C. U. C. Ugorji

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 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 7
drawn from native speakers using the SIL wordlist, and phonetically transcribed. The outcome of the analyses is an inventory of ‘socio- phonemes’ and tonemes, to which orthographic equivalence are assigned for the purpose of writing the language.