Faculty of Arts

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Browsing Faculty of Arts by Subject "Aspects in Nigerian Pidgin"

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    Tense and Aspect in Nigerian Pidgin
    (2000) Osoba, J.B
    'Tense and Aspects in Nigerian Pidgin (NGP)' is a study of the verb structure of NGP in terms of its tense and aspectual relations and patterns. In this regard, both syntactic and textual analyses of data from NGP are provided. We also provide both contrastive and comparative analyses of NGP with its superstrate, the language which provides the greater influence on NGP and its substrates, the less influencing local languages. This approach helps to establish the patterns and relations of tense and aspect in NGP as well as the mechanisms for expressing and marking them. The textual analysis validates our syntactic analysis in terms of the empirical data of our thesis. For the purpose of analysis, we adopt the orthographic system proposed by Faraclas et al. (1983), suggested by Williamson (1984) and employed by Elugbe and Omamor (1991) because it is adequate and appropriate for our work. Chomsky's (1957) and (1965) Transformational Generative Grammar (T.G.G.) is employed as our analytical model and discovered to be adequate enough for our purpose. We also adopt the multidisciplinary approach in our method of data collection by employing three principal approaches in linguistic research methodology: introspective, analytical and experimental which have been quite useful and rewarding. In this thesis, we conclude that NGP is a natural language with its own structural patterns which are different from those of its superstrate - English and substrates: Hausa, Igbo and Yoruba. We also note that even though NGP is fast creolizing in Nigeria, it may still be considered a true Pidgin in its technical sense. In terms of usage, NGP has the potential of becoming Nigeria's "National Language". Thus this study of tense and aspect in NGP is significant and worthwhile linguistically and sociolinguistically.