Comparative study of morphological processes in english and. I urge you to read with an open mind in that way you will gain a deeper understanding of igbo people. Zsiga skip to main content accessibility help we use cookies to distinguish you from other users and to provide you with a better experience on our websites. Central igbo, based on the owerri and umuahia dialects, was the vehicle of many translations from european literature. The idea behind this distinction is that some morphemes express some general sort of content, in a way that is as independent as possible of the grammatical system of a particular language while other morphemes are heavily tied to a grammatical function, expressing syntactic relationships between units in a sentence, or obligatorilymarked. External and internal factors have been proposed as causes of the decline of igbo language usage.
Computational morphological studies may not require as much data as. Igbo interfixes are morphemes which perform distinct derivational functions such that nouns can. Derivation is defined in literature as one of the processes of word formation. Corpussize quantification for computational morphological. Yoruba is a benuecongo language spoken mainly in nigeria by about 30 million native speakers. Comparative study of morphological processes in english and hausa languages abstract. Suffixation is a morphological process whereby a bound morpheme is. Contrastive study of english and yoruba morphological system. Igbo is a tonal language with two distinctive tones, high and low. The languages tone system was given by john goldsmith as an example of autosegmental phenomena that go beyond the linear model of.
Developing methods and resources for automated processing. Ambiguity of sexual language in chaucer canterburys tales unn. Patternbased unsupervised induction of yoruba morphology. This work aims at investigating the relationships that exist between the english and the hausa languages at the level of their morphological processes. Onyenwe abstract natural language processing nlp research is still in its infancy in africa. Igbo language features a wide variety of highly productive concatenative and nonconcatenative morphological processes. Affixation is used in many languages to mark inflections on. The igbo language is one of the three major nigerian languages after hausa and yoruba. The suffix s attaches to the end of noun roots to mark plurality as in languages or bugs. The igbo and english languages are of different linguistic backgrounds and as such are characterized by differences in the affixation processes. It is possible, for instance, to break down hausa word budurwai girls into smaller structural units. Igbo, or igbo proper, is a native language of the igbo people, an ethnic group primarily located in southeastern nigeria. And that was the same time i learned about tone in my igbo language class. Contrastive study of english and yoruba morphological.
As a result, it would impossible to create a comprehensive list of derivational morphemes but we can look at a few representative examples. Its loan words are mostly from arabic, english, hausa and igbo languages. These resources will assist in answering those questions and providing resources to parents and colleagues. Some of the findings among other things reveal that through prefixation, suffixation, and denominal igbo language form nouns from verbs. A functional analysis of the prime suffixes in igbo morphosyntax. There are approximately 20 million speakers that are mostly in nigeria and are primarily of igbo descent. The igbo language is one of the languages of the benue congo family spoken predominantly in the southeast part of nigeria. They are uneven in terms of scope covered, length, the density of their contents and their degrees of difficulty. Each chapter ends with some references relevant to both the topics treated in the chapter, in igbo linguistics, and in general linguistics.
What tone teaches us about language home linguistics. Comparative study of morphological processes in english. Igbo language is one of the three major languages, spoken in nigeria, west africa. Compounding compounding forms a word out of two or more root morphemes. It is used for expression of various grammatical functions such as verbal aspect and it is part in a number of complex morphological models. Igbo language belongs to an agglutinating language because grammatical relationships and word structure are indicated by free combination of elements. Union igbo was an answer to the growing number of christian igbos within nigeria but being rather artificial it was employed only as a liturgical and literary language. The thrust of this study is a discussion of the copious examples of morphological processes available in anaku, an igbo language variety based on some universal morphological processes. Preference for the english language in postcolonial nigeria has usurped the igbo language s role and function in society, as english is perceived by igbo speakers as the language of status and opportunity. This work intends to expose the morphological processes available within this igbo language group in comparison with some universal morphological processes as discussed in the handout. This paper is on a constraintbased analysis of morphological processes in ibibio lower cross language of niger congo. Deverbalisation has other morphological process through which it is realised. Preference for the english language in postcolonial nigeria has usurped the igbo languages role and function in society, as english is perceived by igbo speakers as the language of status and opportunity. Computational morphology is used to describe a formal.
Developing methods and resources for automated processing of the african language igbo ikechukwu e. Developing methods and resources for automated processing of. The analyses were based on kano dialect of hausa language which is the standard hausa dialect. This research work hinges on the contrastive analysis of igbo and english affixation. In igbo language, the morphological processes involve the formal processes as operations by which words are formed, altering the status of existing words, as well as the use of different configurations of tones on a word to form more words. African languages, an introduction, provides anyone teaching linguistics a source of data from african languages, preselected to illustrate the desired concepts. Standard igbo is an amalgam of the different dialects of the igbo language. Derivational morphemes can change the grammatical category of the base. Peculiar characteristics of people from the igbo tribe of nigeria.
Selected derivational morphological processes in english. This study uses the nomenclatures of this pdf handout to analyze the morphological processes in anaku igbo to prove or disprove the universality of the processes. In some cases a third, downstepped high tone is recognized. Some salient issues in the unsupervised learning of igbo. To establish what processes are employed and how the processes occur in english. Slps are often asked questions regarding typical age of sound acquisition and development of language. A contrastive morphological analysis of tense formation in. Components of human communication phonological component phonemes phonological processes toneintonation tonological processes morphological component morphemes and words morphological processes syntactic component word order phraseclausesentence structure. Furthermore, being a highly agglutinative language. Pdf finite state representation of reduplication processes in igbo. In this study, utterances were collected through oral interview and analyzed using the descriptive approach. Igboenglish and englishigbo dictionary this vocabulary is part of a published book that provides simple and easytoread insights into igbo language and culture.
These processes are explained more clearly in the devices section above. E phonological features of verb compounds in igbo 101 compound in igbo has received both morphological and syntactic analyses. Igbo features certain morphological processes that may not be easily accommodated. The method of data analysis was contrastive, since this research is a contrastive study of noun formation in english and igbo. This paper presents a finite state model of reduplication processes in igbo. Ci rcumfixation does not form closed syllables in the language.
The paper discussed morphological processes in igbo language. This packet was developed as a collective resource of norms for speechlanguage development. In this post, i shall discuss who people from the igbo tribe of nigeria are, what makes us peculiar among other ethnicities in nigeria, and what is meant by igbo culture. Most of languages in africa have few or zero nlp resources available, of which igbo is among those at zero state. Although, some works have been done on the inflectional and extensional suffixes in the language but no detailed study so far has been done on the prime suffixes in the language. Such differences create problem in second language learning especially in verbal affixation.
These word labels are derived from the words by assigning a sequence of symbols c or v representing consonants or. Unlike inflectional affixes, the potential number of derivational affixes in the english language is limited only by the scope of the vocabulary of a given speaker or writer. Words with inflectional morphemes are conjugated or declined words which you would not expect to find in a dictionary. Cascaded affixation is a common occurrence in igbo morphology owing to the agglutinative nature of the language and it is also highly productive in the language. In the example given above of unhappiness, we saw two kinds of affix, a prefix and a suffix. Igbo english and english igbo dictionary this vocabulary is part of a published book that provides simple and easytoread insights into igbo language and culture. Finite state representation of reduplication processes in igbo.
It is believed that a comparative study of this type will reveal the differences which are assumed to be responsible for linguistic interference and are thus sources of difficulties for a yoruba learner of english. Speakers reinterpret opaque data in order to assign a more transparent structure to them. The interfixation as a morphological process in ngwa igbo. Jan 19, 2012 processes of word formation slideshare uses cookies to improve functionality and performance, and to provide you with relevant advertising. It intends to aid speakers of the two languages in their effort to learn anothers language. We will begin our study of the language with a brief introduction. Linguists can categorize languages based on their wordbuilding properties and usage of different affixation processes.
In the malay language, reduplication is a very productive process. For instance the bontoc language from the philippines use an infix um to change adjectives and nouns into verbs. Some of the findings among other things reveal that through prefixation, suffixation. Some salient issues in the unsupervised learning of igbo morphology. Egba, ijebu, oyoibadan, ekiti, igbomina, ijesa, ikale, ife and onko. The researcher examines the notion of morphological processes in igala. This paper is a contrastive morphological study of tenses in the igbo and yoruba languages.
Igbo english and english igbo dictionary igbo culture and. The study discusses and compares some morphological processes such as backformation, blending alternation, affixation, compounding, clipping, coinage, reduplication, acronym, and borrowing in both languages using the descriptive analysis method. These claims account for the reason why this research, looks at morphological processes as used in both languages. Although it is spoken predominantly in biafra former eastern nigeria, it is widely spoken in almost all the countries of this world by the igbo diaspora. The igbo language as a verbal language derives so many nominal from verbs. However, because morphology is a lower level of language analysis than syntactic and semantic analysis, we make an assumption in this study that. Identified igbo reduplication processes are based on i verbal reduplication with prefixation, ii total nominal. It is in view of the above that a synchronic study of english and yoruba morphological systems is undertaken here.
Morphological processes alter stems to derive new words. Morphological change is not a result of mechanical, predictable processes, but of the behavior of language users. A standard literary language was developed in 1972 based on the owerri isuama and umuahia such as ohuhu dialects, though it omits the nasalization and aspiration of those varieties. The analysis of the data was through morphological processes. They have one of the highest population densities in west africa, ranging from 120 to more than 400 persons per square. To someone expecting to work with african languages, it provides a compact. The place of the affix in the morphology of the igbo verb.
The igbo peoples attitude of not being loyal to their language and lack of qualified teachers to teach the igbo numeral system very well are the major factors that have caused the danger of extinction that is facing the numeral system of the igbo language. Some historians and archaeologists have tried to place the igbo race and their language as one of the earliest inhabitants on this earth. The study seeks to determine the phonological processes that condition and restrict the position of an affix while specifying where an affix may appear in a string of affixes. Igbo morphology in which o nly th e verb ac cepts in flec tion. These word labels are derived from the words by assigning a sequence of. Simple reduplication of nouns and pronouns can express at least three meanings. Subsequently successful reinterpretation may form the basis of new derivations.
Area of study the area of this study is anaku in ayamelum, anambra state, nigeria, a language group a variety of igbo language of about sixteen thousand 16,000 inhabitants. Department of linguistics, igbo and other nigerian languages, university of. In igbo language, the process of deverbalisation involves the reduplication. If you continue browsing the site, you agree to the use of cookies on this website. In english affixation is the primary morphological process in constructing words. Inflectional morphemes tend to be more productive than derivational morphemes.
This work will benefit linguists and igbo scholars. Probably the main reasons for this neglect have been the considerable variation between the dialects of igbo, noted from the beginning of igbo studies, and the lack of a single early authoritative figure to impose a. This work intends to expose the morphological processes available within this igbo language group in comparison with some universal morphological processes as. Probably the main reasons for this neglect have been the considerable variation between the dialects of igbo, noted from the beginning of igbo studies, and the lack of a single early authoritative figure to impose a standard written language, as crowther did for yoruba. A mismatch between morphological and prosodic domains. As you probably know already, igbo is one of the major african languages. The study adopted a contrastive analysis theory cum contrastive analysis hypothesis which is an area of linguistic studies that deals with the. The data for this research work was gathered through simple unstructured selection of lexical items in the language.
The goal of every morphological study, therefore, is to discover and make explicit the rules or principles, patterns, processes and systems that underlie the morphological processes in a language. Lord 1975 and anagbogu 1990 claim that a compound verb is derived morphologically. Igbo features certain morphological processes that may not be. Some historians and archaeologists have tried to place the igbo race and their language as. Computational studies of igbo language are constrained by nonavailability of large electronic corpora of igbo text, a prerequisite for datadriven morphological induction. Morphological processes in anaku igbo journal of pan african. A constraintbased analysis of morphological processes in the. Igbo has been strangely neglected by lexicographers. Words in english public website ling 216 rice university prof. Igbo has over 20 dialects, though dialect levelling appears to be occurring. Just to show that languages do really vary greatly, there are also infixes.
For more information on affixation in english, read our tutorial affixation in english. The broadest distinction among languages is whether or not affixation is allowed at all, or if every word must be a single morpheme. Lord 1975 asserts that a compound verb is a lexical item. Abstract this work aims at investigating the relationships that exist between the english and the hausa languages at the level of their morphological processes.