Conjunctive and Appositive Functions of Òghun in the Ìlàjẹ Dialect of Yorùba

Abstract

Ìlàjẹ is a south-eastern Yoruba dialect. Like other Yoruba regional dialect, Ìlàjẹ preserves the native speakers’ intuition that can enhance research in Standard Yoruba. This paper provides a dialectal perspective of òun in Yoruba, by analysing òghun, (the Ìlàjẹ form for òun) as a homonym denoting a conjunction and a resumptive pronoun as well as the third person singular pronoun. The main data for the analysis came from Ìlàjẹ native speakers from Ayetoro, Ùlóghó and Ugbò communities in Ìlàjẹ Local Government Area of Ondo State. The paper employed the Phase Theory model of Chomskian Minimalist Program, though minimally explored in the  phrasemakers for easier readership. The study affirms that òghun can function as the third person singular pronoun as well as a conjunction and an appositive resumptive pronoun. The antecedent of the resumptive pronoun is a topicalised nominal extracted from a focus construction. In the Focus Phrase, the topicalised nominal leaves behind a resumptive copy to be lexicalised as òghun. This happens because Ìlàjẹ cannot copy the saliency feature along with the phi features during topicalisation, in order to ensure the discourse saliency remains active within the focus construction. Therefore, this movement out of the focused position targets only the number and person features (phi features) while the stranding saliency feature in the focused position receives òghun as a mandatory default phonetic matrix. From the three functions accorded òghun in Ìlàjẹ, only the pronominal function is generally affirmed without any controversy in òun, its Standard Yoruba counterpart.