A Corpus-Based Study of Complex Prepositions in a Non-Native English Variety

This corpus-based study examined the occurrence and distribution of complex prepositions of the preposition-noun-preposition (PNP)-construction in a non-native English variety with a view to characterising it in the grammar. The data comprised 63 PNP-constructions with 585 occurrences retrieved from the 1,010,382-word International Corpus of English-Nigeria (2015). Motivated by the dearth of works on non-native varieties and underpinned by Construction Grammar, the study revealed an occurrence rate of 579 per million words (pmw). The PNP-constructions were one-and-a-half times more frequent in written (755 pmw) than in spoken (464 pmw) English and were most frequent in the domain Governance & Law (1368 pmw) and least frequent in General Interest Texts (402 pmw). Administrative Writing was the text type with the highest frequency of PNP-construction occurrence (2151 pmw), followed by Parliamentary Debates (1686 pmw); Demonstrations figured the least (49 pmw). In terms of, in addition to, in spite of and on behalf of were the prominent forms, respectively occurring 144, 37.6, 35.6 and 30.7 times pmw. Respect was the highest manifesting semantic category (49 percent) and its respect/disregard strain was dominant in Unscripted Speeches and Administrative Writing; time posted the lowest (0.2 percent). Whereas all the 63 PNP-constructions featured in the British National Corpus (BNC), only 6.1 percent of BNC’s132 low frequency forms also occurred in ICE-Nigeria. While 17 percent of BNC’s 30 most frequent PNP-constructions did not manifest in ICE-Nigeria, 64 percent of those present occurred more frequently in BNC than in ICE-Nigeria, with the differential as wide as 33:2.


Background
The preposition is one of the eight word classes acknowledged in the grammar.
It heads the prepositional phrase (PP) (e.g. in the car), which functions as post modifier in the noun phrase (e.g. The children in the car were waiting for their mother), adjunct in the clause structure (e.g. The children were in the car), and verb complement (e.g. Nobody was watching over the children in the car). It expresses a relationship (of space, time, or other abstract relations) between two or more entities in the clause, usually between its nominal complement and another item. A preposition can be simple or complex. It is simple if it consists of only one word (e.g. at and before); otherwise it is complex (Strang, 1969: p. 19;Quirk et al., 1985: pp. 657-673;Greenbaum, 1996: p. 161;Carter & McCarthy, 2006: p. 468).
A complex preposition (CP) consists of two or more words (e.g. because of, in addition to and in the case of). Attempts at delineating CPs by defining them and setting criteria for their identification point to one inherent attribute: syntactic wholeness. One such attempt is Quirk et al.'s (1985: pp. 671-672), who recognise as CP "a sequence that is indivisible both in terms of syntax and in terms of meaning''. Their nine criteria testing the syntactic wholeness of CPswhich include invariability of the second prepositional element and the noun with respect to number and determiners-prove that whereas the sequence in spite of is a CP on the shelf by is not. Halliday and Matthiessen (2004: p. 359) note that CPs such as in front of evolved from PPs, with nouns such as front as complement. They add that those sequences which become prepositions typically occur without deictic preceding the noun and that the noun occurs in the singular only. This means that sequences such as in the case of and on the ground of are still in the process of becoming prepositions. Complex prepositions are thus like idioms which, though of multiple words, are considered one and stored as such in the mental lexicon. In this study focus is on the three-word CP devoid of pre-modification; it is a study of the preposition-noun-preposition sequence, otherwise known as the PNP-construction. Quirk et al. (1985: p. 670) classify CPs of the PNP-construction into four syntactic categories based on the type of preposition before and after the noun, with a miscellaneous fifth group. These are in + noun + of (e.g. in aid of), in + noun + with (e.g. in accordance with), by + noun + of (e.g. by virtue of), on + noun + of (e.g. on account of), and others (e.g. in addition to, in return for and with/in regard to). They also identify with examples a number of meanings associated with the PNP-constructions thus: Relative position (vertical: on top of; horizontal: in front of), Concession (in spite of), Respect (with reference to; in respect of), Addition (in addition to), Cause, reason, motive (on account of), Viewpoint (with respect to), and Antithetic conjunct (in comparison with, by way of, in contrast to).
While it is not absolutely correct to state that there is a paucity of studies on prepositions and CPs, given the current state of development in theory and de- To begin with, Tyler and Evans' (2003) elaborate description of the prepositional meanings does not cover CPs. Where they get some attention, the focus is on select two-word sequences, to the neglect of PNP-constructions. A few examples will suffice. Hirao's (2016) grammaticalization study focuses on the two-word sequence down below. Inoue (2019) concentrates on the functions of until by/before as CPs while Cappele's (2001) demonstration of out of as a real preposition does not extend to PNP-constructions. Although Hoffmann (2011) uses data from Kenyan English for the comparative aspect of his analysis, the topic investigated is the distribution of preposition pied-piping and stranding in different clause types and not CPs.

Statement of the Problem
Existing corpus-based studies of prepositions and CPs are limited to native English and are largely diachronic and synchronic. While the general orientation is either strictly grammatical (e.g. Hoffmann, 2005) or fixatedly semantic (Tyler & Evans, 2003), none is both grammatical and semantic in emphasis, or qualitative and quantitative in analytical approach. The pattern of behaviour of CPs in text types-such as Editorials and Broadcast Discussion-has not been accounted for in depth and attention has been limited to select PNP-constructions in the corpora. Moreover, outside the five works published before its final compilation and release in 2015 (none of which is on CPs), this researcher is unaware of any studies based on the relatively new International Corpus of English-Nigeria (2015). In essence, there is no study of CPs of the PNP-construction that is based on the non-native English corpus, ICE-Nigeria. Yet, such studies are important in view of the place of prepositions in the grammar of English and the contributions non-native varieties make towards the growth and development of English as a world language. A study of this nature stands to greatly enhance the general understanding of the grammar of Nigerian English as a significant variety of World English.

Purpose of the Study
This study examines the occurrence and distribution of CPs of the PNP-construction in a non-native variety of English with a view to characterising it in the grammar. It intends to answer the following research questions: 4) Which prepositional meanings are most frequent and which forms indicate present-day uses of English CPs of the PNP-construction. So, it is both diachronic and synchronic, with the synchronic data based on the approximately 100 million-word BNC. Adopting the quantitative approach, Hoffmann compares the general distribution of some of the 30 most frequent CPs of the PNP-construction in Present-Day English in different domains and accounts for low frequency ones as well. He demonstrates that although the PNP-constructions comprise three orthographically distinct words, they are conceptualised as a single syntactic unit based on the underlying assumption that [Language] use can be interpreted as a reflection of the cognitive processes at work during the production of language. Thus, if complex prepositions do indeed have the status of units of grammar, they will be stored and retrieved from memory as whole entities rather than being assembled on the basis of the compositional rules of syntax (p. 2).
Among others, Hoffmann reveals that in terms of is the most frequent PNPconstruction and that high domain-specific use is typical of a whole range of CPs, such as the 139 occurrences per million words of in relation to in the Social Sciences and the high and low frequency of in spite of in World Affairs and Applied Sciences respectively. Aspects of Hoffmann's results form the data-base for the envisaged comparison between native and non-native English in terms of the occurrence and distribution of CPs of the PNP-construction.

Theoretical Framework
This study of CPs of the PNP-construction is predicated upon Construction Grammar, a family of theories within the field of cognitive and evolutionary linguistics which posits that human language consists of constructions or learned pairings of linguistic forms with functions (meanings). Constructions are stored pairings of form and meaning-covering everything, from the morpheme to the sentence-and are so defined if one or more of its properties are not strictly predictable from its component parts or from other existing constructions in the grammar (Goldberg, 1995: p. 5;Goldberg, 2003: p. 220). The PNP-sequences under investigation are constructions because their forms and meanings have been demonstrated to be unpredictable from their component parts or from other constructions (See Hoffmann, 2005). Hoffmann and Trousdale (2013) trace the origin of construction to Ferdinand de Saussure whose notion of arbitrary and conventional pairing of form and meaning became to be extended to all levels of grammatical description beyond words or morphemes. They add that it is this extended notion of the Saussurean sign that has become known as a "construction" and that the use of the term construction as form-meaning pairings actually dates back to the twelfth-century Medieval Linguists. Construction Grammar therefore refers to the different linguistic approaches that explore the notion of form-meaning pairings. Goldberg (1995: p. 6) and Croft and Cruise (2004: p. 266) however credit Charles Fillmore, Paul Kay and others with the development of the theory through their works pub-Open Journal of Modern Linguistics lished in mid 1980. As Kay and Fillmore (1999: p. 1) make explicit, adopting a constructional approach entails making an undertaking to commitment in principle to account for the entirety of each language. This means that every pattern has equal right as data for which grammar must provide an account. No piece of data is deemed irrelevant to grammatical theory as Construction Grammar takes seemingly inconsequential items into consideration. The increasing importance attached to natural language data and the availability of computational and statistical techniques for data retrieval and analysis provided impetus for the theory's growth and development.
Although generative because it accounts for allowable and non-allowable expressions in the grammar alike, Construction Grammar is not transformational.
It considers traditional constructions of the form-meaning-correspondences the basic units of language and shares an interest in characterising the entire class of structures that make up language-not just the structures that are considered "core grammar"-because there are theoretical benefits accruable to even "core" areas from studying the so-called "non-core" or periphery cases. In other words, it accounts for all of our knowledge of language as patterns of form and function (Goldberg, 1995(Goldberg, , 2003.
Justification for adopting Construction Grammar for this study is three-fold.
First, the PNP-sequences focused upon here are themselves constructions; they are exponents of the word class preposition, which itself belongs to the syntactic unit WORD. Since constructions are basic units of language (Goldberg & Suttle, 2010: p. 5), Construction Grammar is considered adequate for handling data of this nature. Second, Construction Grammarians assume that abstract patterns such as the preposition-noun-preposition sequence are stored form-meaning pairings, in the same way as ordinary everyday words like goat and yam, which makes it applicable to non-native English data that ICE-Nigeria represents. For example, it would be possible to account for deviations in PNP-construction usage in terms of what Hoffmann (2011) describes as limited input frequency determining the quality of output in L2 English. Finally, Construction Grammar is chosen rather than, say, Grammaticalization Theory-which postulates a direct connection between context of use and the gradual development of language (Hoffmann, 2005: p. 2)-because this study is purely synchronic and is not concerned with establishing the grammatical status of CPs. Construction Grammar therefore has the capacity to handle this study's data at its different stages.

The Corpus
The

The Data
To retrieve the data I read through every file, identified and copied out each form in its sentence context, marked the forms for recognisability, and noted the exact line of occurrence for identification ease. Thereafter, I listed all the PNPconstructions in all the files (e.g. 01-26) contained in a text type (e.g. bdis) in sequential order of occurrence. Using the tally system I indicated the number of times each form occurred in a given file and ignored files that do not feature any form. The total number of PNP-constructions in a text type and their frequency of occurrence were determined this way. This was done separately for the written and spoken components. To determine the number and variety of the PNP-constructions in both components, I drew two separate tables and listed all the forms with their frequency in each text type. These were later added together. There were 48 PNP-constructions with combined frequency of 303 in the written component (See Table 2) and 46 forms with 282 occurrences in the spoken component (See Table 3). Because the same forms generally occurred in both the spoken and written components and because some forms also featured only in the one and not in the other component, it became expedient to synthesise both components in order to obtain the overall data. There were 63 PNPconstructions with 585 occurrences altogether (See Table 4). This constitutes the data.

The Manual Retrieval Option
Manual retrieval of the PNP-constructions was the option because none of the Regular Expression Engines such as Practical Extraction and Report Language (Perl) was within reach. Moreover, applying the Windows (CRLF) search engine (which is only available for the written component) created serious problems.
Since the syntactic variety and number of PNP-constructions in a given file (if any) could not be ascertained before hand, typing in a sequence at a time (e.g. on behalf of) as a search strategy was both frustratingly slow and unhelpful: It left out low frequency forms apart from the fact that even inputted high frequency ones did not always manifest. Though laborious and time consuming, manual retrieval exposed me to the contents of most of the 902 files. The relatively small size of ICE-Nigeria, which is slightly over a million words, made it contemplate-able in the first place.

Results and Discussion
This section presents and discusses results of the analysis of the occurrence and distribution of CPs of the PNP-construction in Nigerian English based on ICE-Nigeria. It is in five main parts, namely general distribution, formal features, textual manifestations, semantic patterns, and comparison. Sentential extracts are provided and the forms under focus are italicised. Copied directly from the source texts and pasted as appropriate, each extract is accompanied with information on corpus name (ICE-Nigeria), text type (e.g. ess), file number (e.g. _01), and line number (e.g. L15) enclosed in brackets.

General Distribution
Since ICE-Nigeria has both spoken and written components, it becomes logical to begin this presentation of the frequency distribution of the PNP-constructions with them, followed by the gamut of ICE-Nigeria. Table 2 displays the distribution of CPs of the PNP-construction in the written component of ICE-Nigeria and shows that there are 47 forms with 303 occurrences. Since the written corpus comprises 400,796 words it follows that the forms' Open Journal of Modern Linguistics rate of occurrence was 756 pmw. Only in terms of had a frequency of 145 pmw with its 58 occurrences, which was the highest. The closest forms in addition to and in spite of recorded a frequency of occurrence of 65 and 57 pmw respectively. Rates for the rest are in the range of 40 -49 (1: in line with), 30 -39 (6, e.g. in view of), 20 -29 (3, e.g. in respect of), 10 -19 (5, e.g. with reference to), and 1 -9 (29, e.g. in consonance with). Twenty forms appeared once only at 3 pmw (e.g. in adherence to). Here are sentential extracts.

The Written Component
(1a) The study then computes interference in the locations in terms of the effective transmission loss and compares the results obtained with Ile-Ife, Nigeria.
(ICE-Nigeria, ATec_06 L90) (1b) In spite of this, more avenues for sourcing need to be exploited to meet the group demand for financial assistance by the numerous qualified students desiring to further their education.
(ICE-Nigeria, ASsc_05 L100) (1c) Your programme of visit is very much in line with the desire of our university for collaboration and exchange programmes between staff and students of different universities.
(ICE-Nigeria, bl_24 L6) Table 3 presents the frequency distribution of CPs of the PNP-construction in the spoken component of ICE-Nigeria. There were 46 forms with 282 occurrences as already stated. This gives a frequency of 464 pmw, given that the corpus size is 609, 586 words. The most frequent PNP-construction was in terms of; its 87 occurrences translate to a rate of 143 pmw. On behalf of and in favour of distantly followed with 18 occurrences each at a frequency of 30 pmw. The remaining 43 forms are in the range of 20 -29 (3, e.g. in spite of), 10 -19 (9, e.g. in front of), and 1 -9 (31, e.g. with respect to). Nineteen forms featured once only at the rate of 2 pmw (e.g., in recognition of).

The Spoken Component
The extracts that follow illustrate PNP-constructions in the spoken component of ICE-Nigeria.
(2a) And we're still looking forward for better things to happen in Oshodi in terms of development of the area.
(ICE-Nigeria, bint_03 L415) (2b) It is our tradition that the the governor receives or holds a dinner in honour of the association.
(ICE-Nigeria, btr_05 L483) (2c) Erm a colleague who sits right in front of me came out out with this book some years back.

The ICE-Nigeria Gamut
Sixty-three CPs of the PNP-construction occurred 585 times in ICE-Nigeria.
This gives a mean occurrence of 9 per form and a frequency pmw of 579. How- in return for). Still among the low-frequency forms are those that featured thrice in the written component only (in lieu of) and those that with two occurrences in the spoken component only (in collaboration with, on top of, and in respect to). Table 4  were only four other PNP-constructions whose frequency pmw was higher in the spoken component than in the written one. These are in favour of (30 v 22), in support of (10 v 5), in form of (10 v 5), and in excess of (5 v 3). Explanations for the variations in the pattern of distribution will be offered when the data is examined from the viewpoint of the different text types that constitute the corpus.

Formal Features
Six formal features associated with CPs of the PNP-construction in ICE-Nigeria were identified. They are syntactic variants, occurrence at clause initial, insertions, coordination, passivisation and deviations. All are examined as follows.

Syntactic Variants
Given that CPs of the PNP-construction are not known to be monochrome forms, I sought to determine which variants of the construction there were in the corpus and how syntactically productive each one was by summing up their occurrences and expressing same in percentages. As Table 5 displays, there featured 11 syntactic variants. The sequence "in + noun + of" was the most productive, constituting 37 percent of the 63 PNP-constructions and 56 percent of their 585 instantiations. The "in + noun + with" and "in + noun + to" variants distantly followed. Though it had only two representations the "on + noun + of" variant was equally productive.

Occurrence at Clause Initial
One major syntactic function of the PP is to realise the adjunct, which is nor-Open Journal of Modern Linguistics were more frequent in Students Essays (9), Academic Natural Sciences (8), Popular Humanities (6), Editorials (6), Administrative Writing (5), and Exams (5).
Four texts had no manifestations whatsoever (e.g. Press Reportage). While writers' style, subject matter and purpose may explain the variations seen, the figures generally contrast sharply with Quirk et al.'s (1985: p. 501) report that in the Survey of English Corpus PPs constitute 9.5 percent of items occurring clauseinitially and that it is 6 percent in spoken language and 12 percent in written language. While Table 6 captures the details extracts (3a)-(3e) illustrate the phenomenon.   (ICE-Nigeria, PTec_07 L110) (4b) We are here to say that we are in full support of the one man one vote.

Coordination
There were two cases of coordination seen. The first involves PNP-constructions with a common prepositional element at the beginning but different ones at the end (in consonance… and in followership with). Though the sequences of the second example belong to the same syntactic variant, the prepositional element after the noun was omitted before the coordinating conjunction in the manner of code associated with auxiliary verbs. The difference here is that the ellipsis involves the first occurrence of the form rather than the second. Retaining the first prepositional element in the coordinated sequences would be grammatically awkward, as the context shows.
(5) In addition and without prejudice to the powers conferred by subsection n (2) of this section, the National Assembly shall have power to make laws with respect to the following matters.

Passivisation
The single case of passive construction involves in touch with and the aftermath of the transformation leaves the second prepositional element in the sequence (with) stranded, the nominal complement having been transposed to the front of the clause.
(6a) First of all I believe that your health is very much intact and that your family is kept in touch with constantly.
(ICE-Nigeria, sl_27 L245) Contrast extract (6a) with its reconstructed active voice counterpart and a in touch with the profession.

Deviations
Three cases of deviation from PNP-construction-usage norms were recorded and they pertain to archaism, incompletion and errors as detailed below.

1) Archaism
The single incidence of archaism is in radice to (See OED, 1971: p. 2403). It is not known whether a CP exists with the noun's Present-Day English variant radish. Consider in radish to in (7a): (7a) We have long desisted from looking at culture from enticing flowery beauty. We go in radice-Radice is a Latin word-in radice to the root and then move up to the flower, the fruit of Yoruba culture.

2) Incompletion
There was incompletion or what Quirk et al. (1985: p. 715) describe as "reduction in explicitness", in which the second prepositional element in the sequence was unrealised: in line… (with), in spite… (of), in terms… (of), in contact… (with), in absence… (of), in accordance… (with), in lieu… (of), and in favour… (of). While the dynamics of spoken language largely explains the others (Twothird of partial realisation occurred in speech), the clipping of of with its nominal complement in in favour… (of)  it concerns the use of times for terms (4) even in Cross-examinations. This is an error resulting from poor sound discrimination (/ai/ and /ȝ:/) and poor learning (See (7f) below). The second might have come from poor recognition of the idiomatic form as regards, which has a verb origin and which does not require a post prepositional element. Its invariable -s-ending must have led the writers to think it is contextually a noun, resulting in the non-existent strings as regards to, in regards to and with regards to, realised twice each. There is however an underlying commonality in their shared meaning concerning, which brings us to the third error type. This is the superfluous co-occurrence of the synonyms with regard (to) and concerning (2); it is a case of possible indecision on lexical choice. Finally, there occurred in suspect for and in relief to (once each) in Legal Presentations. The first string is straightforward because it is the second prepositional element that is faulty. Consider: in suspect of. The second string is however complex. In law, the noun relief, according to the OED (1971: p. 2480), refers to "deliverance from some hardship, burden or grievances… release from an obligation". Simply, it means the grievances or reasons for going to court. Thus, in relief to refers to the removal of the burden on its nominal complement. However, as (7f)  (7f) The just concluded census will help the government in times of future planning.
(ICE-Nigeria, ex_21 L27) (7g) He submitted that the granting of interlocutory injunction in relief to the substantive matter and urged the court to order accelerated hearing.

Textual Manifestations
The distribution of the 63 CPs of the PNP-construction with their 585 occurrences in the 32 text types that make up ICE-Nigeria is displayed in Table 7.
As show. This is evidence that the forms are more frequently occurring in some texts than in the others. When the factor of corpus size is brought into the picture-which is a ratio of 2:1 in favour of Press Reportage-the cause of the huge difference between both texts becomes clear. In order to more adequately explain the differences in the textual behaviour of the PNP-constructions in ICE-Nigeria, and by implication, Nigerian English, the somewhat unwieldy 32 text types were grouped into 8 domains based on shared relationships (See Table 8). Governance

Governance & Law
The the rate of 407 pmw, which is instructive. Indeed in respect of' s 19 occurrences in Government & Law represent 86 percent of its total occurrence while with respect to' s is 55 percent. These figures contrast sharply with the 49-pmw occurrence of in terms of whose low frequency is partly because the domain is generically a sample of formal language with minimal tolerance for hesitation (In terms of was absent in Parliamentary Debates). The relatively high incidence of in favour of and the rest is because they are part of the genres' register. Low-Open Journal of Modern Linguistics frequency PNP-constructions that are also text-selective are in pursuance of, without prejudice to, by order of, in compliance with, at variance with, by virtue of, and in opposition to.

Business
Business had the second highest occurrence of PNP-constructions with 18 forms (30 percent) featuring 47 times (8 percent). This represents 0.09 percent of the corpus-which is 50 percent higher than the mean-and translates to a frequency of 923 pmw. Business Letters and Business Transactions are its only text types and they featured PNP-constructions at 1028 pmw and 772 pmw respectively. There were 8 forms in Business Transactions and 16 in Business Letters, and only by virtue of and in honour of did not also occur in the latter. This disparity shows even in the forms' frequency of occurrence. For example, on behalf of-the most frequent form (176 pmw)-had two-third of its occurrence in Business Letters. Another is in favour of, only 25 percent of which was in Business Transactions. Three forms with presence in Business Letters only are in accordance with, in lieu of, and in line with. Although some forms were genre-specific there was no dominance, as the relative prominence of in addition to in Business Transactions (79 pmw) was stylistic.

Humanities
Humanities' 20 ( were almost three times higher in Academic Writing (1149/0.12 percent) than in Popular Writing (400/0.04 percent) and were slightly higher in Arts (899/0.09) than in Social Sciences (650/0.07 percent). In terms of was again the most frequent PNP-construction (175 pmw), and was far more frequent in Arts (250 pmw) than in Social Sciences (100 pmw). In sharp contrast by means of recorded a frequency pmw of 13. Four other forms of note are in spite of (75 pmw), in relation to (63 pmw), in addition to (50 pmw), in view of (50 pmw), and in front of (38 pmw).

Education
In contrast to Education's 744 pmw PNP-construction-frequency, its consisting text types-Students Essays, Exams and Class Lessons-respectively recorded 1350, 791 and 411 pmw. Students Essays featured 10 forms (16 percent) with 27 occurrences (4.6 percent) representing 0.14 percent of its own corpus while Exams and Class Lessons' figures for the same parameters were 9 (14 percent) and 7 (11 percent), 16 (2.7 percent) and 17 (2.9 percent), and 0.08 percent and 0.04 were infrequent in Exams-where the only instance of in contrast with was seen-in comparison with Students Essays, but they both have four forms in common, including with regard to. Though posting the least frequency of PNPconstructions, Class Lessons had the highest incidence of in form of-occurrence in ICE-Nigeria, hosting 57 percent of its 7 occurrences. Whereas its overall frequency was 6.9 pmw, the rate was 99 pmw in Class Lessons. This indicates a generous use of analogy, comparison and exemplification in lesson delivery as its collocating nominal complements attest: in form of erm chart, in form of a policy, and in form of a map.

Science & Technology
The PNP-constructions were generally of low frequency in Science & Technology. There occurred 9 forms (16 percent) that reflected 39 times (6.7 percent) representing 0.05 percent of its corpus and averaging 486 pmw. Only Academic Natural Sciences' occurrence rate of 699 pmw exceeded the mean for ICE-Nigeria; the rates were 550, 498 and 200 pmw respectively for Academic Technical, Popular Technical and Popular Natural Sciences. The forms were almost two times more frequent in Academic Writing (624 pmw) than in Popular Writing (349 pmw). Between strictly science and strictly technology texts however, the latter's rate (523 pmw) was slightly higher than the former's (449 pmw). Only in Academic Technical was the proportion of corpus size that is PNP-construction the same as ICE-Nigeria's 0.06. While it was 0.02 in Popular Natural Sciences, it was 0.05 and 0.07 in Popular Technical and Academic Natural Sciences respectively.
In terms of' and in addition to figured 225 and 100 times pmw respectively while the single instance of in excess of, in line with, and in conjunction with was barely 13 pmw.

Imaginative Writing
Novels were the only form of creative writing in ICE-Nigeria and this makes Imaginative Writing a one-text-type domain. There were 7 PNP-constructions (12.3 percent) with 17 occurrences (3 percent) representing 0.04 percent of the corpus, which translates to a rate of 425 pmw. In front of and in spite of were the most frequent forms and were approximately six-and four-times more concentrated in Imaginative Writing than in the entire gamut of ICE-Nigeria.
Their 6 and 5 occurrences here-which respectively represent a significant 25 percent and 14 percent of the total-translate to rates of 150 and 125 pmw respectively. Another is Independence Celebration in Commentaries (e.g. com_32) and Unscripted Speeches (unsp_32). These instantiations however provide the basis for some meaningful comparison across text types. These remarks having been made, the distribution of the PNP-constructions in GIT can now be addressed.

General Interest Texts
With its 842 pmw-occurrence Unscripted Speeches had the highest rate of PNP-construction occurrence. The 52 occurrences (8.9 percent) of its 19 forms (30 percent) represent 0.08 percent of its own corpus. In contrast, Demonstrations was the least PNP-construction-bearing text type. Its single-form occurrence (in front of) represents 0.01 percent of its own corpus and translates to a frequency of 49 pmw. Following from the rear with 174 pmw was Conversations, whose 33 occurrences (5.5 percent) represent only 0.02 percent of its corpus size. In terms of's rate of occurrence was over two folds higher in Unscripted Speeches (308 pmw) and Commentaries (245 pmw). It was 89 pmw in Conversations.

Skills and Hobbies and Phone
With one occurrence Social Letters recorded the lowest rate of 33.2 pmw.
Another PNP-construction of note is in touch with. Ninety-five percent (18) of its occurrence was in GIT and 61 percent (11) of this featured in Social Letters at 364 pmw. Other relatively high frequency PNP-constructions are in front of (11 or 59 percent), on behalf of (10 or 31 percent) and in spite of (9 or 25 percent). Unscripted Speeches figured 7 occurrences of on behalf of at a frequency of 350 pmw. Fifty percent of the PNP-forms occurred once only and this includes in search of (Skills and Hobbies), in face of (Commentaries), and in pursuit of and in association with (Unscripted Speeches). Other low-frequency forms are in place of, in honour of and with support of. Finally, one of the two occurrences of in respect to and on top of and two of in charge of in ICE-Nigeria were in GIT.

Informative Texts and Imaginative Texts
The 32 text types in ICE-Nigeria were re-classified into two using imaginative and informative criteria. This means that 31 (97 percent) were informative while 1 (3 percent) was imaginative. Since facts on Imaginative Writing and its single text type (Novels) are already known, there remains to be added those on Informative Texts. Informative Texts' word count is 970,051, the forms are 63 (100 percent) and their total occurrence is 568 (97 percent

Semantic Patterns
Following Klègr (1997), the 63 PNP-constructions with their 585 occurrences in ICE Nigeria were categorised into twenty-five minor and seven major semantic groups. Respect was the most frequent major semantic category, indicated by 49 percent (289) of the forms. It was distantly followed by process (106 or 18 percent), delimitation (84 or 14 percent), contingency (76 or 13 percent), place (30 or 5 percent) and time (1 or 0.2 percent). No evidence of degree was found. Of the minor semantic categories respect/disregard was the highest occurring, followed by agreement. Subject matter, benefit, condition, detriment, guidance, and identification were not indicated. Table 9 exposes these and more details. Each major semantic category is hereafter taken in turns, complemented with extracts from the text types.

Respect
Fifteen PNP-constructions bearing the nouns respect (3), reference (2), support (2), regard (1), favour (1), view (1), terms (1), relation (1), light (1), association (1) and connection (1) expressed respect 289 times in all the domains and text Open Journal of Modern Linguistics  (145) in respect of (22) in view of (21) with respect to (20) with regard to (16) with reference to (5) in respect to (2) in reference to (1) in light of (1)   (8) in honour of (7) in preparation for (1) in pursuance of (1) in pursuit of (1) in memory of (1) in search of (1) with view of (1) in order for (1)   9  22 b) Cause-reason by virtue of (12) in recognition of (3) in return for ( in ICE-Nigeria. Thirteen text types were respect/disregard-meaning-only texts and these include Administrative Writing. In terms of, in respect of, in view of, and with respect to were prominent among the 9 indicating forms, illustrated as follows. (8a) With reference to that yes my Lord you are sure those are their arguing?
yes my Lord erm in a situation where parties have erm filed matter for a situation that is erm very primal.
(ICE-Nigeria, leg_07 L245) (8b) Now in re-in reference to this erm issues of this nature President Richard Nixon had opportunity to tell the parliament that if you dodge away from your responsibilities you certainly will not escape from the consequences.
(ICE-Nigeria, parl_06 L21) (8c) It is difficult to rationalise dezincification in terms of preferential zinc dissolution out of the brass lattice structure.
(ICE-Nigeria, ess_12 L182) (8d) In all Xmas is a blessing whether in terms of feeding or whether in terms of meeting partners.
(ICE-Nigeria, ph_02 L400) (8e) Do you know the exact amount that came into your possession in respect of these properties especially that of ANON?
(ICE-Nigeria, cr_08, L96) (8f) I was paid how much twenty thousand, the sum of twenty thousand naira in respect to twenty thousand naira, right. Who paid?
(ICE-Nigeria, cr_10 L411) (8g) In view of the problems being encountered in funding the tertiary institutions using the traditional campus model, there is need to consider an alternative that is more cost effective.
(ICE-Nigeria, AHum_01 L2) (8h) Following the recent classification of Nigeria by the United States as a country to watch with respect to terror related activities the Nigerian senate has described the classification as unacceptable.
(ICE-Nigeria, bnew_14 L1) (8i) Maize (…) is the most important cereal in the world after wheat and rice with regard to cultivation areas and total production (…) (ICE-Nigeria, PNsc_01 L3) (8j) That distinction remains very interesting, and it is useful, in light of subsequent developments, to revisit his paper. Open Journal of Modern Linguistics (ICE-Nigeria, ess_01 L48) 2) Support Support was expressed 37 times and was more generously indicated in Parliamentary Debates, which accounts for 41 percent (15) of its total manifestation, than in the other 16 text types, including Business Letters (4), Legal Presentations (2) and Students Essays (1).
(9a) We humbly acknowledge that your lordship exercise the court's discretion in favour of the defendant and admit him to bail Sir.
(ICE-Nigeria, leg_03 L117) (9b) Order nine rule two and it says here that a member shall read short extracts from books or papers in support of his argument.
(ICE-Nigeria, parl_04 L320) (9c) Today, the governing elite in Saudi Arabia is under attack and stiff opposition from religious extremist inside the country with support from fundamentalists outside.
(ICE-Nigeria, AHum_05 L161) In favour of and in support of are near synonyms as shown below. (9d) To say that the government is in support of court decisions is to give the impression that it has a choice not to do so.
(ICE-Nigeria, ed_14 L31) (9e) Some INEC staff who served as electoral officers were said to have been given the bribe to rig the election in favour of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP).
In favour of is also synonymous with in benefit of and in preference in (ICE-Nigeria, PHum_19 L181)

3) Connection
In contrast to support where there was a sort of dominance, connection was almost evenly spread among 10 text types, including Press Reportage (3)  connection with a scheme to bribe Nigerian government officials in order to obtain (…) contracts worth US $6 billion.
(ICE-Nigeria, pr_31 L35) (10b) (…) NLC is is going and erm erm TUC of Nigeria they are going with a-a-in a in association with OATUU we are going to embark on voter education.
(ICE-Nigeria, unsp_47 L19) (10c) Now that we have seen language in relation to the reforms agenda, let us revisit an issue which we have in this country.

1) Agreement
Agreement was the process meaning with the widest spread (16 text types). It was the dominant process meaning in Parliamentary Debate (9 of 11) and the only kind in Administrative Writing (9) and Press Reportage (8), with in line with and in accordance with as the main PNP-constructions. Agreement was indicated only once in Exams, Academic Writing Technical, and Commentaries.
Here are illustrations.  The text types in which delimitation was expressed include Business Letters (8), Unscripted Speeches (8), Business Transactions (7), and Academic Natural Sciences (6). The five strains of meaning present are examined separately.

1) Addition
Expressed by the PNP-construction in addition to, addition (38 or 47 percent) was the only strain found in all the domains and text types in which delimitation was indicated. Its primitive meaning "extra" underlines its usage in every instance as the extracts show.
(16a) (…) oils from almond seed and castor seed, in addition to palm oil and groundnut oil may be considered as Nigeria potential asset for biofuel and oleochemical production.
(ICE-Nigeria, ANsc_07 L26) (16b) So I would like this body this conference to penalize those who have not Open Journal of Modern Linguistics paid. They must pay and in addition to paying they must pay something for not obeying the rules.

2) Replacement
Although replacement slightly surpassed addition in terms of frequency (39 or 48 percent), its sphere of influence was restricted to 5 domains and 16 text types.
Five PNP-constructions-on behalf of (31), in place of (3), in lieu of (3), in behalf of (1) and in preference of (1)-expressed this meaning in the number of times indicated in brackets. It was more concentrated in Business Letters (8) and Unscripted Speeches (7), with on behalf of as the main form. The extracts that follow illustrate all the forms except in behalf of, a syntactic variant of on behalf of, shown in (22d) below.
(17a) I write on behalf of Management to acknowledge receipt of your notification of end of sabbatical appointment with the University. French language on them but out of national pride, they discarded it in preference for their own-Vietnamese.
(ICE-Nigeria, AHum_01 L181) (17e) The appointment will terminate by either party hereto giving the other a three-month notice in writing of intention to do so (or by tendering payment of three months' salary in lieu of notice) unless the consent of the Council has otherwise been obtained.

3) Range
The only CP that expressed range as meaning was in excess of and this was in Broadcast Discussion (2), Broadcast Interview (1) and Academic Natural Sciences (1).
(18) From this, the duration of flooding in the study area was determined, and this is the period when rainfall is in excess of evapotranspiration.

4) Possession
Again, only one CP conveyed possession as meaning thus: (19) So in absence of that we are going to do post item analysis.

5) Originator/Initiator
Excerpt (20a) illustrates the only manifestation of originator/initiator. Notice Open Journal of Modern Linguistics its orthographic uniqueness. Notice also that the minor sentence in which by order of occurs is reconstruct-able as in (20b)

1) Concession
Three PNP-constructions-in spite of (36 or 95 percent), in face of (1) and without prejudice to (1; See (5) above)-expressed concessive meaning 38 times in all domains (except Business) and 23 text types. Novels had 5 manifestations while Students Essays, Skills and Hobbies, and Unscripted Speeches had 3 each.
Concession was very thinly spread among the other text types.
(21a) Adunni's eyes were dried by the sunny reflection from the old man's incredibly shameless act. It was a comic diversion from the tragedy of her son. If only I could be that modest, thought Adunni in spite of the sorrow that held her captive.
(ICE-Nigeria, nov_19 L161) (21b) The AC said his arrest, in spite of a subsisting court order restraining the police from such an action, is a huge setback for President Umaru Yar' Adua's rule of law mantra.
(ICE-Nigeria, pr_39 L32) (21c) In face of what they have been able to put in here it might just say that Togo (…) have not been erm totally undeservedly.

2) Purpose-Goal
Purpose-goal was present in all domains and was almost evenly distributed among the 13 text types in which it was instantiated. Only in Press Reportage were there 4 occurrences; it featured either twice (e.g. Commentaries) or once only (e.g. Broadcast News) in the rest. Nine PNP-constructions dominated by in response to and in honour of indicated purpose-goal as meaning as shown below.
(22a) In response to customers continued yearning for improved and quality (ICE-Nigeria, pr_32 L12)

Place
The major semantic category place was indicated 30 times by in front of (25), on top of (2), and in charge of (3) in 6 domains and 11 text types. Location was the dominant place meaning (90 percent), as position/responsibility, expressed by in charge of, accounted for only 10 percent. Place was highest in GIT (14)   behalf of, in spite of and with respect to (which posted a ratio of 2:3 in favour of ICE-Nigeria) and in line with and in view of (which maintained a ratio of 1:2).
In contrast, 64 percent (16) featured more often in BNC than in ICE-Nigeria.
Thus PNP-constructions occurred more frequently in British English than in Nigerian English. Not only were they generally more frequent the differential was a lot wider, as the ratios 33:2, 25:2, 10:1, 19:2, and 17:2 in respect of in charge of, on top of, in search of, in return for, and by means of attest. Only in the case of with regard to (1.2:1) was the differential statistically insignificant (1.2:1). Hoffmann (2005: p. 142) also provides a list of 132 low-frequency PNP-constructions taken from the written component of BNC. Only 6.1 percent (8) Table 4, it is clear that the low-frequency forms were even less infrequent in ICE-Nigeria (the only exceptions being without prejudice to and in compliance with). However, when these figures are viewed from the perspective of the written and spoken components of ICE-Nigeria, it will be seen that they are far more infrequent in BNC than in ICE-Nigeria (See Table 2 and Table 3). Take by order of and without prejudice to, which are the only two in the written component, as examples. Their frequency relative to the 400,796-word corpus is 3 pmw, which translates to a ratio of approximately 3:1 in favour of ICE-Nigeria. The rest are in the spoken component and their frequency per million words in the 609,586-word corpus is 2 (except for in respect to with 3 pmw), which translates to a ratio of 11:2.

Textual Behaviour
Comparison between BNC and ICE-Nigeria with regard to the textual behaviour of the PNP-constructions was minimal because data was available only on in terms of and four text types (Class Lessons, Unscripted Speeches, Broadcast Interview and Broadcast Discussions). Nonetheless, I calculated the frequency of in terms of's 7, 19, 9, and 10 occurrences in the respective ICE-Nigeria texts and juxtaposed same with that of BNC (Hoffmann, 2005: p. 126). The differences and percentages of the lower value in each case were subsequently worked out as  text in which its frequency was higher in BNC than in ICE-Nigeria and three in which it was lower. So, although in terms of was the most frequent PNP-construction in both ICE-Nigeria and BNC, there were discrepancies in its distribution in the corpora and these differences are statistically significant. The first striking difference is the respective frequency of 144 and 100.7 pmw, which translates to a ratio of 3:2 or a percentage difference of 44 in favour of ICE-Nigeria.
In order to obtain a fuller picture of the pattern of distribution of in terms of in the 32 text types consisting ICE-Nigeria, its frequency was calculated relative to its number of occurrence and the number of words contained in each genre. Space does not permit the listing of all here. However, it must be placed on record that the highest concentration of in terms of was in Students Essays, where a frequency of 600 pmw was seen. Broadcast Interview, Academic Writing Technical, Unscripted Speeches, and Academic Writing Humanities rank between second and fifth with 442, 349, 308, and 300 pmw respectively. The lowest occurrence rates were in Novels (25), Social Letters (33), Legal Presentations (49), Business Talks (50), and Administrative Writing (50). In terms of did not feature in Broadcast News, Demonstrations, Parliamentary Debates, Popular Natural Sciences, Popular Social Sciences, and Skills and Hobbies. While the higher incidence of in terms of-occurrence in the spoken component of ICE-Nigeria-in comparison with its written counterpart-is attributable to known facts about its surfeit in speech, it is difficult to account for the differential between BNC and ICE-Nigeria in like manner. Could it therefore be the case that the hesitation phenomenon associated with this form is more negatively pronounced in Nigerian English (probably due to the L2 situation with its attendant problems) than in British English? Difficulty in immediately recalling the appropriate lexical item or syntactic structure to employ in a given context (which can affect any language user irrespective of whether or not they are a native speaker) tends to be greater where the user's degree of proficiency is lower.

Conclusion
This final section answers the six research questions that guided the study as concluding remarks (This can only be in brief). That data could be retrieved from ICE-Nigeria and analysed as presented above provides evidence that complex