The article also shows that variants of dey (i.e.
Contributing to this question, the study shows that copula dey exhibits complex variability, which is strongly related to the difficulty in processing the meaning and interpretation of both the verb phrase and that of the overall sentence. Previous works on copulas in NPE have rarely shown the extent to which the copula varies, the extent to which attested variation is complex, or the extent to which the simple or complex variation found is related to processing both the verb phrase in which the copula operates and the overall sentential context it scans. The present study shows variability in Nigerian Pidgin English (NPE) through its frequently used copula dey.
Finally, the subjects made sharp switches from StdE to NPE, speaking in blocks of first one code and then the other: this is like the behaviour of bilinguals moving from one language to another. The pattern of clustering of NPE verb phrases with other NPE verb phrases or other crieterial features of NPE is also a demonstration that NPE is a distinct language. It has been shown in this paper that the NPE verb phrase is sharply different from StdE verb phrase, and because the verb is at the centre of the clause and can determine its argument, it can be argued that NPE whose verbal grammar is radically different from that of English is a separate language. Although many scholars have pointed out that NPE is a language (Agheyisi 1971 Elugbe and Omamor 1991), not many of them have examined the verb phrase in NPE with a view to showing that its grammar is distinctive. The paper draws on data collected from 30 Nigerian University Graduates from three ethnolinguistic regions. The major aim of this paper is to demonstrate through the grammar of the verb phrase in Standard English (StdE) and Nigerian Pidgin English (NPE) that NPE is a distinct language.
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