ACAL 39 ABSTRACTS Thematic Analysis of Gurene Proverbs James Azure Ababila, University of Education, Winneba, Ghana The paper attempts a thematic analysis of Gurene proverbs based on their source domains. The source domains from which proverb themes derive are varied. The paper further examines the extent to which the speakers perceive the proverb as a repository of traditional wisdom and their world view. More than being mere objects of amusement, or even devices for learning, proverbs both reflect and contribute to patterns in people's lives, and therefore can form a powerful basis for community cohesion. I explore the different themes using data from the language. Proverb themes are greatly enhanced by literary devices such as metaphors, similes, personification and parallelism. The paper discusses the link between proverb themes and these literary devices. Clausal Comparative construction of Ethiopian Languages Daniel Aberra, University of Alberta. In his identification of Africa as a linguistic area, Greenberg (1983) pointed out that the ‘exceed comparative’ construction is one of its areal syntactic trait. This observation of Greenberg has been augmented by Heine & Kuteva (2001, 2005) that it is a macro­area feature for Africa. In fact, from the world languages that use as a standard comparison the verb meaning ‘surpass’, ‘defeat’, ‘exceed’, ‘pass’ etc, 65% are African languages of all phyla. The use of the exceed comparative is a common feature of Ethiopian languages, too. However, unlike other African languages they also use what is called the ‘separative comparative’ in addition to the exceed comparative. This paper shows that Ethiopian languages use the combination of the separative (location schema) and exceed (action schema) comparatives marking of standard (‘than’), and the comparative concept (‘more’) in line with Stassen’s (1984, 1985) typology of comparatives and Heine’s (1994, 1997) event schemas. Focusing on clausal comparative constructions, the paper discusses the marker of standard. In almost all the 46 sample languages with the exception of two, Chaha and Geez, the marker of standard of the separative comparative is the grammaticalized ablative ad position ‘from’ which is similar in form ­kv in at least 16 of the sample languages cutting across all existing language families and phyla. In three or four cases the different forms co­occur with a similar form to –kv as focus, emphatic or direction markers. Serializing without Sharing Enoch O. Aboh, University of Amsterdam and MIT Since Baker’s seminal work on argument sharing, a common hypothesis about Serial Verb Constructions (SVCs) is that the verbs in the series must share an internal argument (e.g., Collins 1997: 463). Accordingly, SVCs are complex predicates where multiple verbs discharge their internal theta­role on the same argument (e.g., the object of V1 obligatorily controls that of V2). The internal Argument Sharing Hypothesis (ASH) therefore appears a condition on serialization. Given this description, the Gungbe (Kwa) SVC (1) is unexpected because it violates the argument sharing condition. (1) Òjé ! SE!sínú kù mótò cè sO! *(àdó). Excl. Sesinou drive car 1SG­POSS hit wall ‘Sesinou drove my car hit the wall [i.e., he drove the car into the wall]!’ Such examples display various properties that formally distinguish them from coordinate structures (e.g., unique tense, negation, and aspect; absence of coordinating or subordinating conjunction; single subject; single event reading; extraction of all arguments) and indicate that the ASH must be rejected. Without the ASH, we cannot explain the existence of SVCs, and account for language variation, in terms of a serializing parameter. The present paper addresses these issues and demonstrates that, in SVCs, V1, a functional verb, merges in the functional domain of the lexical verb V2, which introduces the internal argument. Accordingly, SVCs represent a subset of common clause union phenomena, where a lexical verb first merges in a functional position (Cinque 2004). Serializing languages only differ from non­serializing ones by allowing the same morphological shape to be used functionally or lexically. 16 The Hermeneutics of ‘Floating Signifiers’ in Yoruba Traditional Belief System Adeyemi Adegoju, Obafemi Awolowo University, Nigeria This article examines how patterns of meaning are reinvented, extended and sometimes contested within the social and cultural milieux of the Yoruba of southwestern Nigeria. With close reference to the verbal and non­verbal cues employed in this context, the article invites attention to communication dynamics in defining and shaping the African world, as utterances which, at face value, may sound literal or appear somewhat innocuous actually explode into multiplicities of meaning when people of common cultural backgrounds have cause to process them in interactive situations. Consequently, this paper contends that any attempt to explain and understand African spirituality without taking cognizance of its underpinning arena of meaning would grossly undermine its essence. Tone and Demonstrative Constructions in Edo Harrison Adeniyi, Lagos State University, Nigeria. This paper examines the interactions between tone and demonstrative constructions in Edo. In the language, demonstrative constructions are made up of nouns and demonstrative qualifiers. Unlike other Edoid languages which mark this construction overtly, i.e. Etsako (Elimelech 1976), Urhobo (Aziza 1997), Emai (Egbokhare1990), etc., there is no overt marker for demonstrative constructions in Edo. What we have instead is ‘ave’ which serves as an optional plural marker with nouns, especially those that do mark plural morphologically (cf: Agheyisi 1986). The two types of demonstrative constructions that we examine are those with nominal qualifiers and demonstratives and those with premodifiers. When these demonstrative pronouns are collocated with head nouns in four different bisyllabic tonal patterns that we examined, it is discovered that irrespective of the tones that come in contact at the morpheme boundary, the output is usually a H­tone. We employed various options in analyzing these morphotonemic alternations that we have observed. The most viable option to the best of our understanding of Edoid tones is the postulation of a ‘floating’ H­tone between the head noun and the qualifier. We readily justify this position in this work. We go further to determine the extent of the influence of the ‘floating’ H­tone on the neighbouring tone(s). In doing this, nominal qualifiers are inserted between the head noun and the demonstratives na ‘this’ and nii ‘that’. It is also discovered that the effect of this ‘floating’ is limited to its immediate environment. The aim of this paper is to present facts that will lead to a better understanding of tonal alternations in Edo. Theoretical analysis would be employed only where necessary. Language Contact and Language Use: A Study of Igbo Undergraduates in selected Nigerian Universities. Harrison Adeniyi and Oluwaseun Rachael Bello, Lagos Sate University, Nigeria. The concept of languages in contact or contact languages ordinarily brings to mind the bidirectional effects two languages have on each other when they come in contact. However, the situation could bring about other conflicting forces not only on the languages in contact but on the bilingual users themselves. In this paper, we look at how the Nigerian Igbo­English bilingual speakers are able to manage the forces brought about by such contact. Our informants constitute Igbo­English undergraduates found in selected Southwestern universities in Nigeria. This paper is the outcome of a research that has been on for three years running. Our informants, we observe, are a minority bilingual speakers in the communities that we studied. However, we investigate how members of this group are able to socialize while they retain/maintain their identity. The methodologies adopted are participant’s observation and natural recording of discourses of members’ association meetings. The framework on which the study is anchored is Winford’s 2004 Dynamics of Language Contact. To Winford, language contact situations generally are subject to two often conflicting forces: the need to achieve communicative efficiency adequate for the purpose of interaction, and the need to preserve a distinct sense of group identity. Our findings show that as much as this group tries to maintain identity, linguistically and non­verbally, we still notice the difficulties speakers have in preserving language boundaries. Thus, though the artifacts depict members’ identity, they themselves do not seem to maintain linguistic landmark, which in turn would have ensured group uniqueness. 17 The Non­agreeing Resumptive Pronoun in Yoruba Oluseye Adesola, Yale University Languages vary with respect to how and whether they use resumptive pronouns. They can be classified into three groups (Merchant 2004). Languages that do not show case alternations on wh­operators (e.g. Irish, Welsh, and Hebrew) use more resumptive pronouns than languages which sometimes show case alternations in wh­operators (e.g. Greek, Romanian, and Bulgarian). Furthermore, Languages that always show case alternations on wh­operators (e.g. German, Russian, and Czech) do not use resumptive pronouns at all. If this classification is correct, Yoruba belongs to the first group because it does not show case alternations on wh­operators. It uses resumptive pronouns to the extent that its use contributes to the absence of weak crossover effects in the language in movement derived constructions. Yoruba has two types of resumptive pronouns – the agreeing and the non­agreeing resumptive pronouns. Agreeing resumptive pronouns are the pronouns which agree in number and person with their antecedents (1). A non­ agreeing resumptive pronoun does not agree in number and person with its antecedent (2). (1) a. [Àìná àti Vlá]i ni Adé n nà l}hìn tí Òjó b|b| fún wvni Aina and Ola be Ade PROG beat after COMP Ojo plead for 3p ‘Aina and Ola were the people who Ade beat after Ojo had pleaded for them’ b. *[Àìná àti Vlá]i ni Adé n nà l}hìn tí Òjó b|b| fún uni Aina and Ola be Ade PROG beat after COMP Ojo plead for 3s (2) a.