The Landmarks Series is a research and publications outfit funded by the Landmarks Research Foundation to publish recent outstanding doctoral dissertations on any aspect of Nigerian linguistics, languages, literatures and cultures. This study examines causatives in Igbo within the minimalist program. It identifies three types of causative: analytical, morphological and lexical. The book is divided into five chapters. Chapter 1 is the general introduction, while Chapter 2 examines in some details the theory of causativity. Chapters 3, 4 and 5 focus on the analytical, morphological and lexical causative respectively.

Studies in Nigerian Linguistics is a compilation of research papers on topical issues in Nigerian languages and linguistics covering three main areas of research, viz.: Language and Society, Applied Linguistics and Formal Linguistics. The papers in this volume are sectioned as such, even though there are bits of overlapping, especially for some of the papers contained in the first and second sections. The first fifteen (15) papers focus on the major theme of Language and Society in Nigeria. Many of the papers in this section address some peculiar sociolinguistic issues that affect the nation, including the nagging and lingering problem regarding the “language question” for the Nigerian nation even after five decades of the attainment of “Political Independence”, language and national development and language varieties. Section 2 contains papers in Applied Linguistics in its narrow and extended senses. There are papers on language teaching and learning, interference and intraference phenomena, language engineering (with focus on codification), communication disorders, and much more. The third section contains sixteen (16) papers in the core areas of linguistics, including phonology, morphology and syntax of Nigerian languages. Some of the papers address aspects of the phonological and morphosyntactic processes of deletion, affixation, cliticisation, causativisation, complementation, serialisation, agreement, and much more. The phrasal structure and pronominal systems of some languages were also discussed.

The Landmarks Series is a research and publications outfit funded by the Landmarks Research Foundation to publish recent outstanding doctoral dissertations on any aspect of Nigerian linguistics, languages, literatures and cultures. This study is a departer from most previous work on Yoruba Grammar in the sense that rather than being purely a descriptive grammar; it attempts to provide a theoretical analysis of the internal and external syntax of Yoruba nominal expressions using the Chomskyan Principles and Parameters approach to syntax. This Generative theory attempts to characterize the grammar of all natural languages in terms of a set of universal principles that all languages share, and a set of parameters along which languages may vary. The book emphasizes the empirical motivation behind major theoretical proposals in that framework, and shows how views on the nature of universal grammar and cross-linguistic variation have developed over the years as a consequence of a massive increase in cross-linguistic syntactic research.

This study discusses functional categories in Igbo within Noam Chomsky’s Minimalist Program (MP). Chapter 1 includes the introduction of the concept of functional categories and why they take central place in the study of syntax, as well as an overview of the Minimalist Program (MP). Chapter 2 discusses some historical antecedents to MP. It further discusses the economy principles of the MP as well as the place of functional categories within the overall conceptions of the MP model. Chapter 3 discusses five functional categories: Agreement, Tense, Aspect, Negation and Determiner. In chapter 4, the Igbo functional categories within the verbal domain: Tense, Aspect and Negation are discussed. Chapter 5 is an application of the theoretical issues raised in Chapter 2 to the analysis of the functional categories discussed in Chapter 3. One interesting issue discussed in Chapter 5 is the role of tone in realising some of the functional categories in Igbo. Chapter 6 discusses the functional categories within the nominal domain with much emphasis on the determiner. A revised version of the author’s doctoral thesis, some of the conclusions are revolutionary, relevant to debates in the linguistic theory and in Igbo studies in particular, as well as serving as an introduction to MP.

The volume is a collection of papers which apply Role & Reference Grammar (RRG) to African languages. RRG is a functional theory of syntax which has been developed on the basis of two leading questions: First, how would a syntactic theory look like which starts from 'exotic' languages rather than English? Second, how can the interaction between syntax, semantics and pragmatics in different grammatical systems best modelled and explained? Although RRG took linguistic diversity serious from its very beginning, African languages have been underrepresented in the development of the theory. Given the sheer number African languages deserve a wider coverage in a syntactic theory which takes linguistic diversity seriously. The volume is intended to fill this gap and comprises a selection of papers which investigate different aspects related to the syntax-semantics-pragmatics interface of different African languages. This includes: argument doubling and dislocation in iziZulu, complex referential phrases in Gĩkũyũ, serial verb constructions in Igbo, locative complements in Hausa and Zarma Chiine and focus constructions in Emai. The papers will extent the current RRG approach to new languages and phenomena.

In twenty-five chapters this book covers phonology, morphology, syntax and semantics. The chapters are organized in four discrete parts: phonology, morphology, syntax and semantics. They are uneven in terms of scope covered, length, the density of their contents and their degrees of difficulty. Each chapter ends with ‘Some References’ relevant to both the topic(s) treated in the chapter, in Igbo linguistics, and in general linguistics.

This volume is produced in commemoration of the official retirement of Professor Kay Williamson from the Department of Linguistics and Communication Studies, University of Port Harcourt, Nigeria. The contributing essayists cover five main generations of Nigerian linguists. The collection is divided into six sections: Language, history and Society; Applied Linguistics and Orthography Design; Gender and Communication Studies; Stylistics and Literature; Pragmatics, Discourse Analysis and Translation; and Formal Linguistics. Some of the contributors include: Ayo Bamgbose, Okon Essie, Ben Elugbe, P.A. Nwachukwu, E.N. Emenanjo, P. Anagbogu, Chinyere Ohiri-Aniche, O.M. Ndimele, O.G. Harry, Levi Igwe, C.U. Omego, O. Ojukwu, A.U. Weje, O.N. Anyanwu and A. Idafuro.