A CONTRASTIVE ANALYSIS OF ENGLISH AND TIV SENTENCE STRUCTURES

ABSTRACT

This research work is on A Contrastive Analysis of English and Tiv Sentence Structures. The study shows that English and Tiv languages are from different linguistic backgrounds and typologically have areas of differences in their sentence structures. These differences are in the internal composition of the sentence constituents and components and therefore pose learning problems for Tiv learners of English as a second language particularly in the formation of grammatical sentences but have not been given serious and proper scholarly investigation. Using the descriptive research method and tree diagrams (Phrase Markers) and tables to analyse the data collected, the differences and similarities between the English and Tiv sentences are descriptively revealed. The findings of the work show that the major difficulty that Tiv learners of English have is in the subject and object elements formation. While the noun phrases occupying subject and object positions in English take articles and other determiners pre-nominally, Tiv in nearly all cases take them post-nominally or do not use them at all. The nature of some Tiv sentences with implied or no subject and no clear gender dichotomy form part of the problem in the subject and object case formation in Tiv language. Despite the similarities the two languages have particularly in their structural subject-verb-object order in the simple, compound and complex sentences, Tiv learners of English face a lot of challenges posed by the differences above and the types and forms of sentences in English language. In order to overcome the above problems, this study recommends that teachers of English in Tiv domains and beyond should concentrate on the areas of differences in both languages and employ adequate teaching methods and instructional materials to eliminate the mother tongue interference in the Tiv learners use of English as a second language.