CHAPTER ONE

INTRODUCTION

BACKGROUND OF THE STUDY: UDA PEOPLE/LANGUAGE

According to Williamson and Blench (2000), Uda is a language of the lower cross sub – group of the New Benue Congo family. The people of Uda occupy the area called Uda in the riverine area of Mbo Local government area of Akwa Ibom State. They are believed to belong to one of the earliest immigrants of Otong, being the ancestor of Uda people. The major occupation of Uda people are fishing and farming.

The Uda people migrated from Israel and settled first at Cameroon before migrating and settling at Ebughu. Later, they left Ebughu and moved over to their present domain. After Ebughu, the largest community in Mbo local government  area, Uda which is the second largest community shares boundaries in the North with Ebughu, South with Efiat, East  by Ewang and West with Esit Eket Local Government Area.

The total population of Uda is about 10,000 people (Ethnologue 2009). The villages in Uda community include: Udene-uda, Afi-Uda, Ekie-Uda, Uyerghe, Amprapran-Uda, Ibakka, Orukum, Udighi, and Uko-ntigha.

The principal of Uda Community Secondary School, Mr. Nyong Inyang, explained that Uda is a variety of Ebughu, Ewang and Ibibio languages and that Uda descended from a similar language family from which they derived their language. Also there are minor variations in Uda language as observed in the different villages that make up Uda.

Indeed, uda is related to Efik, Ibibio, Oro and Ebughu and such could be called language cluster as seen in the tree diagram below:

Diagram 1

1.1    STATEMENT OF THE PROBLEM

          The study of conjunctions has received considerable attention in linguistics. Conjunctions have also been studied under numerous labels such as linkers, coordinators, subordinators and so on. This research examines carefully the types of conjunctions found in Uda and also sets out to distinguish the grammatical, syntactic and functional features of conjunctions in Uda in order to

have a better knowledge of the use and functions of these conjunctions.

The aim of the present study discusses the functions and position of conjunctions as they appear in Uda. In addition, written texts on Uda grammar are non existent. Future researchers on this aspect of grammar, could learn a few things from this work.

1.2    OBJECTIVES OF THE STUDY

          The researcher considers conjunctions as having a major role to play in communication. This work sets out to investigate the use of conjunctions in Uda, and also identify the functions (roles) and position of each conjunction in Uda.

1.3    SIGNIFICANCE OF THE STUDY

          Conjunctions belong to a class of expressions which share a common set of grammatical properties (Radford 1997:37). They are among the word class or parts of speech that form the basis of English syntax as well as that of Uda. The study of conjunctions will enrich knowledge in analyzing conjunctions in Uda and practically to be a reference for the next researcher in analyzing conjunctions found in Uda.

1.4    SCOPE OF THE STUDY

          This work on “Coordinating and Subordinating Conjunctions in Uda” lies within the domain of syntax. This research is restricted to the identification and description of the functions carried out by coordinators and subordinators in Uda language.

1.5    ORGANISATION OF THE STUDY

          The research is directed towards the identification of coordinators and subordinators in Uda language. The definitions of the subject matter, the various types, environments where they occur as well as the clause structures.

Also, the distinctions between the coordinators and subordinators will be treated and the strategies for deciding which sentences comprise coordinators and subordinators are also examined.

The research project is organized into 5 chapters

Chapter one:     Introduces the topic, including the objectives and significance of the study

Chapter two:     This chapter is concerned with the review of literature on the subject matter

Chapter three:   This deals with the collection of data

Chapter four:     focuses on the discussion of our findings on conjunctions in Uda language

Chapter five:      Here, the work is concluded and further recommendations on the use of Uda language are suggested.

1.6    LIMITATIONS OF THE STUDY

          This research work faced some limitations as a result of financial constraints, lack of support from the native speakers (speech community) as well as inadequate time for the research. Subordinating Conjunctions

Also, since there was no written document on the language, the research is limited to Oral interviews from informants. Subordinating Conjunctions

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