O. O. Evbuomwan

This study presents a morpho-syntactic analysis of the internal structure of Urhobo personal names. While existing scholarship has often focused on the cultural and semantic significance of these names, a significant gap remains in the systematic description of their grammatical architecture. This research, therefore, aims to examine the morphological processes and syntactic patterns that underlie the formation of Urhobo personal names. The study is framed within the Item-and-Process model of morphology and the Principles and Parameters theory of syntax. Data comprising 100 personal names were collected from native speakers in Jesse town and school registers in Delta State, Nigeria, and were subjected to linguistic analysis. The findings reveal that Urhobo names are predominantly complex linguistic constructions rather than simple labels. Morphologically, they are formed primarily through compounding and the productive use of nominalizing prefixes (e.g.,Á-, Ò-, È-). Syntactically, a majority of names are shown to be desententialized forms, originating as full clauses (e.g., Óghènéguédjókè meaning "We give account to God") that conform to the Subject-Verb-Object word order of the language. The analysis also identifies governed morpho-phonological processes like vowel elision at morpheme boundaries. The study concludes that Urhobo personal names are rule-governed, systematically generated from the language's grammatical system. It recommends further research into the sociolinguistics of naming, comparative Edoid onomastics, and detailed phonological analysis. This work contributes to African linguistics by providing a formal grammatical account of naming practices and serves as a resource for Urhobo language education and preservation.

This study examines the syllable structure and patterning in Ika, spoken in southern Nigeria. It's objectives were to investigate the Language's syllable structure and identify it's Syllable patterns. The study employs synchronic data from Ika native speakers in it's consideration of syllable structure and patterns of the language. The data collection involved 8 Ika speakers aged between 45 and 60 years in Agbor. A University of Benin 200 word-list of lexical basic items was used to collect the primary data, and participants' voices were recorded as they provide the Ika equivalent of each word from the list. The research adopts a descriptive method in it's analysis utilizing the Onset- Rhyme framework to analyze syllable structure and patterns. The study identified that (1) Ika primarily employs open syllables with no coda and was three basic syllable structures: V-syllable, CV-syllable, CVV-syllable, (2) the Sonority hierarchy plays a significant role in shaping these structures,(3) the language exhibits syllable patterns such as v.cv, v.cv.cv, cv.cv and v.cv.cv. This study also observed that syllablic nasals are present in Ika. The research concludes, therefore, that Ika has a simple and light syllable

This research examines the structure and sociolinguistic functions of greeting expressions in the Itsekiri language. The study was motivated by the urgent need to document and preserve the language, which is gradually becoming endangered due to globalization and language shift. Using Speech Act Theory (J.L. Austin) and Dell Hymes’s Ethnography of Communication, the research analyzed Itsekiri greetings at three levels — linguistic (lexical/morphological), interactional (exchange), and sociolinguistic (contextual). Findings reveal that greetings in Itsekiri are not merely polite expressions but are deeply embedded in the culture’s values of respect, kinship, and communal harmony. The word “Ere” (meaning “well-being” or “good news”) frequently occurs as a greeting initiator, showing that greetings carry a strong illocutionary force of wishing peace and prosperity. The use of appellatives when addressing chiefs or elders demonstrates how social hierarchy and politeness are encoded in language. The study concludes that Itsekiri greetings serve both communicative and cultural functions. It recommends the preservation of these expressions through linguistic documentation, tone-marked dictionaries, and pedagogical materials for native and non-native speakers.

This research is an examination of the phonological aspects of English words borrowed into the structure of the Edo language. The study objectives are to identify and describe lexical items borrowed from English in Edo. To classify the borrowed words that have penetrated the Edo lexicon into types, and analyze the linguistic environment that characterizes the borrowed words. The
data are extracted from speakers of the Edo language are analyzed using the Borrowing Transfer Theory. The findings reveal that the borrowings occur at the lexical level as a communicative strategy of Edo speakers to find words that Stand for objects or new concepts in their culture. This study, also, shows that the borrowing situation occur as a result of the dominant language (English) exerting pressure on the less dominant language (Edo). Some of the borrowed items are already fully nativized in Ẹdo while others are only partially nativized. The partially nativized items are observed to contain forms that are not found in Ẹdo. These include English sounds (such as the voiceless palate-alveolar affricate [ʧ], the voiced palate-alveolar affricate [ʤ] and the voiceless palate- alveolar fricative [ʃ]), word initial and/or word final consonants in nouns, consonant clusters, etc.