¹Oladimeji Olaide Abduwaheed, ²Owoyele Oluwasegun Joseph

^1,2Department of Linguistics and Languages, Federal University, Oye-Ekiti, Ekiti State

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ABSTRACT

This paper examines the process of relativisation in Uro and Arigidi; two varieties of Akokoid dialect cluster. Uro is spoken in Ajowa Akoko, while Arigidi is spoken in Arigidi Akoko, both in Akoko Northwest local government area of Ondo state. This work compares the relativisation process in the two dialects with a view to establishing their level of relatedness. In the two speech forms, this research reveals that the subject NP, object NP, and verbs can be relativized. The subject NP relativization is achieved by a movement of the Spec IP to Spec RelP. There is no overt relative marker when the subject NP is moved. On the other hand, the object NP is relativised by moving the NP argument to the Spec RelP. In this case, a relative marker ‘i’ on a mid- tone immediately follows the moved NP. For verbs, they are copied and nominalized through a process of reduplication, then moved to the Spec RelP. This is also followed by the relative marker ‘i’. The similarities observed in the relativisation process in these two dialects further confirm the claims by some scholars that the two dialects originated from a common source. The Government and Binding (GB) theory is used in analyzing and presenting the data.

KEYWORDS:

Relativisation, Relative Marker, NPs, Movement, Akokoid.

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