Introduction

Although sociolinguistic studies of syntactic variation are quite common (see, for instance, Bickerton 1975; Labov 1972; Akere 1977; and Cheshire 1982), little attention appears to have been paid to the sociolinguistics of prepositional usage. In Nigerian English, previous studies of sociolinguistic variation have concentrated on phonology to the exclusion of syntax (Jibril 1982, 1986; Awonusi 1985). Since prepositions, even in ENL (English as a Native Language) settings, are known to be highly variable, it was decided to investigate the sociolinguistics of prepositional usage in Nigerian English for the present study.

Methodology

The instrument used for the generation of data was a 50-item linguistic questionnaire (see appendix). Each item on the questionnaire is a sentence which contains a blank space to be filled by a preposition. Three choices of preposition are then provided, only one of which is appropriate in standard (southern English) English.

The 50 sentences were not artificially constructed, nor were the prepositions arbitrarily chosen. Instead, authentic Nigerian texts provided the models on which the items were based. For example, Amos Tutuola, the Nigerian novelist, provided the frame for Variable 17 in his My Life in The Bush of Ghosts (1954: 117) with this sentence: ‘Even these evil works will appear as well on my “Will” …’ A Government document signed by a very senior official provided the frame for Variable 3 with this sentence: ‘The responsibility for running secondary schools lies on the Federal and State Governments.’