The Structural Determination of Case in English and Kambari

Abstract

In this paper, focus has been on the Nominative and Accusative Case that have been used in similar studies of this type. Kambari language is from different language phyla with English, French or German. Kambari is thus classified as Niger-Congo, Volta-Congo, Benue-Congo, Kainji, Western-Kainji, Kambari Group, (Crozier and Blench (1992: 62)). Anticipating our discussion in the sections below, we argue that English and Kambari languages satisfy the same structural and morphological Case structure encoded in the Government and Binding Theory. However, this might not be unconnected with the fact that the language exhibits the same basic configurational pattern – SVO with some languages of different phyla. A deductive approach is used in collating and analysing the data in Kambari, following the linguistic tools of analysis outlined by Chomsky (1981, 1986) in Government and Binding theory, particularly the sub-module of Case Theory. The paper is structured along the following lines: Section 1 contains the general consideration of Case in English and Kambari. A concise overview of the Case theory is presented in Section 2. Section 3 deals with the analysis of the Case in English and Kambari in the light of the Government and Binding theoretical constructs. Section 4 contains concluding remarks and direction for future research.