Compiled by Mhizter S. A.

Otolowo

Contemporary English Usage

(ENG 325)
Lecturer-in-charge: Mrs. Osuolale-Ajayi

The Delivered Lecture on 28th October, 2019

A BRIEF HISTORY OF ENGLISH LANGUAGE

English started in England although it was not the first language spoken therein but
Celt. The history of English started with Romans’ occupation. The Romans provided a
shield for England. During their occupation, there was no major linguistic influence on
English. As at then, Rome had the world power and England was not attached because of
the presence of Roman army. During this period, civilisation and education started in
England as England strived under Rome. England was then attached under Rome and so
did not experience war.
The Roman occupation lasted for three generations (400 years) as there was no
training for that during the Roman occupation. At this point, the England neighbouring
countries were training for war. The Picts and Scots invaded the Celts and this made the
Celts to request the help of the Jutes who in return requested parts of the Celts’ island if
they were to defend them. After the war, the Jutes were made to occupy some parts of the
island and later on developed so much love for their new abode because they loved the
climatic condition of the area. For that reason, the Jutes thought to take more possessions
of the land but they refused and so they both went into war.

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Some other Germanic countries travelled to Britain through the sea. The Angles
settled at the East coast of Britain while the Frisians (Saxons) settled on the British
mainland. It was when they came that there was linguistic influence. The Germanic tribes
settled in a smaller kingdom (HEPTARCH). It included the Celtic inset, outset and onset.
The warlike and pagan Saxon became the dominating group and so the island later
became known as Angla-land or England Land and later shortened to England. Its
imagined language is known as Englisc which is new and being referred to as the Old
English. The Old English is a mixture of the three Germanic tribes and some of the Celtic
English.

THE OLD ENGLISH (450 – 1100 AD)

The invading Germanic tribes spoke similar languages but the three dialects were
mutually intelligible. That is, the Saxons understood the Germanic dialects spoken by the
Jutes and the Angles. These dialects developed into what is called Old English. Old English
is different from the modern or contemporary English. The native speakers have
difficulties in understanding the Old English. Although, this does not mean to say that all
the lexical items of Old English have gone into extinction. In fact, half of the most
commonly used words in Modern English have Old English roots such as the Modern
English words “see” and “blue” have their origin in the Old English as “sea” and “blua”
respectively.

THE MIDDLE ENGLISH (1100 – 1500 AD)

William the Conqueror, who was the Duke of Normandy, a part of Northern France,
invaded and conquered England in 1066. The Normans brought varieties of French
language of royal court and ruling classes. This means that there were varieties of language
being spoken by different classes. The Lower class spoke English while the Upper class
spoke French.

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The Delivered Lecture on 14th November, 2019

VARIATIONS IN THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE

There are various causes of the variations in English language. These tenable factors
include historical factor, geographical factor, social factor, age factor, gender (sex)
factor, among others. An example of the historical factor as a catalyst of variation in the
language is the slave trade and many other commercial contacts with many countries. For
the geographical factor, the case of Britain is an explicable example. The Britons colonised
many countries and as a result, each of these colonies has a vivid distinction in the way in
which the language is being spoken. Most of them have actually been affected by the
dialects being spoken in their respective vicinity.
The social factor, on the other hand, deals with societal status. In the United
Kingdom (UK), there are three basic classes which are the Upper Class, the Middle Class
and the Lower Class. The Upper Class consists of non-politicians but monarchs. They
assumed such status by lineage and the variation of the language as being used by people
of this class is characterised by extreme correctness such as “come and dine with me”. The
people of this class include Kings, Queens, Dukes, Duchesses and some others. Their
children do not go to schools but have home teachers that teach them the etiquettes of the
language such as the language of governance, sports, politics, etc. They are highly
knowledgeable even in terms of dance, drama and many other acts of arts. The people here
use the standard form of the English language.
The Middle Class is characterised by political and economic elites of the society.
They exhibit correctness in their language use and also enroll their children in schools that
enlighten them in the use of correct language. This is that they can afford the standard form
of the language for their children. The Lower Class comprises the commoners. Therefore,
they are not exposed to the standard form of the language. The same case of this
sociological factor applies here in Nigeria. It is by the dint of hard work that the movement
from the Lower Class to the Middle Class is common but from the Lower Class to the
Upper Class is rare.

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Age is another factor that causes variation in the use of the English language, it is
not just a number. The age of people also affects their language use. From 0 – 3 years of
age, those within this range are referred to as infants (toddlers). From 4 – 12 years of age,
they are regarded as children. From 13 – 17, we have the adolescents and from 18 above,
we have the adults. Most children cannot use complex sentences as their vocabulary is not
wide. Hence, it is very easy to understand such variety of the language as it is characterised
by extreme or absolute simplicity and the issue of either correct or incorrect variety here is
excusable. The variation of the youths is characterised by the use of slangy expressions,
ellipses, pidgin, coinages, cramming expressions, acronyms (abbreviations) and contracted
forms. Adults have particular amount of resentment to the roguish use of the language.
They are not interested in coinages, slangs and the likes.
In term of gender, women mostly use empty adjectives, colour precisions and
question tags. Given that ladies are gentle in nature, they use a form of the language which
is also gentle in nature. Also, statistics has shown that women use a standard form of the
English language better than men and they (women) also use fillers such as “erhm”,
“hmm”, etc. In contrary to the meekness in form of the women’s variety, men’s form is
authoritative, unapologetic and blunt.

The Delivered Lecture on 21st November, 2019

WORD CLASSES
What the Traditional Grammarians called Parts of Speech are today referred to as
Word Classes.

NOUNS
Talking of the syntactic structure of the English language, nouns occupy the subject
and object positions but when we talk of the Systemic Grammar, they occupy both subject
and complement positions. The elements found in a nominal group are basically three and
can be put in a formula as (M) H (Q) where M stands for Modifier(s), H for Headword

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and Q for Qualifier(s). Enclosing M and Q in parentheses connotes that the two are optional
in a nominal group. That is, they may and may not be found. However, H which is not
enclosed is the compulsory element of all without which any group of words that is called
nominal group will be incomplete. Examples of nominal group with the three elements
include:
M H Q
(The young beautiful) lady (outside) 3-word Modifier & 1-word Qualifier

M H Q
(A European) man (with beards) 2-word Modifier & 2-word Qualifier

M H Q
(A) mouse (in the kitchen) 1-word Modifier & 3-word Qualifier

In Traditional Grammar, we have Direct and Indirect objects. These are in Systemic
Grammar (SG) referred to as Intensive and Extensive complements. Intensive
complements are the complements that refer back to the subject in the sentence while
Extensive complements are those that do not refer back to the subject.
Most Nigerians do not use articles or determiners before their headword, whereas
some other people overuse it. For example, they make statements like “leave road, car is
coming” instead of “leave the road, a car is coming”. It is important to add this so that
one’s message will be well understood. There are several other examples where it is
appropriate to use the modifiers. Another example is “I have class” instead of “I have a
class”.

VERBS
In English language, the most obligatory component of a sentence is the verb, such
as “stand”, “sit”, etc. the elements in a verbal group can be compendiously summarised
into (A) (N) L (Pt) where A stands for Auxiliary verb(s), N for Negator (not), L for Lexical
verb(s) and Pt for Particles. The only compulsory element among these verbal elements is
the lexical verb.

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The Delivered Lecture on 2nd December, 2019

CONTINUATION ON WORD CLASSES

VERBAL GROUP
There are different types of verbs. The two basic ones in term of tense are the present
and the past tense verbs. The basic concord rule states that a singular subject requires a
singular verb such as “Ade eats well”. Most students, however, mistake the use of an “s”
after a verb to mean plural. Such students tend to make expressions like “he identify”, “he
go”, etc. Other types of verbs include but not limited to regular verbs, irregular verbs,
transitive verbs and intransitive verbs. Regular verbs are the verbs that normally take the
past tense morpheme “-ed” in denoting the past tense case in a sentence while the irregular
verbs are those verbs that change their forms in denotaing past tense rather than taking the
past tense morpheme. Such verbs include “take (present) – took (past) – taken (past
perfect)”, “go (present) – went (past) – gone (past perfect)”, “sweep (present) – swept
(past) – swept (past perfect)”, etc. However, the continuous forms of the verbs can also be
used as nouns. When thus they are used as nouns, they are referred to as Gerund Nouns.
The transitive verbs are the verbs that usually attract noun phrase in the object
position. Verbs of this type are regarded as +NP Verbs, where NP means Noun Phrase.
That is, they always attract a noun phrase. Intransitive verbs, on the other hand, are the
verbs that do not attract a noun phrase. Such verbs are regarded as –NP Verbs. We should
note that not all verbs can be categorised in isolation to either of these categories unless
when they are used in contexts. This is because the study of a word in isolation is always
abstract which can only become concrete when used in a context, that is, when they are
used together with another group of words where the function of one in relation to the other
to form a meaningful whole will be examined. For example, in the sentences “Babatunde
kills” and “Babatunde killed the cockroach”, the verb used in both sentences is “kill” but
one is intransitive while the other is transitive, hence, it passes different messages in the
different contexts. In the first context, the message passed is that it is the habitual action of
Babatunde to kill anything while in the second context, the message therein is just that a

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known cockroach to the interlocutors has been killed by Babatunde and there is no any
other act of killing as the case is in the first instance.

CONCORD
The aspects of concord in sentences include:
 a singular subject requires a singular verb;
 a plural subject requires a plural verb;
 subject and complement agreement;
 an indefinite pronoun with a singular verb;
 multiple subjects with a plural verb;
 when an indefinite pronoun is preceding the multiple subjects, it goes with a
singular verb; etc.

The Delivered Lecture on 9th December, 2019

CONTINUATION ON CONCORD
GRAMMATICAL CONCORD
 A coordinative appositive structure attracts a singular verb (provided that the first
position is referring to a single entity). A coordinative appositive structure is a
situation where two nouns or pronouns (nominal groups) are put in the same case
without a connecting word between them. For example, “the Dean of Faculty of
Arts, Prof. Abdulrasheed A. Adeoye…” the latter is still referring to the former as
the second nominal group only explains or characterises the first group. Hence, the
second group functions as an apposition to the first group. Therefore, the verb that
will be used in this case is still a singular verb, as in “The Dean of Faculty of Arts,
Prof. Abdulrasheed A. Adeoye, is delivering the inaugural lecture by 04.00pm
today”.

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 When asyndetic conjunctions are used, the verb will be plural, for example, “Bola,
Tola, Yemi, Wunmi, are all going to attend the orientation programme”.

 When we have multiple singular subjects joined by a conjunction, a plural verb will
be use. E.g.; “Tade and Tobi are eating”.

 When the multiple subjects are, however, preceded by an indefinite pronoun, a

singular verb will be used. E.g.; “Each of Tade and Tobi is to come with a cup”.

 When two subjects are joined by quasi coordinators such as “in conjunction with”,
“as well as”, “alongside with”, etc., as in “the goalkeeper, together with the
players…”, the verb to be used is singular. That is “The goalkeeper, together with
the players, is here”. We should note also that the choice of the verb to be used is
determined by the subject before the quasi coordinator. For instance, in a case where
we have “the players, together with the goalkeeper…” as opposed to the structure of
the first one, the verb here will be plural, i.e., “the players, together with the
goalkeeper, are here”.

PROXIMITY CONCORD
This type of concord rules is only applicable at the presence of correlative
conjunctions and it deals with which headword is closest to the verb to determine the choice
of the verb.
 When the interrogative pronouns are used, the referent determines the choice of the
verb. E.g.; “why is he leaving now?” and “where are they going to?”

 In a nominal group, the headword determines the choice of the verb.

A MORE EXPOSITION ON PROXIMITY CONCORD BY PETER SWOT

Proximity concord is different from grammatical concord in the sense that it deals
with closeness. What we then look at is the closeness of what? This is that it restricts itself
to the closest noun or noun phrase to the verb in a sentence. It states that the nearest noun
(at the subject position to the verb) in a sentence determines the verb in number (either to

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be a singular verb or plural verb). This is to actually say that, there are more than one noun
in that sentence and to determine which kind of verb to use, the nearest or closest noun
(plural noun or singular noun) will determine the choice of the verb to use. So, if the nearest
noun is singular, the verb will be singular and if otherwise the nearest noun is plural, the
nearest verb will be plural. Examples will come in soon for more clarification. In English
language, there are some identifiers we can actually see in a sentence to know that the best
concord to use is PROXIMITY CONCORD. The identifiers include “neither…nor”,
“either…or”, “not...but”. All these are used by English speakers commonly and we do
not have to trouble ourselves using grammatical or notional concord in this context. All we
need here is the provision(s) of the PROXIMITY CONCORD.
An example is “not Olu but the playful boys come here every day to eat”. The nearest
noun in the sentence is plural (playful boys), that is why a plural verb which is “come” is
to be used. However, if we have the sentence as “not the playful boys but Olu come here
everyday to eat”, it is not correct because “Olu” is the nearest noun and it is singular and
thus, the verb will be singular. So, the right verb here is “comes”. More examples include:

Neither James nor those men usually attend the meeting (“those men” is the nearest
noun and it is plural, hence, the verb must be plural. So, we have “attend” not
“attends”); and
Either the ministers or the president is expected to be there.

NOTIONAL CONCORD
This deals mainly with the notion that we have in minds. If we say something is
notional, what do we mean? We actually mean that it is based on one's notion(s) about
something, one's intended meaning, one's thought, one's intention and the likes. So,
NOTIONAL CONCORD is a type of concord which restricts itself to the study of
meaning and not form of a sentence. This means that, we do not have to consider the
surface appearance of a sentence but you rather consider the meaning which you intend to
pass across. And this usually determines the verb usage. There are some words in English
that are usually the causes of confusion among learners of English and they are collective
nouns. Learners of English ask themselves a question which is “should I use a singular or

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plural verb?” However, the usage is in two forms, we are to choose one. One is the
American usage of it and the second is the British usage of it.
Collective nouns are words like “committee”, “team”, “crowd”, “police”,
“audience”, etc. We may get confused with these words when we want to use a verb with
them by asking ourselves if we should use a singular verb or a plural verb. Now, we have
to consider two factors. One, the British accept it that a collective noun should be followed
by a plural verb. That means they see a collective noun as a plural noun. The Americans,
on the other hand, accept it that a collective noun should be followed by a singular verb,
that means they see a collective noun as a singular noun. We should, however, note that
the British view is preferred. Despite all that, in notional concord, the notion or meaning
we intend to pass across will determine the choice of the verb. Examples are “the
committee are here on their seats” and “the committee is here on his seat”. This means that
what we want to use the collective noun as (either singular or plural) will determine the
choice of the verb. Some other examples are “the team have been playing excellently over
the years” and “the team has been playing excellently over the years”. So, we either use it
as a singular form or we use it as a plural form. It all lies on our “notions”.
Also, here under notional concord, we consider the relationship between collective
nouns and their verbs. A collective noun is a noun used in referring to a group of people or
things, e.g., “committee”, “team”, etc. With collective nouns, the context determines
whether the verb is singular or plural. If the noun is taken as a unit, then, a singular verb
will be used but if the members in the group are seen as separate, then, a plural verb will
be used. For examples:

The committee meets once in a year

The committee contribute to issues as they are empowered
The jury vote according to their consciences
The jury was dissolved after the case
However, in some other situation, we may have something like “the member of the
committee…” Given that the “member” does not carry an “s”, it is seen as a singular noun
and thus the verb to be used should be singular. The reason is that this instance is one that

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requires the use of grammatical concord. Had it been there was no “the member of” in the
utterance, notional concord would have been of use.

Now, let us practice the questions below:

i. The men but not the girl ______ every day.
(a) read
(b) reads
ii. The jury _____ done something wrong with his speech.
(a) has
(b) have
iii. Neither Jacob nor the girls _____ on this path every day.
(a) walk
(b) walks
iv. Either the stupid boys or the innocent girl _____ expected not to come, I think.
(a) is
(b) are
v. Not those men but that boy _____ given me the book.
(a) have
(b) has

It is also essential to note that “I” and “you” are the two personal pronouns that can be used
singularly, yet they are agreed to take plural verbs. It is an exemption in English. So, we
are to use the plural verbs such as “have”, “take”, “go”, etc. with them.

1. B 2. A 3. A 4. A 5. B (you can check over the answers you have chosen with the
ones provided now. The questions are actually to test our knowledge on Proximity
Concord.)

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The Delivered Lecture on 16th December, 2019

THE LEXICO-SEMANTIC VARIATIONS OF NIGERIAN ENGLISH

Lexico-semantics is the combination of two words which are lexis and semantics.
Talking about lexis, it is about the individual words that are available in the lexicon of a
language and as semantics deals with meanings, hence, lexico-semantics is the meaning of
words. Now, we will be looking at how many words in the Nigerian English have deviated
from their usage in the Standard British English (SBE). There are two scholars who have
meditated on the causes of deviation in the Nigerian English. The submissions of these two
scholars will be examined here.

THE TAXONOMY OF ADEGBIJA (1989)

According to him, there are six (6) basic causes of variations in the Nigerian English
and they are discussed below.
 Sociocultural Difference between the English People and the Nigerians: for
instance, in Nigerian societies, we have expressions such as “bush meat”, “market
day” (whereas, in the United Kingdom, every day is for marketing), etc. There are
some lexical items that have been indigenised to suit the Nigerian culture.

 The Exigencies of Differing Discourse Constraints

 The Indomitably Pervasive and Omnipresent Influence of the Media: expressions

such as “national cake” and “bottom power” came from Nigerian media and are
examples of the lexico-semantic features of the Nigerian English as journalists
coined the expressions to suit the Nigerian sociopolitical condition.

 The Standardisation of Idiosyncrasies and Errors: there are several words in the
Nigerian English that are of idiolects which have been accepted in the English
lexicon such as “a man of silver”, “taking something personal”, etc.

 The Predominantly Formal Medium of the Acquisition: recently in most homes,

what children are being taught in the language is not for communicative competence
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but of pragmatic competence, such as saying “congratulations” to someone who is

celebrating. In the Yoruba context, there are some pragmatic competence that the
children are being taught such as the statement that might come out after a series of
facial expressions have been given to a persistent child in the request of what the
mother is not ready to grant. Another example is in the expression like “your head
is not correct” which is directly transferred from the Yoruba expression “ori e ko
pe”. also, there is the Yoruba expression as “won o bii yin da” which is used to
mean that someone dares not to do something and it is transferred directly to English
as “they did not born you well”. All of these are examples of the pragmatic
competence that the children are being trained with.

English language in Nigeria has undergone nativisation. Therefore, there are aspects
of our culture which have been made to influence the usage of the English language in
Nigeria.

SOME OTHER FEATURES OF THE LEXICO-SEMANTIC VARIATION

o Transfer: this occurs when a meaning that is absent in the English language but
present in the Mother Tongue is directly translated into English. That is why we
have such expressions as “I am coming” instead of “I will be back shortly”. Other
expressions of this kind include “come and be going”, “I cannot come and kill
myself”, “they are doing you”, “they are calling you (where we have a singular
subject but used as a medium of respect conveyance)”, etc. The types of transfer
include transfer of meaning (as in bush meat, outing, not on seat, etc.), transfer of
culture (as in bride price, introduction, our wife, new yam festival, etc.), transfer of
context (as in sorry, toast, etc.), transfer of Pidgin features (as in kola, dash, mammy
water, etc.) and transfer of belief.

o Coinages/Neologism: this is to coin an expression. It refers to a situation where new

words are coined/formed to accommodate the sociocultural experience of the
Nigerian people. It is called lexical innovation and there are three (3) basic types
which are: i) from one existing lexical stock in English, e.g., “wrap – wrapper”; ii)

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from one existing lexical stock in the indigenous language such as “senior wife”,
“senior brother”, “inside life”, “child of the world”, etc.; and iii) from existing
lexical stocks in English and the indigenous languages such as “korope bus”, “bean
cake”. This is the blend of both languages. Other examples include “Ofada rice”,
“omi gutter”, among others. This is to say that the English language keeps changing
in the Nigerian culture.

o Semantic Shift/Extension: according to Bamiro (1994), this occurs when the scope
of a word has been broadened/expanded or restricted/narrowed such as “vendor”
which is narrowed to only mean newspapers seller whereas we can also have “food
vendor” among others. The word “vendor” literally means someone who vends.
Also, the word “park” has been restricted by many Nigerians to “Motor Park”. Other
common examples include “indomie”, “omo”, “machine”, etc. This is also called
Overgeneralisation and Narrowing.

o Analogy: this occurs when words are formed on the basis of partial resemblance
with an English expression or word. For example, the word “Marlian” which is now
commonly in use by many Nigerian youths is coined from the semblance of words
like “Nigerian”, “Ghanaian”, etc. which mean people that belong to a particular
group. Another example is the word “awosim” which simply means the theory of
Awolowo, a Nigerian philosopher.

BEST WISHES FROM

Mhizter S. A. Otolowo
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