COMPARATIVE STUDY OF THE MORPHO-SYNTACTIC STRUCTURES OF ENGLISH AND WUKARI DIALECT OF JUKUN

Abstract

Human language, as varied as they are, still share some similarities with one another in relation to Universal Grammar by Chomsky.  Jukun language, the language spoken by the descendants of Kwararafa kingdom, even though separated into many dialects yet majority are mutually intelligible. This study aims to conduct a morphosyntactic analysis of English and the Wukari dialect of the Jukun language. The study adopted a descriptive research design since the study aimed at undertaking a morpho-syntactic analysis of English and Wukari dialect of Jukun language. The researcher also conducted an informal interview with native speakers of Wukari dialect of Jukun language. The analytic method that was employed for data analysis was descriptive in nature. From the analysis, it was discovered that every language has its own grammar, some noun phrases in Wukari dialect of Jukun language conform to English grammatical rules when translated directly. While determiners in Wukari dialect of Jukun language are mostly bound inflectional morphemes and are usually post-modifiers, the English language determiners are free morphemes and pre-modifiers. In addition to that, what constitutes a word in Wukari dialect of Jukun language may become a phrase or a sentence in English when translated directly. The study concludes that even as there are many instances of dissimilarities between the English and Wukari dialect of Jukun language, there are also several similarities between them.