological processes and rules in the language. Data gathered for this study were collected from personal interview with the aid of a digital tape recorder. The study is analyzed using the standard theory as presented by Chomsky and Halle (1968), and the Autosegmental model of analysis as presented by Goldsmith (1976). The major findings of this study however revealed the phonological processes present in the language which are: Vowel Elison, Glide formation and Nasalization.

This work is on the tone system of Ika. In carrying out this research, the researcher was motivated primarily to account for the tonal system of Ika and also to identify the tones used in the language by the native speakers. This study also adopted the autosegmental theory as it theoretical framework by Goldsmith (1976). The subjects for data collection were 3 competent speakers of ika language residing in Agbor, Emuhu, and umunede communities of ika, with the aid of Ibadan 400 word-list. It has brought to the notice of the researcher that the level tones such as the High [ / ] Low[ ] and Mid [ ] are not just present in the language but are also functional, such that when used contrastively
they bring about a meaning difference among lexical item of identical
form. This study has also revealed that contour tones exist in the
language such as rising falling [ ] and falling rising [ ]. This study has
also reveled that all monosyllabic words in ika are majorly high tones. This study is only on the tone system of ika, therefore, other aspect of
study needs to be carried out in ika, such as morphology, syntax, phonology semantics. Etc. this study on the tone system of ika stands as
a reference material to upcoming researcher on the language.

Language contact as a socio-linguistic phenomenon has been discovered to have brought about several Implications ranging from language choice, language attitude, linguistics borrowing, Code-switching, bi/multilingualism, language endangerment to language loss and death. This study examines the language vitality of Ika dialect, and the endangered language condition of Ika dialect. It investigates the Several factors that have been responsible for this unfortunate language condition. Using the ethno-linguistic Vitality theory, the study delves into the field with the use of structured questionnaires as a tool for ascertaining the endangerment of the Ika dialect. The results of the data analysis suggest that the Ika dialect Is gravely endangered and requires urgent and drastic rescue action to save if from outright loss and eventual death in lgbanke community in Edo state.

This study aims at identifying the phonological influence of Yoruba language on English language. The need for this study is to find out the features that are peculiar to Yoruba speaker of English as a second language. Recorded speeches of thirteen speakers were analyzed and evaluated. The data was gotten from the international corpus of English, Nigeria. The theoretical framework employed in the analysis of data is the preference operations Grammar (ugorji 2010, 2013). The study discovered that Yoruba speaker who use English as a second language tend to substitute sound segments which are not functional in their language with those that are functional in their language, and they also make use articulatory simplification in other to articulate English word with ease. This study concludes that the features of Yoruba language reflect in the use of English of Yoruba speakers

This work is a study in stylistics. It goal is to examine the languageofcomedy in our society. It shows the effect of the language of comedyontheaudience and what the audience has to benefit fromthe language usedbycomedians. The theoretical framework, ‘’ethnography of communication’’ usingthespeaking model, is used to accurately and satisfactorily describe anyspeechevent, more especially the joke extract for this study. The data for thestudyare joke extract, the sources of the data were fathered fromvarious comedyshows and radio station in Nigeria. The work shows, through critical analyses that comedy is beyondentertainment, it mirrors the society. It also shows what makes a comedianspecial from other character, by examining their style of language andthemessage; what it communicate. In conclusion the main contribution of this work is that it suggest re-examination of people towards comedy. It is also noticed that there is alinkbetween linguistics and literature. Hence, there is need for other linguist towork on literature.

This work discusses the Igbo sound system and orthography for transcribing and writing Ika. The aim of the study is to employ relevant data in showing that the Igbo sound system and orthography which is presently being used to transcribe and write Ika is descriptively inadequate. The need for this research to Ika language studies is that it observes the various sounds and orthographic symbols in the Ika sound and writing inventory. This work advances the study of descriptive linguistics since it is based on the Ika phonology. The theoretical framework adopted for this study is the Basic linguistic theory (Dixon 1997) which is supported by Williamson’s (1984) Basic Principles for a Good Orthography’. The data relied on for this study comprised primary and secondary data. The primary data consisted of oral data which served as the major source of data, these data were gotten from competent native speakers and users of Ika languages. The bulk of the secondary data are documented works ranging from dictionaries, online and hard print journals, textbooks and unpublished projects and thesis. The 9 relevant data selected from the bulk of data collected were then subjected to a verification process by consulting with language teachers, competent speakers and students of the language under study so as to authenticate the data. In the course of this study, we discovered firstly that the current Ika orthography which is based on the Igbo sound system has 36 sounds as against the 38 sounds present in the Ika sound system. In other words, there are sounds in Ika that are not adequately represented in the Igbo sound system and orthography such as /ɛ/ half open front unrounded vowel /u᷈ / close back rounded nasal vowel, /ɛ̃/ half open front unrounded nasal vowel, /ɔ/̃ half open back rounded nasal vowel, /a/ open central unrounded nasal vowel, / m / voiced labio-dental nasal, / r̥/ voiceless alveolar tap. This study has attempted to show the inadequacies in the current Ika sound system and orthography, as well as suggesting some meaningful proposals to correct the inadequacies.

The project discusses the traditional Ẹdo wedding ceremony among bilingual Ẹdo speaking families, with the following aims: (i) to throw more light on the discourse content and structure of the traditional Ẹdo wedding bilingual discourse; (ii) to identify the place of semiotics and signage in the wedding discourse. Sociolinguistics and discourse analysis provided the theoretical framework for the study while two recorded wedding transactions were used as empirical data. Moreover, participant observation by the author, a Ẹdo bilingual as well formed part of the research methodology. The findings show that: (i) a typical traditional Ẹdo wedding in the twenty-first century almost always involves Language Interlarding, since it is practically impossible to identify pure Ẹdo monolinguals at such weddings; (ii) Features of bilingualism are prevalent in the traditional Ẹdo wedding discourse; (iii) Ẹdo dialectal greetings or English greetings in their Ẹdo equivalents are rampant in the traditional Ẹdo wedding discourse;(iv) social semiotics – whether verbal or non-verbal - and signage, also feature prominently in this speech event; (vi) conclusively, Ẹdo traditional wedding is in itself, an evolving register with an ‘inner circle’ of users