Journal of Foreign Languages, Cultures & Civilizations

Phraseology in New Englishes: Focus on Some Verbs and Preposition Agreement in Cameroon English
Napoleon Epoge

Abstract
This study examines the use of some verbs and prepositions by ESL learners in Cameroon in order to corroborate and ascertain the linguistic peculiarity of Cameroon English as far as this linguistic phenomenon is concerned. 85 university students were given a test involving gap test task (GTT), a multiple choice comprehension task (MCCT) and correction of individual sentence task (CIST) with a verb that requires or does not require a preposition after it. The results show that communicational redundant prepositions, which are supposed to be omitted, do occur in the learners’ grammar as learners employ varied prepositions in nullpreposition construction after a verb. The results further show that null-preposition construction occurs after the verb, in the learners’ language, in situations where a preposition is required to express a complete thought; and also, prepositions which agree with certain verbs are variedly substituted for other prepositions without taking into consideration the syntactic and semantic features of the message to be conveyed. The changes inscribed in the way these verbs and prepositions are used are products of realities in new language speaking context such as Cameroon.

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