Experimental Procedure

Lexical properties are central to the lexicon because they

„specify‟ the linguistic properties that guide the use of such lexicons or lexical items. The classification of the lexicon into lexical categories or what is commonly called parts of speech or word class- the noun, the pronoun, the verb, the adjective, the adverb, the preposition, article and so on, is in part, determined by the inherent properties of the lexicon. Lexical properties are

syntactic and so the teaching of lexis and structures is syntactic.

Person, number and gender features characterize the nominal group.

The term „person‟ refers to the order in which the individual is

speaking either as a first, second or third person. The lexical feature of number can be singular of plural. Number refers to

whether the relative position of the subject of a sentence and it either plural or singular.

acceptable usage. The following questions may guide the language teacher.

1. What lexical properties do the language I teach exhibit?

2. Are these features explicitly marked?

3. If so, how are they expressed?

suffix position and marks plurality also at the suffix position.

Examples taken from Àmfàní (2011, p. 146) are used to exemplify these features.

Item root gende r

Gender markin g

number Number markin g

Morphologica l position

Gloss

wátà wát- fem. -a singula r

-a suffix moon/month wàtànni wátà fem. -a Plural -nni suffix moons/month

s mànzó manz

-

masc. -o singula r

-o suffix messenger manzann Manz

i -

masc. -o plural -anni sffix messenger

features of number (plural and singular), gender (masculine/feminine) features and their morphologies-root and morphological positions, suffix formation.

Gloss gídá

house/houses

118

shéhè

bastard/bastards white/whites

dógó

long/long ones

(Amfani, 2011. p. 149)

gloss

male donkey/female donkey male visitor/female visitor

The thing to note is the affixation (morphological change) that

This is why we are highlighting them further, using the example of Newman‟s (1991) five number (singular and plural) categories of

independent Object Object Indirect Possessive 1 Níí

pronoun clitic object

Ní -ní -ní -(w)a 2 male Káí Ká -kà -kà -kà 2

female

Kéé Kí -kí -kí -kí

3 male Shíí Shí Shí -sá -sá While

3

female 1

plural 2

plural 3

plural Ítá Múu Kúu Sú

Tá Mú Kú Sú

-tá -mú Kú -sú

-tá -ná - kú - sú

-tá -mú - kú - sú

• the independent pronoun sets are used as absolute pronouns:

Káí, yáaròo ne. You’re a boy).

• object pronouns are used as direct objects of certain grades of verbs: Náa kàrantà sù. (I read them).

• the object clitic are used as direct object of other grades of verbs: Náa tàambáayée sù (I asked them)

• indirect objects are bound to be indirect object markers.

• the possessive sets are used with the gender sensitive linkers such as na plural masculine