The Morphosyntax of Pronouns in the Ìlàj¿ Dialect of Yorùbá

Master's Thesis from the year 2012 in the subject Speech Science / Linguistics, grade: B, University of Ibadan, course: African Linguistics, language: English, abstract: Some studies on Standard Yoruba already have detailed structural accounts on the

pronouns. However, similar studies are needed in the regional dialects. This study, therefore,

examined the pronouns in Ìlàj¿, a south-eastern Yoruba dialect, with a view to providing a

formal account that reveals the native speaker¿s intuition of their structure.

The study employed McCarthy¿s Prosodic Morphological theory and Chomsky¿s

Minimalist Program as its theoretical framework incorporating phonology and syntax in the

morphology of pronoun. Data were generated from the common use of personal pronouns

among the Ìlàj¿ native speakers from Ayétòrò . Ayétòrò does not only have speakers with a

high degree of dialect loyalty but does also have native speakers drawn all over Ìlàj¿land in

fair representation. [...]