CHAPTER ONE
INTRODUCTION
1.0 Preamble
This thesis is on Contrastive Study of English and Adara tenses and aspects: a case
of Ewa dialect. It is set to contrast the tenses and aspects structures of the two
languages – English (an Indo-European language), and Adara (a Nigerian,
indigenous Language). The discussion here focuses on Background to the Study,
Brief History of the Adara People, their population and the Language. The chapter
further deals with sections on the Statement of the Research Problem, Research
Questions, the Aim and the Objectives of the Study, Justification for the Study, as
well as the Scope and Delimitation of the Study.
The term ‗Contrastive Analysis‘ (CA) refers to the systematic comparison of two
languages to ascertain their similarities and differences (Di Petro, 1968:1, Crystal,
2003:107, and Matthews, 2007:79). Contrastive Analysis was originally developed
to establish Lado‘s 1957 ‗Contrastive Analysis Hypothesis‘ in ‗Error Analysis‘. The
intention was to ascertain and predict errors made by Second Language learners of
English Language due to mother tongue (MT) interference (Brown 1987:157).
Contrastive Analysis has also been used to establish language genealogies in
addition to the primary role of identifying their structural differences or similarities.
CA is thus explored in this study to determine the syntactic variations in the
structure of English and Adara tenses and aspects. Tenses and aspects are basically
within the verb phrase (comprising the main verb, auxiliaries and other elements
relating to the verb to make tenses and aspects). Tense, strictly speaking, in the English language is divided into two: the present (go,
eat, die) and past (went, ate, died). All other expressions of time are formed by
combining an auxiliary verb with the present participle, past participle, or infinitive,
as in the progressive or continuous aspect ( e.g., The cake is baking slowly), the
perfect or perfective aspect ( He had watched television for an hour), and the Simple
furture (I will finish my work) (Center for Writing Studies, 2013). The present tense
is the umnmarked tense which is timeless in the sense that it can embrace anytime
that does not exclude the speaker‘s time (hence its use for general truths), and any
time that the speaker does not want to distance himself or herself from. The past
tense, on the other hand, is defined as being marked to express separation from the
speaker‘s ‗now‘, to indicate the hypothetical nature of a statement (modal
remoteness), or to convey social distancing ( Aarts, Chalker, and Weiner, 2014:415).
Aspect, on the other hand, is a category of grammar used to describe a ‗situation‘, as
expressed by a ‗verb‘ in combination with its arguments, unfolds over time. English
is often considered to have two aspects: ‗progressive aspect‘ which expresses a
situation that is regarded as being in progresss (or an incomplete situation), and
‗perfect aspect‘ which expresses a completed situation in the past (Aarts, et al,
2014:35).
The thesisharnessed the syntactic relatedness of elements that make up tense and
aspect structures in English and Adara. Precisely, the syntactic structure of verbal
groups in (a) declarative sentences, (b) interrogative sentences, and (c) negative
sentences are looked into in contrast. These are mainstreamed in tense and aspect
structure subheads for easy contrasts according to each subhead.. However, imperative clauses, designating clause types typically used for issuing
directives (Aarts, et al; 2014:206) or referring to verb forms/clause types typically
used in the expression of commands, for example, ‗go away‘ (Crystal, 2003:227) are
excluded from this study. Equally, modal verbs are signalled by alternative
paradigms of the verb to show syntactic or semantic contrasts in the context of
‗mood‘; but they have been viewed only as auxiliary verbs in the analysis without
emphasising ‗mood‘.
1.2 Statement of the Research Problem
The syntactic structure of Adara language has not been studied in contrast to English
language as is the case with some Nigerian languages such as Hausa, Yoruba, Igbo,
Tiv, Kanuri, Jenjo, Jaba and the like. Therefore, until it is studied as is being carried
out in this thesis, the syntax of Adara language will remain obscure. The Adara
wordlist produced based on the phonology of Adara by Blench (2009) is a
formidable starting point for the analysis of the entire language as it was the
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pronunciation of a native speaker(Alex Maikarfi) of ‗Eda‘ (a dialect of Adara). The
wordlist by Blench is a proposal for the native speakers and scholars to comment
upon towards development of the language. However, the work will be futile if no
effort is made to build on it.
The sociolinguistic study of the dialects of Adara by Hon, et al. (2012) was carried
out by non – natives who made a comparative analysis of the dialects‘ vocabulary to
enable the choice of a dialect suitable for Bible translation. Existing works on Adara
language stated above are a wordlist that gives basis for codification and
development of the language. This calls for further work(s) forthe evelopment and
description of the syntactic elements at the phrase or sentence level. Lack of
relevant literature on the language perhaps slows the pace of the Bible translation
project. The study of a language at any stage paves way for codification of the
language, translation of information to or from the language, and it helps to preserve
and prevent the language from going extinct.
There are works on ―Grammatical Analysis of Tense and Aspect of Jenjo
Language‖ spoken in Taraba State by Gwah (2009), ―a contrastive analysis of the
basic clause in Ejagham and English‖ by Obgonna in Ndimele (2010) in which
variations were found in the verbal groups of the two languages distinct from the
Adara verbal group. Variations were also found in the ―Contrastive Studies of
Tense and Aspect Structure of Arabic and English‖ by both Al-Asmad
(www.researchgate.net) and Slal (www.iasi.net), ―A Contrastive Analysis of English
and Hyam Language‖ by Yaro (2011), and ―Tense and Aspect in English and
Yoruba‖ by Lamidi (2010).
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Native speakers of Adara who are learning English would surely encounter the
difficulty of structural variation between English and their language. More so,
teachers of English to learners who are native speakers of Adara would also find it
difficult to plan their lessons well in view of the problem stated above. On this basis,
this thesis was motivated and has to answer the following questions as a possible
way of bridging the existing gap, building on the existing Adara proposed alphabet
and wordlist.
1.3 Research Questions
The study is guided by the following questions:
- How different are the syntactic elements of English and Adara languages
with regards to Subject-Verb-Object structure? - What syntactic elements are common to both tenses and aspects in English
and Adara languages? - To what extent do the grammatical rules of generating tenses and aspects in
English and Adara languages differ? - How can contrastive analysis of tenses and aspects in English and Adara
languages contribute to the learning or teaching of English as L2 in adara
native speaker context? ` - Of what contribution is the contrastive analysis of English and Adara tenses
and aspects to the codification and translation of Adara language and to
linguistics?
1.4 Aim and Objectives of the Study
The aim of the study is to do a contrastive study of English and Adara tenses and
aspect so as to provide information relevant for the understanding of English by Adara native speakers, for pedagogical purposes, and for the furtherance of
linguistic studies. Therefore, the objectives of the study are to:
i. Describe the differences in the structure of English Language and Adara
languages in terms of Subject-Verb-Object.
ii. Identify and describe the common elements in tenses and aspects of English
and Adara languages.
iii. Examine the extent to which rules of generating tenses and aspects in
English and Adara languages differ.
iv. Describe the implications of i–iii above to the learning and teaching of
English as a second language in Adara native speaker context.