Encoding experiencers in the proverbs of Nigerian English

This study investigates how Experiencers are encoded in the proverbs of Nigerian English. There are participants in different discourse situations who play common roles one of which is the experiencer. Blake (1994:68) notes that there are no agreed criteria and there is certainly no agreed consensus on the universal inventory. Semantic roles are useful for identifying various subclasses of verbs and occasionally are reflected by individual morphemes in natural languages. Experiencer is an entity that receives a sensory impression, but does not control the event or perform it on purpose in a discourse: Samson saw the snake, Janet liked the ring, James is sick, are examples of Experiencers in English. The study draws data from Jowitt (2005:145-6) where proverbs were categorized into groups namely: those that Nigerian English (NE) shares with Standard English (SE) and those which appear to be peculiar to Nigeria or which are at least not found in British English (BE). The study found out that like in Yoruba and other Nigerian Languages, Experiencers are encoded as subjects, possessors within a subject and as objects. &nbsp