Journal of Arts & Humanities Volume 07, Issue 05, 2018: 29-38 Article Received: 23-02-2018 Accepted: 16-03-2018 Available Online: 20-05-2018 ISSN: 2167-9045 (Print), 2167-9053 (Online) DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.18533/journal.v7i5.1347 Demonstrative Paradigms in English and Ibibio: Some Contrastive Observations Maria-Helen Ekah1 ABSTRACT This paper describes demonstrative paradigms in English and Ibibio based on their syntactic and semantic behaviours, especially with English as the language of education in Nigeria. This study is anchored on Chomsky (1986) generative grammar paradigm to explain the structures of demonstratives in the two languages and argues that the structures resemble and differ from each other in some respects and gives possible linguistic implications for Ibibio speakers of English. While data for English were extracted from English grammar texts, those of Ibibio were extracted by the researcher's native speaker's knowledge of the language. From the analyses, it is discovered that while demonstrative paradigm in English is a two-way opposition, Ibibio has a three-way opposition. It explains that all demonstratives in English inflect for person and number whereas of the two classes of demonstratives in Ibibio one class inflects for number while the other does not. It establishes that this grammatical unit functions as subject and determiner in the two languages while in Ibibio it further functions as an article and a verb. Keywords: Deictic Markers, Demonstrative, Head, Specifier. This is an open access article under Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License. 1. Introduction Language is a system of structures. Even when the structures are similar like the SVO sentence structure which characterises English and Ibibio, there are still divergences in the different constituents which make up a particular syntactic unit like the subject or NP. English and Ibibio have determiners and also possess similar determiner markers which are demonstratives, articles and so on. However, the determiners in the two languages do not occur in the same way as they occur in different syntactic environments. The purpose of this study is to boost the literature on Ibibio grammar which is still at its developmental stage. A comparative study of this grammatical unit in the two languages is an added advantage to the learning of both English and Ibibio grammars by Ibibio-English bilinguals. In Nigeria, English is the language of official communication and a compulsory subject while Ibibio has recently assumed an added impetus as a school certificate subject and a credit pass in it adds to the required 1 Department of English, University of Uyo. Email: dr.mariahelen@gmail.com Journal of Arts and Humanities (JAH) 29 Ekah, JAH (2018), Vol. 07, No. 05: 28-38 credits for admission into higher institutions in the country. It is hoped that the outcome of this research will add to the existing linguistic literatures on English and Ibibio languages. 2. Ibibio language and its speakers Ibibio is the language spoken by Ibibio people of South-South Nigeria. It is the dominant language in Akwa Ibom state and spoken in eighteen out of the thirty-one local government areas of the state. It is also spoken and understood by speakers of other small group languages in the state. 2006 National Census in Nigeria states that the language is the fourth major language in the country spoken by about 4 million people both within and outside the state. 3. Theoretical framework This study is anchored on Chomsky's generative grammar paradigm which argues that human language is a property of the human mind contained in the brain of a native speaker of a language. Linguistic analysis therefore provides a model of the internalised grammar or internal language (Ilanguage) in the brain of the native speaker of a language. I-language is the innate ability a native speaker has about the grammar of his language (Chomsky, 1986). This model of grammar gives input for the analyses of all human languages and the background to determine the grammaticality of sentences in the language (Agbedo, 2016). This grammatical model emphasizes the form of sentences and their constituent structures. 4. Review of related literature Demonstratives refer to words like this, that, these and those which specify a location which is relatively nearer to or further from the speaker by expressing near and distant meaning as well as indicate number contrast (Radford, 1997, 2004; Leech &Svartvik, 2013). They function as pronouns by performing the duty of a full noun phrase (NP) (Ndimele, 1996, 1999, Aarts, 2008; Quirk &Greenbaum, 1973) and also function as determiners (DET) by specifying "the range of reference of a noun by showing definiteness, indefiniteness and by indicating quantity" (Leech &Svartvik, 2013, p. 281). According to Leech & Svartvik, demonstratives do not occupy the same position as other classes of determiners, but occur in "different positions relative to one another." Tomori (1977) refers to demonstratives as items which co-occur with nouns to form noun phrases. Demonstratives are therefore a class of words which occur together with nouns, and in addition, express some semantic notions because they limit the meaning application of the noun in the positions they occupy. In X-bar syntax, demonstratives are specifiers of the head. A specifier, abbreviated as Spec, refers to any category which is the daughter of a maximal projection and the sister of one bar projection, and in some instances delimits the range of application of the maximal projection which is the double bar (Trask, 1993). A specifier usually relates to the head as the dependent of the head where it draws its meaning as well as delimits the information conveyed by the head. Demonstrative is one of the specifiers of the head. The Specifier (demonstrative in this case) occurs together with the head to form an NP. Articles, quantifiers, numerals, demonstratives, etc. belong to the class of determiners and serve as complement of the head. According to Abney (1987) cited in Radford (2004), any phrasal category headed by a determiner is a determiner phrase while the item which sub-classifies it, that is, specifies it is its complement. In the Minimalist Program, demonstratives can co-occur with a noun to form a determiner phrase (DP). Anyanwu (2010), in the discussion of Specifier-Noun relations in Ngwa Igbo, shows that demonstratives can function as specifiers in Igbo language and indicates that specifiers may occur in pre-position and post-position to the head in the language. Those that occur in pre-position are labeled Pre-N-Spec while those that occur after the head, that is, in post-position are labeled Post-N-Spec. This work investigates demonstratives in Ibibio, their syntactic and semantic behaviours in relation to those of English.Etim (2016) focuses on demonstratives principally as spatial deictic markers in Ibibio which meanings are closely associated with the time, place or situation that an utterance is expressed. Essien (1990, p. 136) mentions members of the class of demonstratives in Ibibio mainly as determiners and is silent on the word demonstrative. However, Etim (2016, p.5)states Journal of Arts and Humanities (JAH) 30 Demonstrative paradigms in English and Ibibio ... thatdemonstratives in Ibibio are nominal modifiers which function as demonstrative adjectives or specifiers of the noun. 5. Methodology The grammar of English is fully developed while the grammar of Ibibio is still at the developmental stage of documentation. Consequently, the data on English are extracted from English grammar texts while data on Ibibio are extracted from a few available published works on demonstratives in Ibibio by Ibibio linguists and by native speaker's intuition since the researcher is a native speaker of the language. The researcher examines critically the demonstrative paradigms in each of the languages to determine their forms, constituent structures and patterns of occurrence. 6. Demonstrative paradigms in English and Ibibio This section presents demonstratives in English and Ibibio and their syntactic and semantic behaviours by showing how they resemble and differ from each other with the whole essence of enriching the discourse on pronouns and determiners in Ibibio as well as giving further insight on the grammar of the Ibibio language. The discussion establishes the nature of demonstratives in Ibibio, a grammatical unit not widely discussed as compared to their English counterpart as may be gleaned from the works of Essien (1990), Radford (2004) and Aarts (2008). 6.1 Demonstrative paradigms in English Demonstratives belong to the lexical category of pronouns and behave in different ways. Pronouns are substitutes for nouns as they occur in the same syntactic environment where nouns and noun phrases do (Ndimele, 1996). Pronouns express meaning relationships with other words in the structure of a sentence and can change their forms to mark the grammatical categories of number, person, gender and case (Josiah, 2013). Apart from occurring as noun phrase substitutes, pronouns also refer to an entity in which the discourse participants presumably know (Fromkin, Rodman, Hyam& Hummel, 2006). The different classes of pronouns are personal, reflexive, relative, interrogative, indefinite and demonstrative pronouns. The following table presents demonstratives in English, their number reference and semantic interpretation: Table 1: Demonstrative paradigms in English Demonstrative Number Position this singular proximal that Singular distal these plural Proximal those Plural Distal Table 1 indicates that in deictic terms this makes reference to an entity in close proximity to the speaker and away from the listener while that makes reference to an entity which is somewhat far away from both the speaker and the hearer (Radford, 2004) as in the following examples: 1(a) This man is not serious. (b) That man is not serious. The table also indicates that demonstratives in English inflect for number as this/these as well as that/those show. While this and that point out one entity, these and those points out more than one entity by changing from singular to plural as in: 2(a) This boy is my friend. (b) These boys are my friends. 3(a)That man is in love. (b) Those men are in love. These and those point out two or more entities while the former points out entities which are relatively nearer to the speaker, the latter points out entities relatively further away from the speaker (Radford, 1997). However, the length of distance between the speaker and the listener is not morphologically specified in English this is the case in Ibibio. Semantically, this, these, that and those Journal of Arts and Humanities (JAH) 31 Ekah, JAH (2018), Vol. 07, No. 05: 28-38 make reference to entities in relation to definiteness (Leech &Svartvik, 2013). These demonstratives come before the nouns they specify as in the following (figure 1) tree configuration: 6.2 Demonstrative paradigms in Ibibio The syntactic category of pronouns in Ibibio, like its English counterpart, replaces nouns and noun phrases. Pronouns may occur as subject or object and perform other syntactic functions that NPs do in Ibibio. They may occur as anaphoric elements and may also function as nominal modifiers as their English counterparts. Essien adds that nominal modifiers in Ibibio include specifier in determiners, quantifiers, numerals and adjectives. He also states that indefinite or unspecified NPs (noun phrases) in the language subcategorise a determiner and when it is very necessary to make the reference definite or easy to identify, a determiner is used. Essien (1990) includes deictic categories in the class of determiners in Ibibio language but is silent on demonstrative pronouns, a gap which this research intends to fill. It is the combination of nouns together with the modifiers which forms the lexical category of NP (noun phrase). Demonstratives in Ibibio often occupy a syntactic position after the noun they specify in that they co-occur with nouns. They may also occur as surrogate nouns. The following table shows demonstratives in Ibibio: Table 2: Demonstrative pronouns in Ibibio Word Gloss Position Ámì this proximal ódò that distal Ókò that distal (yonder) The table gives the three demonstrative pronouns in Ibibio. They are semantically proximal or distal; proximal when they specify a location which is relatively nearer to the speaker and distal when the location is relatively further from the speaker.Ámì 'this', which occurs in free variation with 'émì' used by Essien (1990), points out an entity which is nearer to the speaker as the following examples show: 4(a) Òfòñámìáwàkká. 'This cloth is torn' Clothe this torn (b) Mmóñámìásáná. 'This water is clean' Water this clean ó In addition,Ámì does not inflect for number as 'this' does in English but can co-occur with a plural noun. In this circumstance, it is only the noun head which indicates number contrast as in the following: 5(a) Áyinámìátúá. 'This child is crying' Child this sg+cry (b) Ń ٕ dìtòámìѐtúá. 'These children are crying' Children this pl+cry From the examples, there is no number agreement between the subject and the demonstrative as it is in English in which 'this child' and 'these children' show an agreement between the demonstrative and the noun which it specifies. Number agreement in Ibibio is between the nominal element and the verb while the demonstrative is uninflected. Áyín – átúá (5a) shows concordial relation between singular subject and singular verb while ndìtò–ѐtúá (5b) expresses plural subject agreeing with the plural verb respectively. The noun head Áyín in (5a) inflects to ndìtòin (6b) by suppletion while the verb inflects from átúáto ѐtúáin order to satisfy agreement principle in natural languages that a verb agrees with its subject both in person and number (Eka, 1994, Ndimele, 1999, Josiah, 2013). In each case, ami has not inflected. Túáis the root verb while àand èare concord markers since Ibibio principally mark concord by affixation. Journal of Arts and Humanities (JAH) 32 pre-noun English Fig. 1: Demonstrative as Demonstrative paradigms in English and Ibibio ... When ámì occurs with another determiner like a numeral, the numeral precedes it in the sequence of noun followed by numeral plus the demonstrative as in: 6(a) Ùsànìtáámìébòòmó. 'These three plates are broken' Plate three this pl+broken . When a numeral occurs with the head noun in Ibibio, it is the numeral which specifies the number while the demonstrative is uninflected and it occurs in a position after the head whereas in English numeral occurs in pre-position as in "these three plates". In a sequence of nominal head + numeral + demonstrative, the nominal head can be deleted in context in which both the speaker and the listener share a common knowledge of the referent as in "ìtáámìébòòmó". Expression of this sort is ungrammatical in English but completely grammatical in Ibibio language. Ámì can also function as the subject of the sentence as in the following: 7(a) Ámìòfònóbóhó. 'This is very good.' This good very Ámì functions as a deictic category by pointing out specific entities with definite reference and the point the entity is located as close to the speaker: The next demonstrative category in Ibibio is ódò which is equivalent to that in English. Its functions include indicating nearness to the listener and some distance away from the speaker; definite reference and reference to an entity mentioned previously: 8(a) KómMmáódò. 'Greet that woman.' greet woman that (b) Ètéódòádí. 'That man has come.' Man that has come 8(a) points out that the woman is some distance away from the speaker but near the listener while (8b) specifies a man whose existence is known to both the speaker and the listener in the context of a previous discussion. As it is with ámì, ódò occurs as complement of the head noun. In addition, ódò can be used for impersonal reference as its English counterpart as in: 9. Mkpóódòífónnó. 'That thing is not good.' thingthat neg+good Ódò is the complement of mkpó 'thing' and does not specify a particular thing being referred to which the speaker does not like. Ódò can function both as subject of the sentence and the verb "to be" (Essien, 1990): 10(a) Ódòódòákpáníkò. 'That is true' That is true (b) Mmáókòódòìnó. 'That woman is a thief' Woman that is thief. In (10a), in the first occurrence ódò functions as the subject while in the second occurrence, it is the verb "to be". In (10b) ódò functions as a verb whereas no demonstrative functions as a verbal element in English. Ódòcan serve as an anaphoric element by specifying antecedent relation in which it is the word the pronoun refers back to as in: 11. Úsénódòkéñkékídànyé. day that that I saw him 'It was that day that I saw him.' It signifies that it was some definite time in the past and that it was precisely on a specific day, so the reference is to that very day. Just as it is with ámì, ódò does not inflect for number and person. It is only the noun head which it specifies which changes its morphological shape and takes a plural affix, specifically, a prefix: 12(a) Akpàráwàódòádí. pl+ young man the/that has come 'That/The young man has come.' (b) Mkpàráwàódòédí. pl+young men that have come 'Those/The young men have come.' The singular subject àkpàráwà 'young man' in (12a) agrees with the singular present perfectve verbádi 'has come' while in (12b) the plural subject 'mkpàráwà' agrees with the plural present perfective verb edí. Mis the 3rd person plural affix marker. The verb has inflected from ádí with áas the singular Journal of Arts and Humanities (JAH) 33 Ekah, JAH (2018), Vol. 07, No. 05: 28-38 concord marker to édí, with éas the plural concord marker. In Ibibio, plural can be formed through affixation and suppletion. Ódòcan also function as an article by pointing out the noun referent as demonstrated in (12) and indicate definite reference by giving specific sense to the noun it occurs with. It also conveys the semantic notion of previous mention where the interlocutors share a common knowledge. Ókò, the third demonstrative pronoun in Ibibio indicates distance further away from both the speaker and the listener and also functions as a deictic category, a category which is not morphologically marked in English. For example: 13(a) Mmáókòósóñíwùód. Sg+Woman that pl+strong head 'That woman is headstrong/stubborn.' (b) Ibáánókòésóñíwùód Pl +women those are strong head. 'Those women are stubborn.' Just as it is with ámìandódò,ókò specifies the head by pointing out the particular entity referred to. In the examples, the referents are far away from both the speaker and the listener and only the subject of the sentence and the verb which inflect for person and number while ókò does not. It is not as versatile as ódò. 6.2.1 Type 2 demonstratives in Ibibio We earlier observed that demonstratives in Ibibio do not inflect for person and number. However, there is a small group of words – just two in number, àdà and mmon, which checks the seeming impoverishment in number contrast among demonstratives in Ibibio. Àdà is morphologically equivalent to this while mmon is morphologically equivalent to these in English. They specify number contrast. Quirk &Greenbaum (1973) and Radford (2004) observe that demonstratives share the same notion of near and distant reference with the pair here/there as well as now/then and also convey the sense of relative immediacy and relative remoteness in English. The equivalent forms of these words in Ibibio are mmi, ndò and ñkó presented in Table 3: Table 3: Type two demonstratives Word Gloss Position Mmí here near the speaker ndò there near the listener ñkò there far from the speaker and the listener Mmí, ndòand ñkó, which are derived structures, are deictic categories in the language in the same way that ámì, ódòand ókò are by indicating a three way opposition and signaling near and different levels of distant reference as in: 14(a) Dákémmí 'Stand here.' Stand by here (b) Dákéndò 'Stand there' far off. Stand by there (c) Dákéñkó. 'Stand there' very far off. Stand by there 'yonder' Mmí 'here' refers to the reference point near the speaker, ndò 'there' refers to the reference point near the listener but far from the speaker while ñko'there but yonder' locates a point far away from both the speaker and the listener. They can function as subject of the sentence by referring to understood entities as in: 15(a) Mmíémikémbó. 'It is this place I am referring to". (b) Ndóódòkémbó. 'It is that place I am referring to' (c) Nkóókòkémbó. 'It is that place (farther from you the listener) that I am referring to. The bound morpheme à is sometimes attached to these lexical items for topicalisation, emphasis and intensification of meaning as follows: Journal of Arts and Humanities (JAH) 34 Demonstrative paradigms in English and Ibibio ... 16(a) Ámmí 'This one here near the speaker' (b) Andò 'That one there near the listener' (c) Añkò 'That one there away from the speaker/listener' They are derived structures and particularly point out definite referents. Interestingly, these deictic markers together with mmí,ndòand ñkó may act as surrogate nouns when both the speaker and the listener know what the head noun is in the context of an utterance (Essien, 1990). Àdà and mmon co-occur with the locative demonstratives (mmí/ndò/ ñkó) to indicate plural and make definite reference as well as function as determiners and deictic markers: 17(a) Àdàmmí. 'This one here.' this here (b) Mmonmmí. 'These ones here.' these here 18(a) Àdà .ndò 'That one there.' that there (b) Mmonndò 'Those ones there.' those there 19(a) Àdàñkó. 'Those ones there.' that there yonder (b) Mmonñkó 'Those ones there yonder.' those there It is necessary to observe that mmí, ndòand ñkó also function as noun substitutes in that they are morphologically demonstratives but syntactically complements. The variant form of àdà is mbón. The free morphemes àdà/mmonco-occurs with Type 1 demonstratives (ámì/ódò/ókò) to specify number distinctly both lexically and syntactically. Àdà /mmon indicate both the number and the point of reference which Type 1 could not.Mmí specifies the entity referred to as one (singular) and the location as being in close proximity to the speaker; mmonmmí shows the number of the referent as more than one and somewhat close to the speaker. Àdàndò specifies the entity as singular in number while Mmonndòindicates the entities to be plural; in terms of location, the two make reference to a distance which is far from the speaker and close to the hearer. ForÀdàñkó and Mmonñkó, they also convey the sense of nearness and furtherness as well as show the number of referent as a single entity or more than one respectively. While the former is used in the singular sense, the former is used in the plural sense, but semantically make third party reference. In sum, àdàmmí, àdàndò and àdàñkó make reference to one entity in whatever distance, whether near or far while mmonmmí, mmonndòand mmonñkó make reference to more than one entity whether near or further away. The three types of deictic patterns discussed are drawn from the same roots –ámì,ódò and ókò. This is not the case with English deictic markers. Type 2 demonstratives are equivalent to what Radford (2004) describes as Q-pronouns, the class of pronouns which functions as determiners. In Ibibio, they can function as surrogate noun and as well occur with the head as in: "Mmotommonmmí" meaning "these cars/vehicles". One fact about this class of demonstratives is that their referents are definite and specific and most importantly intensify meaning. The demonstratives and the deictic markers in English and Ibibio are presented diagrammatically as follows: ami odo(b) oko 1(a) (c) distal (longer) mmi Proximal ndo distal (long) nko anko ammi ando this that 2(a) (b) these Proximal those distal (long) here there 7. Similarities and differences between demonstratives in English and Ibibio Demonstratives can serve as subject of the sentence, determiners and deictic markers in the two languages. Whereas English has a two-deictic opposition system, Ibibio has three. In Ibibio, some demonstratives can function as verbs whereas this is not the case in English. Just as English Journal of Arts and Humanities (JAH) 35 Ekah, JAH (2018), Vol. 07, No. 05: 28-38 incorporates here/there into its deictic system, a set of locative adverbs in Ibibio mmí/ndò/nkó also performs a similar function except that Ibibio has a third party distal reference which is not found in English. English and Ibibio deictic categories show proximal and distal reference but distal reference in Ibibio has a variation which includes third party reference. Whereas those indicates a distance from the speaker irrespective of how far or close the distance is to the listener, Ibibio morphologically indicates the degree of distance with the word oko. Distal reference is vague in English as the listener is left to infer how further away the distance is. Third party reference is non-existent in English. This/that show number contrast as these/those while Ibibio has two sets of demonstratives, those which indicate number contrast – àdà /mmon and those which do not – ámì/ ódò /ókò Whereas these is the plural form of this and those the plural form of thatókò is not the plural form of ódò. The point of focus is location of the referent rather than the number of the referent. It is only àdà/mmon which marks number contrast syntactically and morphologically in the language and help the noun they follow to have a count interpretation typical of determiners. Quirk &Greenbaum (1973) aver that demonstratives indicate number contrast, but the study of Ibibio demonstratives show that number contrast is not a universal principle in natural languages. In English, demonstratives occur in complementary distribution, the occurrence of one excludes the occurrence of another, therefore, *this that man sequence is most unlikely while this is possible in Ibibio asÀdàámì (this one) shows. While àdà is wholly count, ámì is deictic. Demonstratives are, therefore, more marked in Ibibio than in English. 8. Discussion of findings From the discussion, an NP in English is the complement of D while in Ibibio D is the complement of NP. Therefore, in Ibibio, demonstratives occur as complements of the head while in English they head the phrase which contains them as in the following tree: DP DP D NP NP D this girl Mmaami Fig. 2: DP order in English Fig. 3: DP order in Ibibio It may be observed that Ibibio has D N order yet housed under DP. This is attributed to the fact NP is subsumed under DP in the minimalist programme. Consequently, D N and N D word order is a matter of parametric variation. This explication confirms Adger (2003) submission that the positions of D and N may vary in languages with the possibility of some languages having D N order as it is in English and N D order as it is in Ibibio. Looking at the diagrams, in English, we c-merge D with N as its complement while in Ibibio, we c-merge N with D as its complement. In complement selection, any element that is c-merged with the head is required by the internal feature of that head (Radford, 2004, p. 121). In English (Diagram A), this is the head with girl as its complement to the left as selected by the internal feature of its head while in Ibibio (Diagrams B and C) Mma is the head and ámì is its complement to the right as selected by the internal feature of the head. The principle of full interpretation specifies that two items which merge together must have compatible features (Radford, 2004, p.120). Is it therefore possible to merge a singular demonstrative with a plural noun in English? The answer is 'No'. Such a merger will crash because it does not satisfy the internal feature of the head, but this is possible in Ibibio grammar as such a construction is grammatical as the analyses show. In a specifier-head relationship, there is an agreement between the head and the specifier (Rashford, 1997). A close bond exists between the head and its complement. Any constituent which follows the head is absolutely necessary to the head to enable it express complete meaning (Aarts, 2008, p. 101). This explains the grammaticality of the sequence of plural noun singular demonstrative constructions in Ibibio. Journal of Arts and Humanities (JAH) 36 Demonstrative paradigms in English and Ibibio ... Whereas demonstratives in English inflect for person and number, Ibibio demonstratives do not because their point of focus is principally semantic to express near and distant meaning while the head noun is syntactically required to be compatible with the verb for the utterance to be licensed as grammatical. Consequently, the merger of a plural noun with a demonstrative is not determined by number agreement but by word order which allows such a construction since the deictic markers specifically centre on the location of the entity and not the entity itself. This is why such a merger in Ibibio does not crash. In addition, third party reference is morphologically and semantically realised in Ibibio but not in English. However, this does not suggest that the semantic notion of third party reference does not exist in English. It does except that no lexical item realizes this notion morphologically but the meaning is inferred. Third party reference has a null spell in English in that it is silent in overt syntax, therefore, has a null phonetic form. From the analyses, two words –Àdàandmmonare pronominal quantifiers in Ibibio. Radford (2004) refers to pronominal quantifiers as Q-pronouns. A corollary of pronominal quantifier is prenominal quantifier. Àdà /mmon can function in Ibibio as what Radford (2004) refers to as prenominal and pronominal quantifiers in English. According to the source, a prenominal quantifier modifies a following noun while a pronominal quantifier does not. In Ibibio, àdàandmmon function as prenominal quantifiers and occur in subject position as noun substitute as in: Àdà/mmonmmíkembó. "This/these one/ones is/are what I am referring to" and can also function as pronominal quantifiers by occupying a position after the verb as the object of the verb as in: Mbóàdà /mmonmmí. "I am referring to this/these one/ones". 9. Conclusion and implications for linguistic study This paper has given insight on demonstrative paradigms in both English and Ibibio and shows that demonstrative paradigms in Ibibio differ from those of English. One major difference is that English has a two-way opposition demonstrative paradigm while Ibibio has three. The paper discusses the semantic and syntactic behaviours of demonstratives in the two languages and espouses that demonstratives in English inflect for person and number while those of Ibibio do not. It also shows that this grammatical unit functions as deictic markers in the two languages by expressing proximal and distal relationships. The discussion further highlights that demonstratives in ibibio morphologically mark third party distant reference while those of English do not do so, rather English expresses the notion semantically by inference from the listener. The paper further reveals that demonstratives in Ibibio do not enter into number agreement relationship with the noun in the structure of the sentence since their principal focus is location and not the participant(s) in the discourse quite unlike English where the focus is on the participant(s), the reason it inflects for number. The discussion discloses that whereas demonstratives in Englishalways occur in a position before the head noun, that is, pre-head position, those of Ibibio occur in post-position, that is, posthead position. In addition, the discussion shows that a sequence of plural noun, singular demonstrative is possible in a language like Ibibio because of the zero plural nature of this syntactic category in the language. The analyses show that there is a close bond between the head and its complement in natural languages. The merger of a plural noun with a singular demonstrative is possible in Ibibio because the determinant factor in the language is word order and not number agreement,the reason plural noun, singular demonstrative merger is licensed in Ibibio whereas English grammar does not license such a merger. Whereas English has just one type of demonstratives and each member shows number contrast, Ibibio has two, according to the analysis. While one type does not enter into agreement relationship with the noun it co-occurs, the second type does even though the two types semantically share the same notion of near and distant reference. In addition, English demonstratives occur in complimentary distribution in that the choice of one excludes the choice of another. This is not the case in Ibibio in which a sequence of demonstratives is possible because of the versatile nature of this syntactic category in the language since it can function as subject, verb, article, anaphoric element in addition to being deictic markers.Because of the versatility of demonstratives in Ibibio, Ibibio-English bilinguals do not encounter much difficulty in the use of this syntactic category. Journal of Arts and Humanities (JAH) 37 Ekah, JAH (2018), Vol. 07, No. 05: 28-38 The paper concludes that what obtains in demonstrative paradigms in the two languages might equally be true of the demonstratives in English and other Benue-Congo sub-family languages. 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