Abstract:
Pronouns, words which refer anaphorically to noun phrases whose referents are named or
understood from context, are one of the universal linguistic categories that play a central
role in the grammar of languages, including Ẹ̀ dó, a Nigerian language. Extant studies on
the Ẹ̀ dó pronoun system have focused mainly on their identification and classification with
scant attention paid to their internal structure and interaction with other categories. This
study was, therefore, designed to examine the morphology of Ẹ̀ dó pronouns with a view to
determining their forms, syntactic distribution and the effects of interface interactions.
Morris Halle and Alec Marantz's Distributed Morphology was adopted as the framework.
The descriptive design was used. Three local government areas (Egor, Ovia North-East
and Oredo) were purposively selected because they are communities with large population
of native speakers. The Ibadan Syntactic Paradigm was used to conduct key informant
interviews with 21 native speakers aged between 30 and 80 years, seven from each
selected area. Interviews were complemented with textual corpus (bulletins and grammar
textbooks) and audio-visual materials (music, movies and documentaries). The data were
subjected to interlinear morphemic glossing and syntactic analysis.
There are three forms of pronouns in Ẹ̀ dó: independent,affixal and clitic pronouns. The
independent ones contain smaller morphemic units. Their internal structure shows the
language derives them through five processes: affixation, clipping, compounding,
conversion and reduplication. Affixal pronouns are the class maintaining reflexive prefix
tòbọ́ - and dè - the class-changing interrogative prefix. Clitics are personal pronouns which
attach to other words; they are inaccessible to modification. The syntactic distribution
shows that pronouns function as arguments: possessor, subject and object. The only
exceptions are interrogative pronouns. Unlike other pronouns, interrogatives are
nonarguments restricted to the periphery of a clause. This difference in distribution results
from their feature composition, and it reflects in syntactic projection. Interrogative
pronouns have the clause typing feature ([Qu]) and therefore project the interrogative
phrase within a split complementiser phrase. Other pronouns have the determiner phrase as
their maximal projection. Interface interaction effects confirm that morpho-phonology
underlies allomorphy in clitic and independent forms. These pronouns assimilate features
(nasality and tongue height) from adjacent words. The consequence is the proliferation of
personal pronouns. The morphosyntactic interface proves that constructions and temporal
distinction restrict the distribution of personal pronouns. For example, if tense and aspect in
a declarative sentence are past and perfective, one could use ọ̀ as third person singular
subject. Under negation, the choice remains the same. However, if the event is not yet
completed, one would use ẹ̀ as the subject pronoun. The syntax-semantics interface shows
adjacent words affect pronoun distribution; an example is Òghọ́ghọ́ rrìé íghó mẹ̀ and
Òghọ́ghọ́ rrìé íghó gùmwẹ̀ ; both sentences mean “Oghọghọ gives me money”. The effect is
that sentences with the same meanings have different first person pronouns, depending on
the proximity of the referent to the subject.
Ẹ̀ dó pronouns are better described using inferences from their internal structure, function,
and interface relations. These factors elucidate their derivation and differences in
distribution.