A Minimalist Account of Some Aspects of Head-to-Head Movement in English and Ibibio

The study on head-to-head movements in English and Ibibio examined the syntactic operations of head movement in the two languages. The study adopted the Split Infl Hypothesis of the Minimalist Program. Data on English were collected from BBC online application and the Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English (7th edition) while data on Ibibio were elicited from five respondents purposively selected. While it has been observed that English and Ibibio have evidence of head-to-head movement, data show remarkable differences in head-to-head movement in English and Ibibio. In deriving polar questions in the English language, auxiliary verbs accord with Head Movement Constraint (HMC) by moving before Spell Out, first, to the TP and then the CP. On the contrary in Ibibio, the main verbs move before Spell Out, first, to the AgrP and then, after Spell Out, to CP and are consequently, not spelled out phonetically at the C of CP in polar questions. While heads of NPs in English generally the principles of Procrastinate and pre-modified by D, DPs in Ibibio either obey the principles of Procrastinate Greed. These differences in head movement operations have a serious implication in the learning of English as a second language as the Ibibio learner needs to understand the basic grammatical principles in these areas of divergence for effective communication. Key words: Head-to-head movement, spell out, procrastinate, greed, heads