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On Nigerian Pidgin
Marking Counterfactuality in Modal Constructs
Olaoba Arasanyin: Georgia Southern University
Introduction: NP in Profile
In Nigeria, perhaps no two concepts in the nation’s language management debate
evoke such intellectual passion as Nigerian Pidgin (NP). The rationale for this is
manifold: (i) the historical factors that produced NP as a hybrid language are still a
concern; (ii) the appropriation of collective ownership of NP in the sense whose
language it is, remains a lingering question; (iii) the methods within which the
structural features of the language have been examined and analyzed are constantly
changing rather than evolving; and (iv) the advocacy of status elevation for NP in
Nigeria’s language policy continues to provoke mixed feelings with political
consequences. On the question of historical circumstances that guide NP evolution,
many theories have emerged, some more folkloric than empirical. From Mafeni
(1971) stemmed the contention that NP grew out of urbanization after the initial
establishment of the language through Afro-European linguistic contact.
Urbanization, according to him, brought many races and tribes together to create
‘social melting pot’ that established and promoted NP lingua franca.
Faraclas (1996) in his ground-breaking work on NP acknowledged urbanization as a
major factor in the evolution of the language. But to him, urbanization resulting
from mercantile activities among various Nigerian ethnic groups created the
environment for the establishment of NP well before the arrival of the Europeans.
What this in essence means is that the Anglicized NP as is currently in use in Nigeria
emerged out of what Faraclas termed ‘lexical substitution’. With this claim, four basic
observations can be made; (i) that the structure of NP predates European linguistic
intervention, (ii) that this structure was cross-cultural and ethnic-transcendent; (iii)
that the process of lexical substitution was gradual, systematic and driven by bottomup socio-linguistic strategy and (iv) that the European linguistic contribution was a
top-down enterprise accommodated within the existing inter-ethnic linguistic frame.
Together, these observations provide the basis for two major claims made in this
piece. First, the contention that one indigenous language, i.e. Yoruba provides the
basic syntactic structure into which NP lexical features are implanted constitutes
nothing but a fallacy. Second, the traditional description of NP as an acrolect derived
from the Standard Nigerian English (SNE) is a proposition without serious empirical
support. Indeed, the submission is that NP is, in all practical sense, basilectal with
fundamental influence from Nigeria’s indigenous languages whose features guide its
syntactic constructs.
In support of this submission is the claim that the same history that questions the
reduction of NP to an acrolect can also be used to investigate the validity of the
contention that elevate NP into a mesolect, a creolized variety (Marchese and Schnukal
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1980, Faraclas 1996) with a community of native speakers (Elugbe and Omamor
1991). The conditions under which NP has customarily been considered a native
language seem to engender more questions than answers. Nonetheless, what cannot
be disputed is the idea that NP is a bona fide Nigerian language (Mafeni 1971,
Omamor 1982). According to Elugbe and Omamor (1991), there is a standard NP
spoken in Warri and Sapele areas of former Bendel state, now Edo and Delta states.
This standard, in their views, should not be confused with the common forms in
Nigeria such as ‘minimal pidgin’ ‘broken English’ ‘bad English’ and ‘Nigerian Krio’
spoken in the same geographical area where from NP is said to have emanated. In
Faraclas’ (1996:1) view, NP “can be considered to be one link in a chain of Englishlexifier Pidgins and Creoles spoken along the coast of West Africa and in African
Diaspora community throughout the Atlantic Basin”.
By Faraclas estimate, more than 40 million Nigerians speak NP; and more than one
fourth of this population speaks it as first language (L1). The number of speakers of
this language has steadily been increasing rather than decreasing. It is the de facto
language of the Nigerian Arm Forces. NP, according to Faraclas (ibid) is
distinguished from the other 400 Nigerian languages by the fact that it is, in his
words, “spoken by members of every regional, ethno-linguistic and religious group in
the federation”. From the vantage of linguistic spread, demographics and ethic
neutrality, NP, no doubt, occupies a unique socio-political position in Nigeria. And,
contrary to Agheyisi’s (1971) and Obilade’s (1980) claims that confine NP to low
socio-economic class, the language, according to Elugbe and Omamor (1991:50) “is
not restricted exclusively to any particular class or group, or any specific social
settings.” Given that NP has not only defied the conditions that fortified the de facto
social boundaries associated with other Nigerian languages, the language continues to
expand its functional constituency without clear and consistent institutional support.
For this reason, some scholars have advocated policy-driven recognition for the
language, and its elevation into a national language, a status only bestowed on three
(out of 400) indigenous Nigerian languages: Hausa, Igbo and Yoruba.
To Faraclas (1996:2), “Nigerian Pidgin is in most respect the most logical choice for
a national language”. And, if according to him, NP is indispensable for an
understanding of Nigerian affairs and practical communication’, it is imperative to
examine the systemic adequacy of NP in fulfilling the role of a national language in
Nigeria. Against the backdrop of Hall’s (1966) argument that a true pidgin must
maintain a ‘sharply reduced’ grammar and vocabulary in conjunction with the
traditional assumption that ‘pidgins are marginal languages created to fulfill specific
communication in well-defined circumstances’; this work seeks to investigate the
recursive potential of NP and its capacity to express complex situational structures.
Taking cues from Todd’s (1974:1) observation that “the many-faceted nature of
human languages is unlikely to be encapsulated in a few sentences,” or in a paper for
that matter, the goal is to exert an approach that would permit the testing of the
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claim that NP is a monocodal language with limited lexical endowment. The
approach is morpho-semantic with analytical framework designed to explore specific
linguistic features of NP, i.e. conditional markers and their structural capacity to
express abstract hypothetical conceptual structures within existential temporal
constructs. These features are explored where Lewis’ (1973) and Arrequi’s (2005)
contentions that conditionals express context-driven relationships in possible worlds
provide the basic analytical backdrop.
Until now, no special accommodation has been made for the analysis of NP
conditionals as modals with functional capacity to denote counterfactual structures.
Works on this language have tilted overwhelmingly in favor of synthetic approaches
that interfuse core aspects of linguistics: phonology, syntax, semantics and the like in
the examination of its features. While, the present endeavor draws structural and
analytical insights from the previous approaches, its focus is domain-specific. The
concern is to examine conditional devices in NP where the task is to identify and
analyze these devices as counterfactual markers discrete in character but not
functionally isolated from those associated with tense and aspect. In the existing
approaches, Elugbe and Omamor (1991) and Faraclas (1996), conditional modal
forms, sé and fọ were classified in the grammatical set that include dè, bìn, gò, doŋ and
 that are all tense or aspectual markers in NP. There is a need, by virtue of
structural evidence, not to confuse modals in their counterfactual functions with
tense and aspect devices that mark the attendant temporality.
Contended therefore is that the individual functions associated with the conditional
markers in NP and the meanings they assume in sentential structures are a
consequent of the structuro-semantic relationships these markers maintain in a twoway interpretation of two propositions: antecedent (with the Conditioning-Event
(CgEi)) and complimentary (with the Conditioned-Event (CdEj)). Here, Arregui’s (2005)
position in her analysis of counterfactual relationships in English, lends useful
conceptual insights. However, this piece rejects her treatment of the complementary
proposition as the conceptual consequent of hypothetical event designated in the
antecedent clause. The analysis adopted affords no conceptual avenue to
accommodate the cause-effect relationship that such treatment seems to suggest in
counterfactual constructs. Proposed instead is a relationship based on binding
conditions underpinned by conceptual inter-dependency between events designated
in the two propositions that counterfactual constructions tend to embed as a matter
of course. In logical terms, the truth value in one proposition will be used to
determine the truth value in the other in possible worlds that are largely hypothetical.
With NP counterfactual constructions, the actual time of the hypothetical events
expressed will be determined outside irrealis temporal frame. The basic idea therefore
is that the events marked by hypothetical modals in NP are unreal, but the times
associated with them are not. Acknowledged in the analysis of NP modal fọ is that it
requires complementary temporal devices to situate the event it qualifies in time.
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Also, it is important to assert that counterfactual markings in NP derive structural
input from their substrate languages: Edo, Hausa, Ibibio, Igbo, Itsekiri, Izon, Yoruba
and others and not necessarily from English, their superstrate language. Unlike in
English, per Arregui’s (ibid) observation, conditional markings involving tense and
aspect constructions in NP are not only tied to complementary clause but also to the
antecedent clause. The data collected and used for this work demonstrate the
requirement of cross-propositional utilization of conditional modals in NP
constructions in order for them to express counterfactuality. The data themselves
derive from samples of context–driven speeches produced by speakers with ‘native’
proficiency in NP. The speakers are drawn from five major Nigerian ethnic groups
whose languages have been identified by various scholars as the primary substrate
contributors to NP: Edo, Itsekiri, Igbo, Hausa and Yoruba. A major question the
analysis of these data does in fact answer is that the application of a counterfactual
marker in NP is not as liberalized as to lend itself to arbitrariness and inconsistency
in rule application and usage. NP is indeed a language with strict rules that separate it
from the so-called non-standard English (Elugbe and Omamor 1991).
Conditional Structures in NP
Conditionals are grammatical devices used in NP constructions to express
context-dependent relationships often in the hypothetical realms of possible worlds.
In their basic functions, they express events within unfulfilled claims; in other words,
they serve as structural devices that infuse conceptual constraints into the realis value
of state of affairs. With attendant tense/aspectual markers in NP structures, they
command the features of counterfactuality in their designation of state of affairs in
relation to the real world experiences. Simply, conditionals perform grammatical
negation of facts in the actual world. For these functions they are designated as
counterfactuals, which to Lewis (1973) afford the expression of state of affairs that
differ from the actual. In effect, they refer to mental or cognitive representation of
situations that lack concrete standing. Below, in example (1), is a quintessential
counterfactual construction in English:
(1)
(2)
“If Kangaroos had no toils, they would topple over”
(Lewis 1973:1, see also Arregui 2005:4)
Lewis (1973:1) offered the following description: “[In] any state of affairs in which
kangaroos have no toils, and which resemble our actual state of affairs as much as
kangaroos having no toils permits it to, the kangaroo topple over”. Here Lewis
recognized two possible worlds, real and unreal connected by the sense of similarity.
The interpretation in the unreal world is driven by what is possible in the real world
and it takes counterfactuals to express this abstract relationship in language. On the
conceptual platform of Lewis’ designation of counterfactuals, Arregui (2005) argued
that counterfactual items in English can be analyzed along with the grammatical
categories of tense and aspect. These categories, in her view, are needed to situate
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the hypothetical irrealis world in the actual realis world. With the endorsement of
Lewis-Arregui’s fundamental designation of counterfactuals, this section will
demonstrate the linguistic capacity of NP to express abstract and complex
counterfactual relations involving events in hypothetical situations. With that, it
questions the traditional reference to NP as a ‘reduced’ language (Hall ibid.). A major
linguistic property of NP is its lexical and structural flexibility. Such flexibility affords
it the mechanism to “draw on the entire lexicon of English and indigenous Nigerian
languages wherever new items of vocabulary are required” (Elugbe and Omamor
1991:52).
And in agreement with the position adopted in this work, Elugbe and Omamor went
on to acknowledge that “structurally, [NP] is not any different from other Nigerian
languages (…); [it] expresses temporal and aspectual distinctions, which parallel those
found in other languages including English and other Nigerian languages”. However,
where there is serious discrepancy in this assessment is in its lack of clear
grammatical separation of modals that mark counterfactuality from tense/aspect
categories that designate real world temporal frames associated with counterfactual
expressions. Faraclas (1996:43) attempted to redress this discrepancy by representing
counterfactual modals in a two-way classification of the propositions in hypothetical
expressions in NP. On the one hand, he identified a conditional clause that consists a
noun clause with optional adverbial clause introduced by if “if” and/or laik ‘like’. On
the other is the complementary clause that he referred to as the superordinate clause
preceded by conditional clause. The superordinate clause in the conditional
structures must, in his view, “be marked for irrealis modality by the auxiliary gò if the
events described are non-past and the modal verb fò if the references are to events in
the past”. Faraclas provided the following examples:
(3)
(4)
[If
laik
sé
à
gẹt
mọni]] à
gò bái
mọto
[if-Cl av-cl n-cl
lsP V-have money] lsP -R V-buy car
“If I have money, I will buy a car”
[If
[à
bìn gẹt
mọni]] à
fò
bái
mọto
[if-Cl
[1sP +P
VF-have money]] 1sP should +buy +car
“If I had money, I would buy a car”
where +P refers to past and –R represent irrealis modality and VF represents factitive verb
(Faraclas 1996:44)
The two examples express counterfactuality in forward-tracking sense. In both, two
events are represented in a situation where one, the conditioning event (CgEi) in the
antecedent clause conditions the truth value of the Event (conditioned (CdEj)) in the
complementary clause. In effect, the antecedent clauses in the parenthesis are uttered
in the context of the known fact that the propositions or events they designate are
false at the point of utterance. And in context where the falsity of the antecedent
clause is established the -truth, i.e. falsity of the complementary clause can be
affirmed (Arrequi 2005). But, as it shall be demonstrated later, the relations between
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the two clauses in counterfactual constructs are not as candid as it seems in the
preceding proposition. Suffice it at this point to contend that NP expresses
counterfactuality differently from English and does not rely on past morphological
forms, e.g. bìn ‘had’ to express counterfactuality. The present and past, by Faraclas
examples are structurally distinguished: -form + verb for the present and bìn +
verb for the past. However, these two verbal structures are often used
interchangeably in NP; the deference is only observable in the complementary clause
they support. Found with the gò usage is an item of volition that is missing with the
application of the fo form. The former is a future marker where the latter is a
conditional modal. The separation of present from past forms in NP in effect
deviates from the structural inconsistency in the application of past morphological
forms to express counterfactuality in English. These observations essentially support
our basic premise that the structure of NP counterfactuals emanates from the
substrate languages. Consider the following counterfactual expressions in Yoruba:
[Iba
jé pé
[Mo ní
owó ]] Emi ibá ra
mọto
[if-Cl n-cl cp [1sp V-have money]] 1sP –R V-buy car
“If sé (dat) à gẹt mọni, à gò bai mòto.”
(6) [Iba
jé
pé [Mo ti ní
owó]] Emi ibá
ra mọto
[if-Cl n-cl Cp [1sP +P VF-have money]] 1sP should + buy + car
“If à bin gẹt moni à fọ bai mọto”
where the ti-form in Yoruba and bìn-form in NP are structural equivalents.
(5)
That the structure of counterfactual expressions in NP maintains close resemblance
to that in Yoruba, a substrate language, leaves little doubt about its functional
adequacy and consistency. Still, the capacity of NP to express complex
counterfactuals extends beyond Faraclas’ provisions in examples (4) and (5).
Example (6) and its equivalent in Yoruba in (7) show greater structural connection of
NP to indigenous linguistic source. Now, consider the following:
(7)
(8)
[If
làyk sé [à
bìn gẹt
mọni]] à
fọ
doŋ bai mọto
[if-Cl av-cl n-cl [1sP +P VF-have money]] 1sP should +C buy +car
[Ibá jẹ pé [Mo tí ní
owó ]] Emí ibá
tí ra mọto
[if-Cl n-cl Cp [1sP +P VF-have money]] 1sP should +C buy + car
Where the translation for both is: “If I had money, I would have bought a car”
The interpretation based on Lewis-Arregui’s position would be that the two events
represented in both antecedent and complementary clauses are past at the time of
utterance. Yet the difference between examples (6) and (7) and those preceding them
is the application of completive markers doŋ and <ti> both distributed respectively in
the same syntactic location in NP and in Yoruba expressions. According to a
Comprehensive Grammar of the English language (1985:1010), “The verbs in hypothetical
conditional clauses are back-shifted”. This means that the past tense form bìn in NP
and completive <ti> in Yoruba are being used for the present and future while the
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past perfective forms doŋ and <ti> forms are for the past time reference. The
conclusion, according to this grammar book is that: “When these forms have such
hypothetical implications, we term them hypothetical past and past perfective. The
interpretation generated here is very clumsy, particularly, when applied to NP. First,
the hypothetical past and the hypothetical past perfective are marked by distinctive
tense bìn and aspectual doŋ markers. Second, the two forms are not hypothetical
modal markers, the role in these structures is reserved for if and fọ forms. These
forms are used to express more complex hypothetical propositions including backtracking counterfactuality in the following example:
(9)
If
sé Chidi bìn kọmọt wif Ngozi yẹstadé
dẹm fọ
no
fait dì
déi bìfọ
if-Cl n-cl 3sP +P V-go out with 3oP Adv. yesterday 6sP should neg
fight art. the +day before.
Based on the recorded data collected from NP informants, 95.0 percent produced
the construction in (8) for the following samples in English:
“If Chidi had gone out with Ngozi yesterday, there would have to have been no fight
between them the day before” (cf. Arregui 2005:2)
To Lewis (1973) the English translation expresses more complex counterfactual
which he described as “backtracking” counterfactual. In simple terms, this means ‘if
Chidi did what he did yesterday’ then ‘something must have happened the day before
yesterday i.e. two days ago’ that made him do it. This is where NP employs a much
simpler set of forms ‘bìn+ yẹstadé’ and ‘fọ + déi bìfo’ to express a more complex
hypothetical structure by English standard. One of the conditions for this simplicity
is the absence of passive expressions in NP as well as in many indigenous Nigerian
languages including Edo, Igbo and Yoruba that influence NP. For example, the
following two examples (9a) and (10a) in English reproduced by NP informant as
(9b) and (10b) respectively demonstrate the aforementioned observation.
(9a) ENGLISH: If the money was given to Amina by Bala, she would go to the
market
(9b) NP:
If sé Bala gíf Amina dì mọni shi fọ dọŋ go mákẹt.
(10a) ENGLISH: If Chidi had been sent, he would have come back
(10b) NP:
If sé dẹm sẹn Chidi, i fọ dọŋ kọm
To reflect its indigenous structural roots, passivization constructions in NP are
promptly activized. No matter the character of their structures, counterfactuals in
this language accommodate informativity bound by our understanding of possible
worlds. Such understanding entails conceptual familiarity with structural constructs
of possible real life experiences with conditional modality that is time-bound. With
regard to NP usage, these observations can be illustrated as follows:
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Counterfactuality in NP is not bound only to past events; it can be found in the
expression of anticipation with prospective occurrence of events as in examples (11)
to (13) below, but by and large, pastness is grammatically marked in all these
relationships. And although the sé-form from ‘(let’s) say’ had been deemed optional
in NP expressions, (Faraclas, ibid.), it appears that its occurrence is more often than
not triggered by the conditional application of if-form just as is the case with Yoruba
verbal form jẹ or şe ‘to be’ triggered by the use of the conditional form ibá ‘if’ as in
<ibá jẹ/şe pé + Prop>. In sum, this supports the contention that modality is marked
in the two clauses (antecedent and complementary) of NP constructions unlike in
English.
[If
sé
Bala dé
híẹ
] ì gò dé im
rúm
[ if-Cl n-cl 3sP V-be Loc.here] 3sP –R V-be Poss-his Loc.room
“If Bala was here, he would be in his room”
(12) [If
sé Yẹmi kọl
tòmọrò
] ì gò tọk
tù
Bọla
[If-Cl n-cl 3sP
V-call Adv. tomorrow] 3sP –R V-talk Prep-to 3oP
“If Yẹmi called tomorrow, he would speak to Bọla”.
(13) [If
Bala dé
smọl
]ì
fọ
doŋ dè stọdi
fọ
Amẹrikà
[If-Cl 3sP V-be Adj.young] 3sP should +C -C V-study Loc. in
America
“If Bala was [/ had been] younger, he would have been studying in America”.
(10)
That pastness is marked in these examples does not translate into automatic location
of the situations they express in the past. Example (11) may be uttered where ‘Bala’s
presence here’ may or may not be affirmed. The uncertainty this generates does not
negate the truth value of the complementary clause at the time of utterance located
in the present. But then, the fact that this utterance may be made with the knowledge
of ‘Bala’s presence/absence’ already established adds a flavor of pastsness to its
interpretation. Example (12) hypothesizes about two prospective propositions where
one had to occur to trigger the occurrence of the other. That the two hypothetical
events in the antecedent and complementary clauses are yet to occur as indicated by
the adverbial time locator tòmọrò “tomorrow”, means the use of -past form with
the verb kọl “call” is relative. Thus, in NP, the -past form could be used solely to
situate one event – the event of “calling” in the past relative to another event – the
event of “speaking” whereas in real time the two events are prospective. In (13) the
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pastness is established in the truth value of the event in the antecedent clause. The
idea is that the subject Bala is ‘no longer young’, and where this is the case, the idea
of him “studying in America” is negated. If by the same token, the assumption is that
the event expressed in the antecedent clause is false, in which case Bala is indeed
“younger”, the event in the complementary clause could no longer be negated in the
sense of the formula in (14):
(14) α  β  α  β
Presented here against the backdrop of Arregui’s (ibid.) counterfactual analyses of
comparable structures in English, is a situation where the truth value in our event
negates the truth value in the other in reciprocal terms. Yet, NP language data
collected for this work demonstrate that the formula in (14) is a little simplistic. The
analyses of these data need to deviate from those proposed for their counterparts in
English (Fine 1975, Lewis 1979, and Krager 1998). The structure and markedness of
counterfactuals in NP are different from those in English, its superstrate language in
many ways: (i) NP conditionals as in examples (2-3) do not resort to morphological
pastness to produce modals that express counterfactuality.
The counterfactual forms are invariably if “if” and fo used complementarily in
counterfactual constructions. (ii) The language separates counterfactual modals from
temporal devices as in (11-13). (iii) Passive constructions are activized in NP to
achieve proper conditional constructions as in (9b) and (10b). (iv) In NP, pastness in
the antecedent clause is not automatically mapped or copied onto the event
expressed in the complementary clause as shown in example (3) where bin-past form
in the antecedent clause is not complemented by the doŋ-completive form in the
complementary clause. The idea that in contexts where tense occurs in sequence, the
tense morphology (in the antecedent clause) tends to copy the features of the higher
tense (in the complementary clause) as in the case of English (Eric 1987, Stowell
1995 and Kratzer 1998) does not apply to NP. (v) On a lighter scale, NP is equipped
with tones that help distinguish temporal markings that accomplish counterfactual
expressions as with the dè (non-Completive) marker and dé (state ‘to be’) marker in
examples (11) and (13) respectively. While all these constitute structural deviation
from English as the superstrate language, they, however, mark grammatical harmony
between NP and its substrate languages.
Tense-Aspect Intervention
The position adopted thus far suggests the need to separate modal devices and their
structural markings from the grammatically discrete temporal forms that include: the
-form and bin used mainly for non-future and gò for future all in the tense category;
and doŋ for completive and dè for non-completive aspectual categories. In NP, two
forms are prominent in the expression of counterfactuality; if (sé) “if” or if (laik sé)
“if” and fọ with “would” as its conceptual approximation in English. Of all these
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forms, only fọ is a strict modal marker in hypothetical constructions. It is a
conditional where the if-forms such as if (sé) “if” or if (laik sé) “if” are premise-setting
devices. The NP counterfactual forms: if (sé) “if” or if (laik sé) “if” and fọ “would” are
non-temporal forms yet they are bound to time through the temporal devices that
they, in and by themselves, are not. They occur with tense and aspect forms to
connect the situations whereto they are bound with time in the real world. Tense and
aspect are grammatical categories with distinctive temporal functions. The former in
NP refers to grammatical devices used primarily to locate events relative to other
entities in time, hence it is a deictic category. Aspect, on the other hand, deals mainly
with the embedded (internal) temporal structures of events expressed in situations.
Tense, unlike aspect is used to designate time of occurrence of events in situations
that are organized vis-à-vis a reference point, the point present (PP), which refers to
the temporal locus designating the moment the utterance or sentence is uttered.
Tense forms in NP are therefore temporal operators structurally assigned to the event
E with embedded constant  to yield time-bound situation. In this regard, three
assumptions will be made: (i) that tense as a grammatical category in NP is timerelative; (ii) that time T is equivalent to a series of moments that are ordered in
specific relationships (Cann 1993) and (iii) that T is directional but not necessarily
linear (could be curvilinear). For our purpose where the situations expressed are
hypothetical, formulas (15) and (16) provide the basic analytical roadmap.
(15) [ti, tj, tk] ЄT: (ti < tj) & (tj < tk)  (ti < tk)
where the assumption is ~ (ti < ti), a unique event cannot precede itself
(16) (ti < tj)  (tj < ti)  (ti  tj)
where every moment precedes, follow or occur simultaneously with every other moment except
itself
In (15) ti, tj and tk are different moments in time T, and where this is the case ti can
precede tj and tj can precede tk, therefore ti can precede tk. In (16), that ti precedes tj
drives mutually exclusive relation with a situation where tj precede ti, this situation is
equally exclusive of that where ti overlaps with tj in same time interval. Within the
conceptual frames proposed in (15) and (16), it is assumed that usage of tense
devices in NP fulfills three basic logical principles, transitivity, irreflexibility and
inclusive disjunction all of which are markers of complex linguistic organization.
Presented in (9b) and (10b) are cases of ditransitive construction TYPE (Vdt) as in
the following:
(17) PAS [ANT] = Vdt [PAS]’ (PPtu) ~ (PPbai)]] + CC
where the NP verb gif ‘give’ maintains three arguments with the presence of subject, object and
indirect object all in the PAST antecedent clause to which the complementary clause (CC) is
added.
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With (17), example (18) becomes an alternative way of expressing the antecedent
clause in (9b)
(18)
[If sé Bala gif di mọni tu Amina] + CC
“If Bala gave the money to Amina, ….”
Example (17) continues to show the absence of passivization [~ (PPbai)] “bypreposition” in NP. In (10b) the structure in (17) applies. Because of the activization
of the passive in NP, the subject dẹm “they” is inserted as the agency that negates the
lambda  operator needed to make sense in the English passive constructions. The
unknown agency x that English expressions tend to support has to be reconstituted
with the insertion of the dẹm-form in the active construction. Where the agent as a
constant  in NP constructions are specified and not considered a free variable; the
following structure in (19) cannot be featured appropriately in relation to (10b) in
NP.
(19)
x (sen’ (Chidi’)) (x)
While the examples considered in (17-19) are basically structural they delineate timebound activities in possible worlds. The complexity of time representation in these
examples provides the conceptual cues that disallow the superposition of rules of
engaging counterfactuals in English on NP constructions. Such complexity requires
that conditionals in NP be distributed within its own unique structural relationships
that include four basic temporal frames illustrated thus:
The indexical time denotes the hypothetical time inherent in all counterfactual
constructions in NP. Essentially, in the antecedent clause, this time is often marked
in the past. The encapsulated time is the sole temporal aggregate of the inner-time,
which to Kratzer (1998) refers to the internally embedded aspectual time, the
inherent time structure of events that can be distributed in the outer reference time
that is tense-bound. Within the encapsulated time reference, events can be durative,
progressive, punctual, repetitive, completive or non-completive. Yet all these events
in their respective time structures can be distributed in tense-time; past, present or
future. Evaluation time is a category in the outer-time where it designates the
temporal status of event in reference to the immediate time the event is expressed. It
affords instantaneous location of the event in time relative to PP, the point present
as the time of speech utterance. Lastly, the situation time refers to the temporal
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statuses of events as they are distributed relative to one another in situations that are
in sum bound to tense time.
Consider the reproduction of example (13) in (20)
(20)
If Bala dé smọl, ì fọ doŋ dè stọdi fọ Amẹrikà
“If Bala was [I had been] younger, he would have been studying in America
Where the premise of ‘being younger’ is indexically or hypothetically established in
the past, the event of ‘studying’ in the complementary clause is also hypothetically
bound to time. With the encapsulated time, expressed in the antecedent clause is a
completive aspect meaning the “younger years” of Bala is over, ‘complete’. Yet the
encapsulated time associated with the form dè stọdi “studying” is a non-completive,
durative aspectual time structure. The evaluation time is indeed in the present. At the
time this utterance is made Bala is no longer young and to claim otherwise will be
false. Because the antecedent event is false at the time of utterance (PP); the idea of
the event in the complementary clause happening at the time of utterance is equally
false. The relationship between indexical time and evaluation time will be considered
later as the key that unlocks the inadequacy of the claim that elevate complementary
clause into the status of the consequent clause (Arregui 2005). The situational time
deals with temporal relationships between the events expressed in both antecedent
and complementary clauses.
In (20) the relation is that of overlap, [Ei(ti)  Ej(tj)] where Ei provides the immediate
conceptual premise for Ej to occur. Shown here is the fact that temporal and
conditional markers maintain close affinity in counterfactual constructions in NP.
More importantly, their natural collocation generates the logic within which some of
the existing theoretical perspectives on counterfactuality can be revisited and
interrogated.
Of immediate concern is Arregui’s characterization of the
complementary clause in counterfactual constructions as the consequent clause.
Submitted instead with evidence from NP is that the events expressed in the
antecedent and complementary clauses in these constructions may be conceptually
isomorphic; but one is hardly a consequent of the other.
Logic in NP Counterfactuality
Counterfactual expressions assume logic mainly within compound sentential
structures where semantic relationships between two sets of events [(CgEn & CdEn)]
are designated in possible worlds, real and unreal. Whereas this observation is hardly
in dispute, what in fact raises serious concerns is the approach to these relationships.
How to balance the assessment of the hypothetical symbioses between events in
antecedent and complementary clauses with the factuality of the real world remains
problematic. To Lewis (1973) such symbioses can be determined within the notion
of ‘similarity’. Now consider the following example where the events in the two
counterfactual clauses are related in isomorphic sense:
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Olaoba Arasanyin: On Nigerian Pidgin
(21)
[If
(sé) Chidi
bìn kọm
dì
pátì] fáit fọ hápìn
[If-Cl n-cl 3sP
P
V-come Art-the 3P] 3sP –C V-happen
“If Chidi had come to the party, there would have been a fight”
By virtue of Lewis’ similarity principles, this means, in another possible world “Chidi
did not come to the party’ hence the consequent is “no fight”. With simple logic
Lewis’ idea of similarity with regard to this interpretation is doubly faulty. First it
assumes that the absence of events as expressed in (21) is similar to the presence of
those events as manifested in the analogous interpretation. And second, it assumes
the event in the complementary clause to be the consequent of the event in the
antecedent clause. That Lewis’ approach suggests causality relations between the
events in these clauses precludes non sequitur proposition. For this reason, few
scholars (Bennette 1984 and Slots 1988) have found discrepancies in Lewis’
approach. Earlier, Fine (1975:452) found inconsistency in this approach by reevaluating its guiding principles through English examples such as the one in (22):
(22)
If Nixon had pressed the bottom, there would have been a nuclear holocaust.
(Fine 1975: 452)
In Fine’s view, the above sentence by its hypothetical character can be true or
imagined to be true. But by Lewis’ similarity analysis, the event expressed in the
complementary clause is most likely to be false where the actuality of its occurrence
cannot be affirmed. Indeed, the same argument can be made for the antecedent
clause leading Fine (1975: 452) to contend that, “given any world in which the
antecedent and consequent are both true, it will be easy to imagine a closer world in
which the antecedent is true and the consequent false”. In essence, Nixon could have
pressed the bottom [and it mal-functioned] thereby negating the ‘consequent’.
Counterfactual expressions in any language including NP are not all that tidy in
logical terms given their tendency to represent situations that deviate from the
actuality of real world. Now consider the following examples:
(23)
ríg
Ọbásanjọ dì
prẹsiden,
fọ
lús
lás vote, if
no bì
ríg-
3sP
Cp the president should V-lose last 3P if-Cl neg st-be 3P
“Obasanjo, the president would have lost the last election if not for the
rigging”
(24) [If
dì
prẹsiden bì
laik
wán
bìfọ
àm] ì
fọ
shọp
mọni
[if-Cl art-the 3sP
st-be av-Cl one
before 3P] 3sP should
v-steal money
“If the president was like the one before him, he would embezzle
money”.
(25) [If (sé) Abacha bì
presiden ]
ì
fọ
shọp mọni
[if-CL 3sP
st-be Cp-president] 3sP should steal money
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The Joy of Language
“If Abacha had been president, he would be corrupt”
These examples designate situations that defy the real world events. With reference
to (23), the individual designated Ọbásanjọ is the winner of the election. What this
means, going by the expression in (23), is that the winner is actually the loser in the
hypothetical world. But a major conceptual element often ignored in counterfactual
analysis is the contingency factor that explains this diametric conceptual
transformation in interpretation. This will be examined later. In (24), the idea of
counterpart relation between two individual presidents is expressed in the phrase
prẹsidẹn laik wán bifọ àm “president like the one before him” Here, a counterpart of
an individual is, in Arregui’s (2005:35) view “another individual that could have been
the person we are talking about in the actual world”. But then, the expression of
counterfactuality in (24) seems to negate Lewis’ idea of similarity further. In their
behaviors with money the two presidents are not similar and may not be
counterparts in absolute sense. Example (25) seems to provoke de dicto ‘belief world’
outside of which the truth values of the embedded proposition may be difficult to
establish.
Correlated in this example is the idea of “being president’ and ‘being corrupt’, which
in the real world does not guarantee the truth that Abacha will upon becoming
president turn corrupt. In agreement with Fine’s (ibid.) position, the truth value in
the antecedent clause is not readily mapped onto or copied by the event in the
complementary clause. For this reason, it is important to distinguish between two
forms of truth in reference to counterfactual constructions; the realis-truth that deals
with existential truth and the irrealis-truth that designates the hypothetical truth that
form the conceptual nexus of counterfactual expressions. With these classifications,
the following analysis can be proposed for counterfactual expressions in NP in the
real world:
(26)
[1(E1)] < [1(E2)]
In the last example, for instance, it is true 1 that the antecedent event, that is,
‘Abacha becoming president’ did not happen hence  E1. Equally true 1 is the
absence of ‘him being corrupt’ and here again E2 for the complementary clause.
The truth value in the situation expressed in (25) cannot be readily removed without
generating counter-facts as in (27):
(27) a. NOT true that: ‘Abacha was not president
b.
NOT true that: ‘He was not corrupt
From this set the following can be deduced
(28) a. True that: ‘Abacha was president’
b.
True that: ‘He was corrupt’
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Olaoba Arasanyin: On Nigerian Pidgin
Given these structures, it appears that counterfactuality maintains truth value within
its own logical frame, which is complemented by truth or falsity of the real life
experience. Counterfactual truth (irrealis) is therefore an encapsulating truth that, in
its conceptual function binds the actual existential (realis) truth. This is the case in
the antecedent clause in (25) represented in (29):
(29)
[ If se [2 Abacha bì
[ 1
prẹsidẹn ]
[2 Abacha was president ]
The counterfactual forms If se “if” in 1 overrides and binds the meaning expressed in
2. This analysis explains (26) as situational counterfactuality codification. While the
real world experience affords the appropriate interpretation of hypothetical
expression the conditional forms guide the logic they express. It is in therefore
necessary to recognize that each counterfactual situation expressed maintains internal
inter-event structure to which formula (14) often applies directly where the
complementary clause is an outcome of what did or did not occur. To express
counterfactuality in NP, the irrealis-truth must be conceptually binding. In this
language, the meanings expressed by counterfactuals can vary in truth value with
regard to time and space. Cann (1993:234) contends that “the notion of truth at an
interval (I) is equivalent to truth at some time during [the] interval”. A situation is
therefore true if events (En) described by the verbs and their arguments occur at
some time within the temporal interval represented in the adverbial expression.
If the antecedent clause in (21) is fitted with the adverb yẹstàde “yesterday” the
propositions it expresses would be true at some point within the time interval this
adverb represents. Within specific time frames, there are always some forms of
context-driven truth relations between propositions that form counterfactuals as
complete thoughts. Such truth relations hold true regardless of the existential truth
or what Saeed (2003:98) described as ‘the empirical truth’ of the compound sentence.
Structurally, the distribution of events in counterfactual expressions in the
antecedent and complementary clauses entails organizational processes that are both
temporal and space-bound. That these processes exist makes it difficult to associate
universal truth with hypothetical construction without resorting to the underlying
contingencies. The contingent factors implicit in counterfactuals not only create a
condition of conceptual inter-dependency between the events they qualify, but they
also present those events in terms of temporal relationships. The character of such
inter-dependency is hardly sufficient for the designation of one event as the
consequent of the other. Granted, in NP expressions, universal truth based on noncontingent condition of timeless nature may be expressed as in (30-32) below:
(30)
(31)
[ If
ì
dè rẹn ] dì
strít gò dé wẹt
[ if-CL 3sP –C V-rain ] Art-the 3sP –R –C wet
“If it is raining, the street will be wet”
[ If
trọbu slíp
] na nyànga gò wék
àm
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The Joy of Language
(32)
[ if-CL 3sP V-sleep ] pd 3sP
–R V-wake 3P
“If trouble sleeps, it is vanity that will wake it up”
(It takes vanity to wake sleeping trouble up)
[ If
nyànga wék
trọbu ] na pàlávà bì dát
[ if-CL 3sP
V-wake 3P ] Pd 3sP
st-be that
“If vanity wakes trouble up, there will be confrontation”
These examples suggest that where the events expressed in the antecedent clause
prove to be true, equally the events in the complementary clauses ought to be true as
well. The idea that the events are not bound to specific times makes them timeless as
a condition for their universal truth. However, most hypothetical expressions with
events in co-dependency relations do not subscribe to timelessness. More often than
not, there are marked temporal relations between the events described in
hypothetical situations. That the events occur in temporal relations subjects them to
contingency conditions that guide their implicit truth values. Arregui (2005)
acknowledged these conditions within the notion of consequentiality. The view here
is that such perspective is misleading if not confusing.
The notion of consequentiality may designate conceptual co-dependency between
two or more events in counterfactual constructions. Yet to disqualify the notions of
causality, inferentiality and conclusion resulting from reason or argument that
consequentiality as concept itself entails will only create logical gaps in its theoretical
interpretation. Consider the following examples:
(33)
(34)
(35)
mọnì
[ If
NEPA ték
lait ] dì
man gò vẹks
[ if-Cl 3sP
V-take 3P Art-the 3sP –R
A-V-(be) angry
“If NEPA switched off electricity, the man would be angry”.
[ if
Chidi bìn tọl
]ì
fọ
márì
Ngozi
[if-Cl 3sP
-C A-V-(be) tall ] 3sP should V-marry 3P
“If Chidi was tall, he would marry Ngozi”
[ If
nà Bọla dì
wúman si]
nà
im
ték
[ if-Cl
Pd
3P
Art-the 3sP
V-see ] Pd
3P V-take
dì
Art-the
money
“If it was Bọla (that ) the woman saw, it was him that stole the money”
Before the motion of consequence can be associated with any of these constructions,
the conceptual premise where that consequence is derived needs to be established
and affirmed. Thus, the events described in the antecedent clauses in (33-35) provide
the premise setting contexts. The claim in (33) per Arregui’s conceptual
appropriation of consequentiality, is such that the idea of ‘the man being angry’ in a
hypothetical world is a result of the possibility of ‘NEPA switching off electricity’.
The question is whether or not the event in the antecedent clause provides a
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Olaoba Arasanyin: On Nigerian Pidgin
necessary and sufficient premise from which the event in the complementary clause
indeed constitutes a reasoned conclusion. Where the event in one is believed to be
the consequent of the other, assumed is the idea that one provides the premise
wherefrom the other is derived as the conclusion. By this assessment, counterfactual
expressions are elevated into argument status given Carter’s (2004:2) definition of
argument as ‘a group of statements of which one (called the conclusion) is supported
by others (called the premises)”.
Yet from him came the idea that conditionals should not be confused with
arguments. Whereas, every argument to him “supports a conclusion, by itself, a
conditional just identifies conditions under which some statements would be true”
(Carter 2004:7). Indeed what is expressed in (33) is not argument, the event in the
complementary clause is only as good as a hypothetical prediction made from
hypothetical occurrence of the event in the antecedent clause. Both (34) and (35)
present a non sequitur conceptual frame where the events in the antecedent clause
fail to provide sufficient context for inferring the truth-value of the events in the
complementary clause. In other words, the conceptual values of the events in the
complimentary clause cannot be reasoned adequately from the premises the
antecedent events provide. Another intervening factor often ignored in
consequentiality analysis is the concept of causality and the role time plays in its
interpretation. In example (25) provided earlier, is it valid to claim that in the event
of ‘Abacha being president’ is a sufficient cause for ‘him being corrupt’? Is one
therefore a consequent of the other, and is there time intervention between these
hypothetical events? Given that (25) is only as good as a prediction, the
complementary event (Ej) overlaps with the antecedent event (Ei). But then, Abacha
needs to be ‘president first’ (Ei) before he can ‘be corrupt’. The inter-event relations
in terms of temporal aggregates can be represented thus:
(32)
Ej  Ei where Ej  Ei  
The complementary event overlaps with the antecedent event where the former maintains set
intersection with the latter where the set is not temporally empty.
While the sequentiality of the events expressed in (25) is not so clear-cut; that of (21)
is very candid. The time differential between ‘Chidi coming to the party’ and the
‘fight happening’ in (21) makes the causality relations between the events expressed
less predictable. Chidi may get to the party and the ambiance makes him behave like
a gentleman and hence no fight. Inter-event time in counterfactual expression may
change the direction in which the complementary event may be predicted. The
contention therefore is that where time interval is factored into the distribution and
relations expressed between events in counterfactual constructions, the assessment
of consequence is more complex than what is currently rendered in theories dealing
with these constructions.
Conclusion: Closing the Gaps
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The Joy of Language
Whereas, attention for the most part has been devoted to the consideration and
analysis of NP counterfactuals in this piece, what indeed underpins this effort is the
need to ascertain the level of recursiveness of this language as a competitive national
code in Nigeria. From the vantage of structural organization and the availability of
lexical devices at its disposal, NP maintains the capacity to express complex
situations with a degree of consistency comparable with those in the languages that
account for its nascence. From the language data provided by informants from areas
in Nigeria where this language is predominantly the lingua franca, this work sheds
some light on the fundamental conceptual gaps in theories dealing with
counterfactual constructions in language. With particular reference to NP, it
questions the customary superposition of English analysis of counterfactuals on NP.
The need to separate the paradigms used in English from those used in NP is
supported by the fact that NP is basilectal with more pronounced structural
influence from its indigenous substrate languages. For this reason, Faraclas’ (1996:43)
reliance on English’ grammar to assess counterfactuals in NP raises concern.
To him counterfactuality is expressed in NP in the context of conditionals that
consist of a noun clause with optional adverbial clause introduced by if “if” and/or
laik “like”. In the antecedent clause, he identified the usage of sé form that he
described as a noun clause (n-cl) and not a modal marker. Where he recognized the
presence of modality in conditional expressions, the devices that perform this
function were confused with those in tense/aspect categories. In his view, the
conditional structure must be marked for irrealis modality where the forms to be
used are: gò if the events described are non-past and, by the modal verb fợ if past
reference is expressed. Granted that this constitutes the most elaborate attention
hitherto accorded conditional markings in NP; nonetheless it manifests the
shortcoming of analytical oversimplification. The devices used for modality in the
ranks of which counterfactuals stem; are different from those used for temporal
codification in NP. However, the two categorical devices need to collocate in
constructions to situate hypothetical structures in real time. The modal structures
used in NP maintain closer ties with indigenous languages than with English. Quite
unlike English NP does not rely on the past morphological forms, e.g. ‘would’, ‘had’
and ‘was’ (Arregui 2005) to express counterfactuality, the forms if ‘if’ and fọ ‘should’
are practically unchanged for the past, present and future. Where all these temporal
classes are expressed, the appropriate tense markers are used.
The analysis used in this work focuses specifically on what Elugbe and Omamor
(1991) identified as the standard variety of NP. Even the orthography adopted
derives from this variety. That this is the case does not necessarily guarantee the level
of conventionality required to make NP a national code. Mafeni (1971) who
considered NP as language in its own right, admitted that the language itself ‘is
relatively complex and exhibits variety in form and function from community to
community”. Even Elugbe and Omamor (ibid) had to acknowledge that “the
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Olaoba Arasanyin: On Nigerian Pidgin
linguistic diversity of the substrate situation ensures that there will be different
dialects of NP even if they are all mutually intelligible”. The language data used here
were collected from a dozen Nigerian informants who speak six languages of their
ethnic origin Ędo, Hausa, Igbo, Itsẹkiri, Izon, and Yoruba. While there were
structural variations and lexical preferences that reflect Mafeni’s idea of variation, the
differences seem incidental to the empirical consistency in NP usage, at least from
the vantage of counterfactual expressions. By measure of its structural consistency
and existing process of maintaining lexical and functional sufficiency at one end; and
the continuous growth of its demographic constituency, NP now occupies a social
position where its status as a national code is hardly in doubt. What the language
struggles with in not really its structural and functional adequacy but rather the social
stigma history has placed on it.
Abbreviations and Symbols
Art
=
Article
A-V =
Adjectival Verb
CF
=
Counterfactual
(structure)
+C
=
Completive
-C
=
Non-Completive
Cl
=
Clause
Cp
=
Complement
E
=
Event
En
=
Events (infinite)
neg
=
negation
nl
=
Noun clause
Pd
=
Predicator
Poss
=
Possessive
Prop
=
Proposition
+R
=
Realis
-R
=
Irrealis
St
=
State
T
=
Time
T
=
Time Frame
1
0


<







=
=
=
=
=
=
=
=
=
=
=
=
Truth
Falsity
Overlap (relation)
The null (or empty) set
Precedence relation
Inclusive disjunction (or)
Set intersection
Lambda operator
Constant
Set membership
Material implication
Conjunction (and)
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The Joy of Language
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