On the Study of the Parametric Variations in Igbo and English Yes/No Questions

Abstract

The Igbo language is one of the languages of the Benue Congo family spoken chiefly spoken in the south-east part of Nigeria. It is also among the Kwa group of languages in Nigeria and one of the three major languages in Nigeria. This paper sets out to investigate the expression of yes/no questions in Igbo and English syntax with aim of identifying the how yes/no questions operate in the two languages, the differences and similarities that that exist in expressing the notion in the two languages, the words the languages employ in expressing it and their movement in the syntactic structures. The principles and parameters model serve as the theoretical framework for the study. The work also employs the descriptive approach in the analysis of the data. The study discovers that movement is attested in expressing yes/no questions in the two languages and both languages share common leftward movement. In English language, it is observed that subject aux inversion exists while in the Igbo language it does not exist. In Igbo language, resumptive pronoun trace phenomenon which is always on the low tone exists but it does not exist in English. This resumptive pronoun is always found in the subject position in the place of the moved NP functioning as the antecedent and both share agreement features. The subject c-commands the resumptive pronoun traces and assigned it all the necessary properties. In Igbo language, low tone is a question trigger in yes/no questions. This study attempts to tone mark all the syllables, that is, high, low and down-step tones are marked. The study therefore, recommends that more comparative research works be done in the language by applying the linguistic theories in order to find out how they operate in the language.

Key Words: Movement, Parameter, Principles, Yes/no questions, Resumptive pronoun