Negation in Kofyar Language of Plateau State

Negation in Kofyar Language of Plateau State

Chapter One

PREAMBLE OF THE STUDY

The work studies negation in Kofyar, a language spoken in Qua’anpan local government area of Plateau state. The speakers of Kofyar spread to seven districts due to their large population in Doemak, the main village. The Kofyar people are administered by village heads and they are assisted by their chiefs. Therefore, the aspects covered in this study are the sound, tonal and syllable inventories of the language, as well as some syntactic concepts such as phrase structure rules, basic word order, lexical categories and sentence types.

Transformational processes like focusing, relativization and question formation are discussed.

CHAPTER TWO

INTRODUCTION TO KOFYAR PHONOLOGY AND SYNTAX

Introduction

This chapter introduces us to the phonological and syntactic concepts of Kofyar language. It focuses on phonological issues like sound system, tonal inventory, syllable structures and syntactic issues like phrase structure rules, lexical categories, basic word order and sentence types.

Basic phonological concepts in Kofyar

Kofyar language has twenty –nine sounds made up of sixteen consonants. As follows:

/p/, /b/, /t/, /d/, /k/, /g/, /f/, /V/, /h/, /m/, /n/, /h/, /L/, /r/, /j/, /w/

Using the international phonetic association (IPA) chart, these consonants sounds can be illustrated as shown on the chart below;

Kofyar language has seven oral vowels and six nasal vowels which are /i/, /u/, /e/, /o/, /ɚ/, /e/ and /כ /.

The nasal vowels attested in the language are:

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/ĩ/, /ẽ/, /Ẽ/, /ã/, /ũ/, and /כֿ/

Using the IPA chart, these oral vowel sounds can be illustrated as shown on the chart below:

Description and distribution of Kofyar consonants /p/: voiceless bilabial plosive

word – initially

[pas] ‘Rainy season’

[piem] ‘Six’

[paat] ‘Five’

word medially

[Goepang] ‘House’

[Leo par] ‘Night’

word finally

[Doep] ‘Penis’

[Cirep] ‘Fish’

[sep] ‘Axe’

[b] voiced bilabial plosive

word-initially

[Bel] ‘Heart’

[Boet] ‘Belly’

[Biwus] ‘Firewood’

word – medially

[Dabam] ‘Cassava’

[Doebel] ‘Lizard’

[Doebap] ‘Bag’

CHAPTER THREE

NEGATION IN KOFYAR

Introduction

This chapter will focus on negation. It will explain what negation is in general terms. It will move further to apply negation to Kofyar language by showing the negation markers in Kofyar. Furthermore, it will discuss how negation is marked in sentences like simple and imperative sentences.

Negation

According to Dawl (1999:80), negation is a means of converting a sentence S₁ to S₂ such that S₂ is false while S₁ is true. Following Pei, (1969:123). Negation took its source from “Nego” a latin word which means “to assert that a thing is not so” or put in another words “to say no”. It also means to deny a request or “to refuse”.

Radford (2000:13), defines negation as a process of construction in which some proposition is said to be false. He added that negation involves the use of negative items such as; not, nobody, never, and ‘no’. Anderwald (2002:69), classified negation as a syntactic and morpho-syntactic phenomenon that lends itself extremely well to cross dialectal investigations. He went further to say that negation is also probably one of the most basic human concepts. There is no possible way of expressing or describing negation without resorting to circularity.

CHAPTER FOUR

TRANSFORMATIONAL PROCESSES IN KOFYAR LANGUAGE

Introduction

In this chapter, some transformational or syntactic processes attested in Kofyar language shall be considered. These transformational processes include focus construction, relativization and question formation. How they are applied on the deep structures of sentences to map them into surface structure in Kofyar language, shall be exemplified.

CHAPTER FIVE

SUMMARY, OBSERVATION AND CONCLUSION

Introduction

This chapter focuses on the brief summary of the research on the “Aspect of Negation” in Kofyar. It also includes the observation and conclusion.

Summary

This research work has been able to analyse negation in Kofyar. It started with an introductory aspect which includes the historical background of the language and the geographical location of the speakers. Kofyar speakers are from Qua’anpan local government area of Plateau State, Nigeria. Its genetic classification and other relevant information which explained the justification for the research were given.

The second chapter focuses on the introduction to Kofyar phonology and syntax. It focuses on phonological concepts like the sound system, tonal inventory and syllable structure and syntactic concepts like phrase structure rules, lexical categories, basic word order and sentence types.

The third chapter examines the focus of the project which is ‘negation’. The negative markers in the language were given. They are ‘n’ and ‘ba’. This chapter also discussed sentence negation, auxiliary negation, imperative negation and interrogative negation.

The fourth chapter discusses transformational processes such as focus construction and relativization.

The fifth chapter which is the concluding chapter, gives the summary and conclusion of other chapters contained in this research work.

Observation

It was observed in the course of this research that Kofyar language has two negative markers ‘n’ and ‘ba’. It was also observed that Kofyar language does not have inflections. Words in their past form remain the way they were in their present form. For instance:

Present Tense Past Tense ‘Glass’

Toeng Toeng ‘kill’

Pi’an Pi’an ‘break’

anas anas ‘slap’

waji waji ‘come’

Conclusion

Human beings depend largely on their ability to interact with fellow friends and they use languages to achieve this Kofyar which it speakers express their feelings. This research work, however, looked critically into Kofyar language with a view to analyse and describe negation in the language using government and binding theory.

However, this research work does not exhaust all the possible analysis of the processes of negation in the language. It is an effort to provide the basis for further studies on the language.

REFERENCES

Anderwald, L. (2002). “Negation in none-standard British English”. Cambridge Mass: MIT press. Blackwell Oxford UK and Cambridge USA. Cambridge University Press.
Bussman, H. (1996). Dictionary of language and linguistic. New York: Rutledge publisher.
Chomsky (1981). “Lectures on government and Binding dordrecht fori3”
Chomsky, N. (1986a). Knowledge of language: Its Nature, origin and use. New York: Praeger.
Cook, V. J. (1988). Chomsky’s “universal Grammar: an introduction” Blackwell publishers.
Crystal, D. (1985). Dictionary of language and Phnology. London: Blackwell.
Givon, T (1975). “Negation in language”. Pragmatics, functions ontology. Working paper on language University press, London.
Greenberg, J. H. (1966). Universals of language Cambridge mass: MIT press.
Haegeman, L ( 1997). “Syntax of negation” Cambridge universal press.

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