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CHAPTER ONE

1.0 INTRODUCTION

This work deals with negation in Yeskwa Language. Yeskwa is a language spoken in Jema’a local government in Kaduna State and Karu local government (formerly Keffi local government area) in Nasarawa State of Nigeria. The language is also known as Nyanpa. The native speakers call themselves as Nyanpa while they are known and addressed as Yeskwa by the Hausa.

This chapter will also give insight into the historical and sociocultural background of Yeskwa people. It will also situate the Yeskwa language in the genetic classification of languages.

The chapter also contains a discussion of the adopted theoretical frame. Furthermore, the chapter explains the theoretical framework, data analysis and the mode of data collection and introduction of basic syntactic concepts.

1.1 Historical Background of Yeskwa people

Yeskwa language is also known as Nyanpa. Nyanpa is the real name of this language in focus but the Hausa name it as Yeskwa. The Yeskwa people are located in only two different places/areas in Nigeria. These areas are: Jama’a local government area of Kaduna State and Karu local government area of Nasarawa State respectively. The people of Yeskwa migrated from Maiduguri before they finally settled down at their present areas. According to one oral account, it was said that the people took counsel among themselves and they finally agreed to settle at their current area amidst forest then, because the land is fertile for agriculture. It is worthy of note that Yeskwa people are farmers. They produce cash crops and food crops such as Yam, Beniseed, Okro, guinea corn, millet, maize, cassava, vegetable, tomato etc.

At this juncture, it must also be stressed that the word ‘Nyanpa’ is a fusion of two native words with strong meaning each. One of such words is ‘Ay’ which means ‘we branch’ and ‘Anpa’ which means ‘leaf’. Hence, the word ‘Ayanpa’ which is the outcome of the two words (ay and anpa) are strung together to name the community known as Nyanpa. The word ‘ ayanpa’ therefore means ‘ ‘we branch to settle in this bush’.

1.2 Socio-cultural profile of Yeskwa people

This section focuses on the ways of life of the people of Yeskwa with regard to their occupation, marriage system, religion and burial ceremony.

1.2.1 Occupation

The major occupation of the people of Yeskwa is farming. They produce crops such as Beniseed, Asha, yam, cassava, millet, maize, okro, vegetable, guinea corn, soya beans, tomatoes etc.

1.2.2 Marriage system of Yeskwa people

In Yeskwa speaking community, there are many interesting things about their marriage system. One of such interesting things is that, a man can marry twelve (12) to even thirty (30) wives. Since the only occupation that the man does is farming. He marries these women for them to assist him on his farm. These women also give birth to as many children as possible. The products (children) between this man and these women then grow up to become farmers. These Children get mature and end up helping their father on his farm.

Another interesting point to note about Yeskwa marriage system is that two men that are close friends can betroth their two unborn children to each other if one is born male and the other born female. But on the contrary, if the two children are born males they automatically become close friends just as their fathers.

1.2.3 RELIGION

Generally, the Yeskwa people were idol worshippers long before the coming of Christianity and Islam but now the Yeskwa people are made up of Christians, Moslems and idol worshippers with Christians having about eighty percent (80%) of the population while twenty percent (20%) are either idol worshippers or Moslims.

1.2.4 BURIAL CEREMONY

Long before now and even now, the people of Yeskwa people don’t delay in burying their corpse. Whenever a person dies in this community, they send messages to the dead’s relations that are either far or near for them to come around, they waste no time as soon as they are around they bury the dead person instantly without further delay. One amazing thing about how the Yeskwa people conduct their burial service is that as soon as the grave is dug, the corpse is brought near the grave wrapped with white cloth. After prayers have been said for the corpse, the people then proceed to drop the lifeless body into the grave and cover the grave with planks and finally cover the planks with sand without it (sand) touching the corpse’s body.

1.3 GENETIC CLASSIFICATION OF YESKWA LANGUAGE

Genetic classification is a sub-grouping of all relevant languages into a genetic node. The word ‘genetic’ is from the word genesis meaning ‘origin’. In other word, genetic classification is the way we classify all languages that are related into one group, domain or node. A node is defined as a group of languages that are closely related to the other. The essence of genetic classification is as follows:

To affirm that certain languages are related to one another in terms of common ancestors.
To specify how the languages are inter-related.

Yeskwa language is part of the Niger Congo language family which is a sub-family of Niger Kordofanian.

Below is the diagram that shows the Yeskwa language in genetic classification.

AFRICA

Nigerkordofanian Nilo-sahara Khoisan Afro-asiatic

Niger congo Kordofanian

Westatlantic Mande Gur Adamawa Eastern Benue-congo Kwa

Plateau

Nungu YESKWA Eggon

source: Greenberg Joseph H. (1966) the Africa language structures(2nd ed. With additions and corrections). 1.4 SCOPE AND ORGANIZATION OF THE STUDY

This work covers aspects of negation in Yeskwa language and it is segmented into five chapters. Chapter one captures the introductory part of the work dealing with the historical background and socio-cultural profile of the Yeskwa people. The place of Yeskwa in genetic classification is also indicated, it also includes a review of the mode of data collection and analysis together with the review of chosen framework that is, Government and binding theory of syntax known as GB Syntax. Chapter two deals with the phonology of Yeskwa language and some basic syntactic concepts such as phrase structure rules, lexical categories, sentence types, and basic word order. Chapter three focuses on the syntax of negation in Yeskwa language while chapter four deals with various transformational processes attested in Yeskwa such as focus and relativization in relation to negation. Chapter five summaries and concludes the entire work.

1.5 DATA COLLECTION AND ANALYSIS

The method employed in data collection is informant method. Here, the informant was interviewed and he produced equivalent words from English language to his language (Yeskwa), with the Ibadan 400 – wordlist serving as the main guide. Data were also collected by the use of frame technique.

Below are some information about the informant (language helper):

Name: Mr. Ole Abdullahi Aminu

Age: 63 years

Sex: Male

Occupation: Farmer

Number of years spent in Yeskwa: 25

Language(s) spoken apart from Yeskwa: Nupe, Hausa and Yoruba.

1.5.1 DATA ANALYSIS

In this research work, five examples from Yeskwa noun phrase, five examples from verb phrases and prepositional phrases were used. There are also examples from Yeskwa language sentence types: five examples from simple sentence, four examples from compound and two examples from complex sentences. The data collected were used according to how the native speakers used them without imposing any extraneous rule or correction.

1.6 Review of chosen framework

The theoretical framework to be used in this research work is Government and binding theory (GB). Government and Binding theory or GB syntax was proposed by Noam Chomsky in the 1950’s). This theory was derived from the theories of universal grammar which posits multiple levels of representation related by transformational rule (move − alpha). (Sanusi, 1996:21)

According to Radford (1988: 419) transformation is the rule that deals with the act of changing the structure of one sentence to another structure through the concept of movement known as move- alpha (move – α).

Government and Binding theory postulates seven sub-theories of the theory of grammar. The structures generated at various levels are constrained by a set of theories, which define the kind of relationships possible within a grammar. The sub-theories of Government and binding theory are given below (Cook, 1988:87)

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