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The current study seeks to revisit the analysis that attributes the infelicity, in all varieties of English, of strings like (1) '*He gave the man it' and (2) '*He gave to him it' to "the clash between the topical character of the pronoun 'it' and the focality associated with end position in English", in addition to the "breach of the short-before-long principle" (Siewierska & Hollmann, 2007: 86f.) The string in (1) is a double object construction (DOC), while that in (2) is a prepositional construction (PPC). In contradistinction to the above constraints, the present study shows that the pronoun 'it' can felicitously appear in the end position in DOCs, as in e.g. "He gave him it" (cf. Huddlestone, 2002: 248), besides the fact that the so-called 'short-before-long principle' is clearly violated in that sentence without rendering it ungrammatical. Hence, end position and the "breach of the short-before-long principle" are not tenable constraints. Thus, the current study maintains that for a DOC to accommodate a personal pronoun theme, its goal argument must be realized as a lexically unstressed constituent (cf. Antilla, 2008), specifically as a pronoun (e.g. He gave him it). On the other hand, postponing a personal pronoun theme in the PPC is not possible (e.g. *He gave to him it) because a postponed theme involving non-heavy NP shift is only possible if it is a nominal constituent, since nominal constituents are both contrastively and lexically stressable (cf. Antilla et al., 2010), as in e.g. He gave to him the book – a construction that has been reported to occur in the northern dialect of British English (cf. Siewierska & Hollmann, 2007). Any attempt to postpone a personal pronoun theme will render the sentence ungrammatical (e.g. *He gave to him it), even where there is an unequivocally contrastively stressable pronoun like 'them' (e.g.*He gave to him them), since, while 'them' is no doubt contrastively stressable, it is not lexically stressable. Both lexical stressability and contrastive stressability are a requirement for this kind of postponement.

The study looks at the use of conjunctions among L1 Luganda speakers of English as a second language (L2) in Uganda. Using a corpus compiled from oral and written discourse, the study found that the conjunction mostly used among L1 Luganda speakers of English was "and", followed by "but", both of which were marginally used as sentence openers, with the written data showing no single incidence of using "and" in this respect. It was also established that a number of English conjunctions were either totally absent or only used sporadically in both types of discourse. For example, correlatives such as "scarcely…when, no sooner…than" were completely absent from our corpus. Substrate influence from Luganda has been seen to have a role, not least in the co-extensive use of "although/though" with "but" in subordination, although analogy appears to work synergistically with substrate influence here (see Andersen, 1983). Innovations involving the rejection of constructions with the conjunction "if" were observed with regard to what appear to be mixed tenses (e.g. If you did not study chemistry at lower levels, you will not understand this concept), although in L1 English such constructions are legitimate since they do not encode the semantic relation of condition (Swan, 2005). Given that L1 Luganda speakers of English are Ugandans, this aspect of the findings in the study lends itself to observations made in earlier studies (e.g. Ssempuuma, Isingoma & Meierkord, 2016; Isingoma, 2021) on the structural nativization of English in Uganda as well as trends towards endonormativity in the sense of Schneider (2007).

One of the important features of structural nativization of L2 varieties of English is how their grammar converges with and/or diverges from their parent variety, usually, British English. Building on Isingoma (2016, 2021a), this study is set out to augment discourse on verb complementational profile in Ugandan English, focusing on ditransitive constructions. Using naturalistic data from semi-structured interviews involving 50 participants from L1 Lugbarati (a Central Sudanic language) speakers of English, the study shows that the Prepositional Phrase Construction (PPC) involving goal verbs is preferred over the Double Object Construction (DOC) configuration. Moreover, our data did not have a single incidence of benefactive DOCs. Substrate influence from Lugbarati, among others, appears to be a contributing factor, given that DOCs are rare in this language, as they are constrained by the semantic criterion of 'prior possession' of the theme/patient by the recipient/beneficiary referent. The findings thus show that Isingoma's (2016) monolithic generalizations about this phenomenon are debatable, as he indicates that the DOC is overwhelmingly acceptable with goal verbs in Ugandan English and that the particularities observed in ditransitive constructions in the variety are influenced by Bantu languages (where the DOC is the norm). Likewise, the assertion that Ugandans ubiquitously use the non-canonical PPC configuration for benefactive verbs (Isingoma, 2016) does not hold for L1 Lugbarati speakers of English, as the configuration was manifestly sporadic in our data, as opposed to the canonical PPC. The current study thus underscores the fact that there is substantial interspeaker variability in Ugandan English along ethnolinguistic lines (cf. Isingoma & Meierkord, 2022).

L2 Englishes are quintessentially characterized by cross-linguistic influence at all levels of linguistic analysis as a result of contact phenomena. This study examines the contribution of the syntax of a Ugandan indigenous language (Acholi) to how its L1 speakers speak English and the extent of variability observed among them, taking into account two grammatical aspects, i.e. how multiple attributive adjectives are sequenced in a noun phrase and the placement of adverbs in a sentence. The findings of the study show notable differences from L1 English (e.g. Standard British English), as L1 Acholi speakers of English do not necessarily pay attention to the prescribed L1 English order of adjectives. At the same time, the position of adverbs in a sentence also seems to be modeled, to some extent, on what takes place in Acholi syntax insofar as some legitimate L1 English structures are rejected by L1 Acholi speakers of English (as L2). Crucially, the study also reveals interspeaker variability among L1 Acholi speakers of English in Uganda based on occupation, with students being the closest to L1 English norms (as opposed to teachers and the business community), most likely due to exonormative orientation imposed on students in Ugandan schools.