Appositive relations and strategic discourse functions in selected Nigerian novels

Novel provides a wide range of grammatical possibilities which novelists explore to capture the diverse thematic concerns of their literary engagements. In spite of these possibilities, studies on the Nigerian novel have mostly concentrated on lexical processes, rhetoric and thematic explorations to the neglect of how Nigerian novelists explore grammatical items such as appositions to capture the multivocal preoccupation of their literary commitment. Anchored on the grammatical concept of appositions, this paper examines the strategic discourse functions appositive relations perform in the Nigerian novel. The analysis, which is both quantitative and qualitative, reveals that appositive relations are not just co-referential grammatical items, but strong discourse markers which are used to perform a range of discourse functions in the Nigerian novel. Key words: Appositive element, anchor, discourse; Nigerian novelists