A SYNTACTIC ANALYSIS OF SELECTED CLAUSAL COORDINATES AS USED IN THE AMENDED 1999 CONSTITUTION OF THE FEDERAL REPUBLIC OF NIGERIA
A SYNTACTIC ANALYSIS OF SELECTED CLAUSAL COORDINATES AS USED IN THE AMENDED 1999 CONSTITUTION OF THE FEDERAL REPUBLIC OF NIGERIA
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Date
2015-05
Authors
TOLUHI, OLADELE JOHN
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Abstract
The language of law has been viewed by many as difficult to understand primarily
because of archaism in its morpho-syntactic structure. Also, the Latin and French
maxims that have characterised legalese have prevented some researchers from
delving into it. Another issue of concern to some researchers has to do with the
longwinded sentence structure of legalese. Therefore, this study looks at how
clauses are coordinated by and, but and or in the long sentences used in the
Amended 1999 Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria with the aim of
analysing the coordinated clauses, stating the syntactic implications associated
with clausal coordination as well as determining the possible interpretation of the
sections of the constitution where they are used. The study sets out to help nonlegal
practitioners comprehend sections of the constitution where clauses are
coordinated as part of the Plain English campaign going on across the world. The
scope of the study is limited to clausal coordination as the thesis topic implies. The
theoretical Framework for the study was Systemic Functional Grammar. Halliday‟s
symbols for dividing texts into constituent syntactic structures were used in the
course of analysing and interpreting the data collated from a copy of the
constitution procured by the researcher. Twenty-six compound and compoundcomplex
sentences were randomly picked for analyses. Analyses were done in a
tabular form of six columns: column one for serial number, two for the text, three
for the source of the text, four for the text‟s analysis, five and six are for the
syntactic implication of coordination and the realization possible meaning. The
result of the analyse revealed that clauses are intentionally coordinated in some
sections of the constitution for a number of reasons, such as: the need to further
clarify the provision in the first conjoin with the one in the second conjoin; the
room for the realization of a combination of alternatives, amongst others.
Description
A THESIS SUBMITTED TO THE SCHOOL OF POSTGRADUATE STUDIES
OF AHMADU BELLO UNIVERSITY, ZARIA, IN PARTIAL FULFILLMENT
OF THE REQUIREMENTS FOR THE AWARD OF MASTER OF ARTS (M.A.)
DEGREE IN ENGLISH LANGUAGE.
Keywords
SYNTACTIC, ANALYSIS, SYNTACTIC ANALYSIS, CLAUSAL, COORDINATES, CLAUSAL COORDINATES, AMENDED, 1999 CONSTITUTION, AMENDED 1999 CONSTITUTION, FEDERAL, REPUBLIC, FEDERAL REPUBLIC, NIGERIA