NOUN confirms Akeusola as Prof after inaugural lecture

AFTER delivering  the fifth  inaugural lecture of the National Open University of Nigeria (NOUN) at its headquarters in Victoria Island, Lagos recently, Olurotimi Akeusola has been confirmed Professor.

It is the culture within the academic world for accomplished scholars to share their research experiences, findings in their respective disciplines with other colleagues and the entire community through inaugural lectures.
The Professor of Comparative Grammar (French and Yoruba), School of Arts and Social Sciences, National Open University of Nigeria, Lagos, titled his presentation  Preserving Yoruba Language Through Linguistic Vaccination of Comparative Grammar which stunned the distinguished audience and eminent personalities who attended.

The aspect of language chosen for this study is in the area of Comparative Grammar. It was pointed out that whereas literary analysis can afford to be subjective depending on the choices of the critics, grammatical or linguistic analysis is constrained to be objective. He referred to Bernard S. Cayne et all (1988:415) who sees grammar as “The science dealing with the systematic rules of a language, its forms inflections and syntax, and the arts of using them correctly.”

Also, in order to clarify some of the confusion and vagueness in the definitions and descriptions of grammar, Kwofie (1985:43) defined grammar as “the part of linguistic description that deals with analysis and syntax of a language.”

In the lecture, Professor Akeusola identified three grammatical eras: Traditional grammar, structural grammar, and transformational generative grammar. Grammar was conceived as the systematic examination of how morphemes are combined to form wards (Morphology), how phonemes (distinctive sounds) function within each language system (Phonology), how meanings are assigned to words (Semantics) and how the meaningfully-formed and pronounced words strung together to form sentences that are logically and grammatically correct (Syntax). The critical look at above formulation shows clearly that the core of grammar is syntax.

He confessed that it is through the aid of comparing Yoruba grammar to that of French that they were able to detect most of distortions and misconceptions in Yoruba language.
Grammatical studies were divided into two main branches: (i) The theory of words, (ii) The theory of sentences.

In French and other European languages, the ending is often used as the mark of mood and tense. With help of the endings, the tenses can be distinguished such as the present, the past and the future tenses. For Yoruba, all the verbs are presented in he same form without changing or taking the endings in conformity, either with the tense, the mood, the person or even the number of persons which it is talking about.

It was affirmed that Yoruba grammar marks tenses and mood through the aid of lexicalisation or utilisation of words whereas English and French grammar could conveniently indicate tenses and moods through verbal auxiliaries or endings.

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