A Variationist Sociolinguistic Study of Nigerian English Morphosyntax: Evidence from Educated Speakers Across Three Cities

This study conducts a variationist sociolinguistic investigation of selected morphosyntactic features of Nigerian English among educated speakers in Lagos, Enugu, and Kano, contributing empirical evidence to the description of Nigerian English as a stable, rule-governed variety. While descriptive accounts of Nigerian English nativisation features have accumulated over several decades, variationist studies that apply quantitative methods to examine the social conditioning of specific morphosyntactic features across regional, ethnic, gender, and class variables remain scarce. Three morphosyntactic features identified in the Nigerian English literature as common nativisation sites are selected for investigation: the progressive aspect use with stative verbs, zero copula in predicative constructions, and article non-use with generic nouns. Sociolinguistic interviews generating natural conversational speech were conducted with 90 educated Nigerian English speakers, 30 per city, stratified by gender, ethnic background, and age. Variable rule analysis using GOLDVARB and logistic regression examines the social and structural constraints on each variable feature. Findings demonstrate that all three features show systematic social conditioning, with progressive stative and zero copula significantly predicted by informal interview context and ethnicity as internal variables, while article non-use is more evenly distributed. Between-city variation is modest, supporting the view of a supra-regional educated Nigerian English norm despite local influences. Keywords: Nigerian English, variationist sociolinguistics, morphosyntax, educated variety, language variation.