THE MORPHOLOGICAL ANALYSIS OF IDIOMS IN ENGLISH AND HAUSA WRITTEN LITERARY TEXTS
CHAPTER ONE
GENERAL INTRODUCTIONS
1.0 INTRODUCTION
Language spreads as the tribes that spoke it migrate from one location to another within or outside a geographical boundary. This naturally, local requires particular local characteristics, as it undergoes some modifications from its original form. Therefore, the differentiation and individual development brought about by the various conditions and circumstances surrounding it, such as geographical climatic, ethical and particularly, linguistic, came into contact with other forms of speeches or languages in general.
1.1 BACKGROUND TO THE STUDY
Idiomatic turns of expression are usually forcible, terse, and vivid; the same meaning could be set forth in some other way, but not with equal force and brevity. It is the idiomatic part of a language that is the most difficult part for a non-native to master it, if adds to the difficulty that often no reason can now be given as to how or why a particular idiomatic phrase has assumed its present form. When the language turns of expression differ from those which set forth the same meaning in his own language, the non-native is liable to go astray. As a general rule an idiomatic phrase cannot be altered; no other synonymous word can be substituted for any word in the phrase, and the arrangement of the words can rarely be modified; any attempted change in the wording or collocation will commonly destroy the idiom and perhaps render the expression meaningless. Frequently an idiomatic expression omits several words by ellipsis; but to fill in the words so omitted would destroy the idiom. Hence the non-native must be careful to note precise words that make up any idiom, and also the exact arrangement of those words.
THE MORPHOLOGICAL ANALYSIS OF IDIOMS IN ENGLISH AND HAUSA WRITTEN LITERARY TEXTS
