A grammatical investigation of possessive cases in English and Okpameri

Abstract

Possessive cases are words that indicate or show possession. Hence, “hers”, “her” and “Ojo’s” are some examples of possessive cases. These possessive cases indicate grammatical property of language. The usage of these cases in utterance varies in languages. Hence, they variations often pose problem to ESL learners. Predicating on Contrastive Analysis Theory, the study generated Okpameri data from oral sources and participatory observation of the researchers in natural Setting. English data were got from the English grammar texts. The areas of investigation were Possessive Pronouns, Possessive Adjectives and Possessive Nouns. From the findings, the two languages under study are grammatically marked for possessive cases with reference to 1st, 2nd and 3rd person singular and plural numbers. However, the usage of these cases differs. While English is gender sensitive, this is not so in Okpameri language as Okpameri resorts to using uni-gender to indicate possession. Okpameri possessive pronouns and adjectives have different morphological forms representing persons (e.g 1st person singular). Not all forms of possessive cases are capable of co- occuring with every noun. While Okpameri distinguishes between subject and complement possessive cases, this is not so in English. The study, therefore, suggests that language teachers, particularly, English language experts should adopt systematic approach to the teaching of possessive cases as this will further broaden the Okpameri ESL learners’ knowledge on how to use the English possessive cases.