A comparative analysis of morphosyntactic features of Nigerian English and Ghanaian English

This study analyses aspects of lexis and morpho-syntax of Nigerian English and Ghanaian English. It also compares the data from the International Corpus of English (ICE), Nigeria and Ghana components respectively, that are used in the same or similar way in the two varieties. A total of fifty-three lexical items are analysed in this study. All the data were drawn from ICE Nigeria and Ghana respectively. Corpus linguistics was used as a method of data analysis. The AntConc software was used to authenticate the data that are present in both corpora. This study adopts an eclectic approach of Structural Semantics, alongside the theory of Contrastive Analysis (CA), using Bamiro’s tools of lexico-semantic variation for the categorization of the data. The study also uses ideas from Jowitt for this morphosyntactic analysis. The study found out among other things that, some irregular plurals are made regular in NE and GhE (+,-) for example, “…look for qualified staffs…”, “…top officials and other staffs who…” respectively. Also, uncountable nouns are frequently made countable and used in the plural: “advice, agenda, jewelry, offspring, property, machinery” in both varieties (+,-): “…we’ll uphold your advices…” and “…selfish agendas…”. This work has identified some NE and GhE morphosyntactic features/usages from ICE Nigeria and Ghana which have not been mentioned in existing works in NE and GhE. The study has further provided raw materials for researchers interested in the study of these two varieties and also West African English and is of immense importance to the development of NE and GhE lexicon. The study concludes that NE and GhE are separate varieties and have quite a number of distinctive features in common. These two varieties are not errors or deviations.