ENGLISH AND IGBO NOUN PHRASES: A BINDING APPROACH

Abstract

This work is a comparative study of English and Igbo noun phrases, under the submodule of GB known as binding theory. The study adopts a comparative approach as it compares the structure of NPs of both English and Igbo languages within the framework of Government and Binding theory as proposed by Noam Chomsky (1981, 1986a). Comparative studies between languages help to discover the differences and similarities existing between two languages that may border around the different linguistic systems. Binding theory which is the framework used for this study, is the theory of the syntactic restrictions on where the different NP types can appear in a sentence. The NPs discussed under BT are: Anaphors, Pronominals and R- expressions . As regards the methodology employed in this research, personal intuition, interview and consultation of written materials were used. In the findings, the researcher noted that r-expressions in both languages have the same components: nouns and determiner phrases. Pronominals in both languages perform basically the same functions but their forms differ. Also included in the findings is the fact that duo languages have reflexive markers, these they combine with appropriate pronouns to form their reflexive pronouns. The work is divided into five chapters.