REDUPLICATION: A SYNTACTIC PHENOMENON IN IGBO BUT ABERRATION IN ENGLISH

Abstract

Reduplication has been seen as saying one thing more than once. It is the same as repeating what has been sad directly or indirectly. Igbo language like some other languages makes use of reduplication but the pattern of reduplication in Igbo and English and some other languages are not always the same. Many users of the Igbo bring in the structure of English into the Igbo and some take the reduplicating pattern of the Igbo into English. This has to lead to bringing strange grammatical patterns into the Igbo language and at the same time into the English language. In the paper, the researcher has exposed the reduplicating forms in the Igbo. We also discovered that in some areas where reduplication is grammatical in Igbo they are regarded as tautology in English. We suggest that each language should be treated as they are because attempt to transfer the English grammatical rules into Igbo will result to error in some constructions. At the same time, taking Igbo grammatical rules to English or any other language do not always result to acceptable grammar of that language. The researcher is a native speaker of Igbo language and at the same time speaks English as a second language. For this, the researcher supplied some of the data. While some are gathered from the undergraduate Igbo students of Lagos State University of Education, Oto/Ijanikin, Lagos State.