A Systemic Functional Exploration of Koro-Ashe Pronoun System

Bossan Rita, Nathaniel Philip

Abstract

In every language, certain lexical items display similar behaviours which account for the grouping into the same word class with prototypical members, which manifest all the important features of the class. Koro-Ashe, as language, equally has lexical items which also belong to various classes. One of these classes is the pronoun. This study is an exploration of the pronoun system of Koro-Ashe with focus on the classifications. Halliday’s (1961) Scale and Category is the theoretical underpinning for the study. The study employed a purposive random sampling technique and the data were generated using unstructured questionnaire, informal interactions with native speakers and introspection. Findings revealed that the pronouns  of  Koro-Ashe  are  classed  into  personal,  possessive,  reflexive,  emphatic,  demonstratives, interrogative,  relative,  reciprocal,  numerical  and  quantifying  pronouns.  These  pronouns  appear  in different forms for different purposes – referential coreferential and deictic. This research, therefore concludes that pronouns are part of the linguistic properties and systems of Koro-Ashe and are useful for the avoidance of needless repetitions and ensuring a coherent and concise communication.

Keywords

Systemic, Functional, Pronoun, Koro-Ashe

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