A UNIVERSAL GRAMMAR ACCOUNT OF TIME-RELATIONSHIP SIGNALS IN ENGLISH AND ỤKWỤANỊ VERB PHRASES.

This paper reports the outcome of a Contrastive Analysis undertaken in order to account for some general principles governing the expression of time location in two apparently non cognate languages: English (Nigeria's official language) and ỤKWụANị, one of the indigenous languages of Nigeria. It focuses on the verb phrase component with temporal significance in signaling temporal sequences: temporal ordering previous, (past) simultaneous, (present) and subsequent (future) to given time reference. The linguistic framework adopted for analysis is Government and Binding (GB) Revised version of Transformational Generative Grammar which is premised on systems of principles of Universal Grammar. It explicates the possibilities and limits of rule interaction and functions in grammars. English syntactic strings and their ỤKWụANị translation equivalent provide the data for analysis. Aspects of grammatical convergence revealed in both languages show English Past signaled by {D1} and {li} in ỤKWụANị). Simultaneous and subsequent time marking in English is morphologically realized in relation to subject-verb concord whereas a T - marker "ne" is the simultaneity signal in ỤKWụANị. Subsequent time (Future) in English is M(AUX) "will"+ V and in Ukwuan M[VP] +V. It also shows that whereas in English, this is morphologically signaled, ỤKWụANị adds phonologically signal to the grammatical marker. Present and past tense structures in both languages are quite similar; resulting in significant congruent structures. Divergent as future time grammar may seem, our analysis also reveal quite similar patterns. There are indeed then meeting points for the two grammars in spite of geographical and cultural non contiguity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]