CHAPTER ONE
INTRODUCTION
1.1     Background of the study
Constructively, a sentence is an anthology of words that convey meaning and meaning and are formed according to the common sense of grammar. Short and unambiguous sentences are mostly considered and more effective for long and complex sentences. Apparently, sentence is a linguistic unit of one or more words that communicate an autonomous articulation, a question, a request, a summons, a cry, etc., and which usually has a subject and a predicate. However, a sentence typically begins with a capital letter and ends with an appropriate punctuation; in speech, it displays decipherable, unrestrained intonation patterns and is again and again marked by the preceding and following pauses. In general, the statements and questions about the irresistible preponderance of sentences force a subject and a verb, formatted autonomously, followed by what is called an independent clause: for example, he took the phone is a sentence . After hitting the phone, it’s not a sentence; as a replacement, it is a dependent clause. Even if he has a subject and a verb, he must be connected to something to complete the statement: after picking up the phone, he answered a call; or He answered a call after picking up the phone (Amayo, 2013).
It is important to note that the sentences provide us with the structure necessary for an understandable written sentence. However, good writing skills are intrinsically vital to academic and professional success. The ability to write unequivocally and competently can transform complex and challenging writing into a more creative, exciting and fulfilling writing experience. In a more lucid sense, phrase learning is one of the most important ways to improve your English writing skills. On the other hand, writing is constructed by placing the sentences one after the other, in a coherent way. If a single sentence is read aloud, it must be explainable and devoting time to the mechanics of sentence structure can make a huge difference in your writing (Kachru, 2014). ). Typically, sentences are comprised of clauses: gatherings of words that express a solitary thought. Given to that, there are two types of clauses:
independent clauses
dependent clauses.
Actually, independent clauses can situate unaccompanied as complete sentences whereas dependent clause needs an independent clause to complete its meaning by so doing different types of sentences are made up of different combinations of these two types of clauses.
Simple sentencesconsist of just one independent clause; it needs only one punctuation mark at the end (a full stop, exclamation or question mark).
Compound sentencesare made by fusion simple sentences. Meaning that sentences joined which are intimately allied in content to make the writing more fluid.
Complex sentencesare made once there is combination of an independent clause with a dependent clause whereby the dependent clause in the following example is in italics.
However, sentence stress come to play if one need to emphasize a specific fact or point in a text, there are more than a few ways to focus the reader’s or listener’s attention on it.
Imperatively, arrangement of words: by placing an introductory word at the commencement of a sentence, for that reason, the writer makes the reader pay attention to that word; the reader is then alert for the rest of the sentence. Undoubtedly, the English language has a towering frequency of homographic vocabulary and however, this linguistic observable fact habitually results in phonological and lexical ambiguities as well as delays in lexical and pronunciation decisions by L2 readers, more than ever those that are not capable of exploring contextual clues in pronouncing the words and ‘Improper’ or ‘incorrect’ pronunciation of some English words, primarily the homographic ones, during reading or speech making has often come with its attendant challenges and complexities for speakers of English globally. Notably, earlier researchers who have worked on this observable fact have based their studies on inter-lingual factors associated with some sociolinguistic chemistry of languages in contact and this contact circumstances has given birth to many world Englishes ( Kachru 2014, Crystal 2015 and Schneider 2003). But further than these inter-lingual circumstances, there are some intricacies inbuilt in English which pose pronunciation challenges to speakers of the language generally and second language (L2) users in particular whereby Bryson (2015) and Soneye (2007) have identified the impact of spelling on the pronunciation of speakers of English and as well, Amayo (2013) have identified the supra-segmental as the ‘unlearn-able’ aspect of English in an L2 context. Nevertheless away from these problems of English orthography and supra-segmental features is that one posed by homographic words to speakers of English in general and to the L2 speakers in particular and the reasons for this are numerous in that English homographic words are words having same spellings but with double or different pronunciations. However, this duality of elocution over and over again results in what Frost, Feldman and Katz (2012) call lexical vagueness. For example, ‘read’ (present tense) is pronounced as /rí: d/ while the past tense form of the same word is pronounced / red /.
Uncertainty is a phenomenon of human language including English and wherever it occurs, it demands more than one denotation in that it manifests at the phonological, lexical, syntactic and semantic levels of language in which at all of these levels, the outcome is communication failure or miscommunication and in other words, meaning is obscured and when this happens, defective communication comes about. It turns out to be exceptionally fundamental at this point to build up the relationship in the middle of orthography and phonology from one perspective and phonology and importance on the other. Frost et al (2012:569) express the perspective that vagueness can exist in the connection between the orthographic and phonological types of a word or between the phonological structure and its semantic representation. The purpose of union in the middle of phonology and semantics is that both help in representing meaning. A word is a phonological structure; its phonological representation is its lexical passage. Passing by this, each homographic word is given two unique passages with a specific end goal to separate it semantically. In any case, English does not have any type of visual marker (as tonal dialects do) to separate these homographic words and their different elocution suggestions. This frequently brings about semantic uncertainty. On the flip side, this study wants to investigate empirically the challenges posed by English homographic words to some students of ObafemiAwolowo University, Ile-Ife with a sight to ascertaining their impact on communication among Nigerian undergraduates.