INTRODUCTION
1.0 Preliminary
Preliminary
is a brief introduction of the various components of this study. This chapter
is sub-divided into the following headings; background to the study, statement
of problem , objectives of the study, research questions, statement of
hypotheses, significance of the study which is further divided into academic
and theoretical significance, scope of the study and finally limitation of the
study.
1.1
Background of the Study
Negation
is a grammatical process in which a grammatical morpheme appears in an
expression and turns the affirmative reading of the expression. In other words,
negation involves the expression of the reverse value of an affirmative
expression as a result of the appearance of a particular morpheme. Igbo
language is morphologically regarded as an agglutinative language due to its
ability to constrain a whole phrase, clause and, sentence into a single word.
This is mostly evident in Igbo personal names as 90% of personal names are
derived from agglutination. Igbo language is also rich in its verbs as most
Igbo words trace their roots to verbs. Base in Igbo language is mostly referred
to verbs as most Igbo affixes apply to verbs alone. After all, “the three main
morphological processes are compounding, affixation and conversion and compounding
involves adding two stems together†(Agbedo, 2000:16). The reason for the
choice of language of the researcher is to propagate and propel the equality
between Igbo language and every other language especially English language
which out of misconception is regarded to be higher than other African
languages. This research aims at explicating the difference between negation
marker of Ihiala and Standard Igbo. The scope of this study is within Ihiala
dialect and Standard Igbo.
According to Agbo, (2010) the speakers
of Igbo language are found in the Eastern region of Nigeria. The states where
this language is spoken include Imo, Enugwu, Anambara, Abia, Ebonyi, some parts
Rivers State known as Ikwere and, some part of Delta State known as Ika Igbo.
The language of focus has about 30 milion speakers and is classified into the
language family of Niger-Congo; in the sub-group of Kwa Nwadike (2002).
Similarly, Ihiala is a city in Nigeria, located
in the south of the state Anambra, and has long served as the local
administrative capital of the zone. The population is about 87,796 persons. Get the Complete Project Material Now!!!
