Download Noun Formation in Auchi

Noun Formation in Auchi
Ayankogbe, Beatrice Osaro
Department of Linguistics, African and Asian Studies, University of
Lagos,
Lagos, Nigeria.
E-mail:[email protected]
Telephone: 08033185353
Abstract
This paper is an overview of noun formation processes in Auchi dialect of Afenmai. In the
Nigerian multilingual milieu where endangered languages suffer inadequate research and
promotion, a study of this kind is a crucial morphological investigation. Indeed, Adegbija
(1994:141) notes that Nigeria’s multi-ethnic sociolinguistic trend features a situation whereby
the three major languages in the country: Yoruba, Hausa and Igbo are more developed in terms
of orthography, codification and literary potentials. I have hinged on theoretical morphology
concepts (e.g. such as prefix, suffix, stem, affix, calquing, reduplication) to explain the
interesting features and functions of noun formation in Auchi.
Keywords: Afenmai, Auchi, morphology, morpheme, noun
1. Introduction
Afenmai is part of Edo. According to Oseni (2003) Afenmai ethno-geography include AkokoEdo, Etsako West, Owan East and Owan West Local Government Areas of Edo State of Nigeria.
The people of Afenmai have a multiplicity of dialects that are clans-based. Auchi is both a clan
and a dialect of Afenmai. It is worthy of note that most Afenmai dialects are mutually
intelligible. Several components of grammar can be subjected to morphological study. However,
in this paper, I choose to investigate the morphology of Auchi nouns. This is a crucial study
because Afenmai nouns demonstrate rich morpho-syntactic relations with other sentential
elements: demonstrateive and relative pronouns, adjectives, determiners, verbs, to mention but a
few.
2. Theoretical Underpinnings
Notions relevant to this study are briefly examined below:
2.1 Morphology, Word and Morpheme
William O. and Videa de G.V. opine that Linguists use the term “morphology” to refer to “the
part of the Grammar that is concerned with words and word formation.” A word is a linguistic
unit composed of one or more morphemes. It is also the unit of which phrases are composed e.g.
bags, national, discouragement, etc. A morpheme is the smallest meaningful grammatical unit of
a word. It is the most fundamental unit in the study of word formation. An example is “boys”
which is made up of the free morpheme “boy” and the bound morpheme “–s (plural)”.
The two major types of morphemes are “free morpheme” and “bound morpheme”. A free
morpheme is a morphological unit which can exist in isolation. Examples are: good, table,
manage, regard, etc. which function as root/stem for the addition of other morphemes to produce
new words. A bound morpheme on the other hand, does not exist in isolation, but can only be
recognized when it is joined to other morphemes. Examples are the plural and past tense suffixes
as well as the negation prefix in the words below:
dog-s (plural suffix)
want-ed (past tense suffix)
un-happy (negation/not prefix)
Morphemes combine to form words. Each type of morpheme has a specific role in this
combination. Free morphemes perform the function of “root” morpheme to which other
morphemes are added to form different words. For example, in the word “international” the root
morpheme is “nation”. It is to this root that other morphemes such as –al (national) and inter(international) are added. It is possible to have more than one root in a word. In “milkmaids” the
two free morphemes: “milk” and “maid” form the root to which the plural morpheme is added.
A bound morpheme could combine with a free morpheme to function as root/stem to receive
other words. For example, the combination of the root and bound morpheme (“nation” and “-al”)
in “internationally” function as stem/root to receive “inter-” and this derives “international”.
Finally, this new word functions as stem for the addition of –ly to form “internationally”.
Morphemes which perform an inflectional function only provide more syntactic information
without changing the class (parts of speech) of the word. Common examples of inflectional
morphemes are the plural and tense suffixes in English:
Plural:
pen (Singular Noun); pen-s (Plural Noun)
make (Present Tense Verb); made (Past Tense Verb); making (Continuous Tense Verb)
Except for {-en}, the “regular” English inflections are as follows:
nouns:
{-s} plural (the birds)
noun phrases
{-s} genitive/possessive (the bird’s song)
adjectives/adverbs:
{-er} comparative (faster)
{-est} superlative (fastest)
verbs:
{-s} 3rd person singular present tense (proves)
{-ed} past tense
(proved)
{-ing} progressive/present participle (is proving)
{-en} past participle
(has proven)
(was proven)
Morphemes which perform derivational function usually change the syntactic class of a lexical
item to which they are attached:
Verb
Noun
ride
ride-r
teach
teach-er
Noun
boy
affection
Adjective
boy-ish
affection-ate
In some derivationally related word pairs, only a feature of the final consonant changes, usually,
its voicing:
advice
advise
/s/ = /z/
belief
believe
/f/ = /v/
In some cases, adding a derivational morpheme induces a change in a stressed vowel:
divine
divinity
/aI/
= /I/
profane
profanity
/eI/
= /ae/
In a multi-syllabic word with a stressed tense vowel, the palatalization may be accompanied wth
a laxing of that vowel:
collide
collision
elide
elision
/d/
/d/
= /3/
/aI/
= /3/
/aI/
=
=
/I/
/I/
English permits changing a word’s part of speech without any change of form (called “functional
shift” or “zero derivation”):
This “saw” is reliable. (noun)
You may “saw” that wood. (verb)
3. Features and Functions of Noun Formation Processes in Auchi
In this section I discuss the features and functions of noun formation in Auchi:
(a) Free Morpheme: Auchi nouns operate as free morphemes. Examples include:
anyō (wine)
obe (book)
ugwe (pot)
ekho (disgrace)
okpa (cock)
ukhia (okro)
etha (wood)
amhe (water)
egbē (body)
ēmhi (yam)
ēnwe (ashes)
enye (snake)
otha (tree)
okpa (one)
eda (river)
ovba (home)
ikpo (clothes)
iyo (mother)
ozi (crab)
obo (hand)
élami (meat)
okogua (bush)
aki (farm)
ime (farm)
uvuamhi (lid)
utsatsō (broom)
athu (cap)
(b) Bound Morpheme: In forming nouns, Auchi uses suffixes as inflectional morphemes:
egbe – root
nwhume - suffix
egbenwhume (happiness)
egbe - root
nenwu – suffix
egbenenwu (to be happy/happiness)
Auchi bound morphemes (prefixes and suffixes) are sometimes used as determiners in the
formation of nouns e.g.:
kh’ovbie – suffix e
(Your child)
Isuē – suffix ē
(The nose)
onolege – prefix ono
(That day)
In Auchi, a zero-morpheme can be used to create a noun that has no rival (another kind of
definite referent) e.g.:
uzhi (the law)
okui (the sky)
(c) Multiple Referents:In the language, a single noun-word may have various but similar
referents. In such an instance, the context determines what the speaker means. For example, otoo
means “down/ground/floor”. Similarly, Ade ke means “fool/foolishness”. Whereas English
generates an entire new word via a morphological process (suffixing) to shift the meaning from
“a person” (fool) to “having the quality of” (foolishness), Auchi simply relies on tone marking to
achieve a two-fold sense in the use of a given noun. It is therefore worthy of note that Auchi
nouns are used or formed pragmatically so that they can have connotative communicative
functions. The noun ēlamhi (meat) is used both denotatively (to refer to “meat” that can be eaten)
and connotatively (to refer to “a fool”). Thus, the pragmatic and semantics of Auchi nouns show
their divergence from the norms of the English nouns.
There are cases where Auchi use optional nouns to refer to same person or thing irrespective of
context. This shows that the vocabulary of the language is somewhat rich. For example, osi or
osinegba refers to “God”.
(d) Reduplication: Nouns are also formed in Auchi through reduplication of last sound:
agōgō (time)
oko oko (millipede)
apepe (fan)
ukpatata (a star)
(e) Nominalization: Apart from using the Auchi agentive marker o no (one who) to nominalize
linguistic stretches, the agentive o (one who) can also nominalize linguistic stretches. It is a
matter of tone marking in the language 1. Consider:
O gwimē eka (A farmer of maize/ one who farms maize)
O wene ebe (one who studies/a scholar)
(f) Compounding: Nouns are sometimes formed indicating the source of an element in the
compound. Examples:
ukpuvi (palm kernel) meaning “kernel from palm tree”
elamiokogwa (bush meat) meaning “meat from the forest/bush”
Auchi also accommodates a compounding process, which involves compounding nouns with
other nouns or with verbs. The expression ēbē owena (study book) is a noun-noun compound
while ēlami ōkōgwa (bush meat) is an example of noun-verb compound.
(g) Calquing: This is a process of reducing an entire phrase or sentence to a single word.
Acheoah (2013) submits that Afenmai contracts Ēmētsoya (what reaches someone), ukpōnopa
(white cloth), Ēmikē (what I want) to form a single noun. The Auchi equivalent of Ēmikē
(Agenebode dialect) is Ēmikēle. The study exemplifies further that a monosyllabic verb can also
be combined with a monosyllabic noun as in le ēbē (to have knowledge of books) from le (know)
and ēbē (book). A word that is made a nominal occupies either subject or object position in
Afenmai. For example, the adjective togia (hot) occupies either subject or object position when it
used as a noun itogia (hotness). Consider:
kha zoo togia (Do not let it be hot)
ēmētōgia ôsomi (Something hot is not good)
ēgbēme o tōgia (My body is hot)
(h) Gender Formation: Auchi gender nouns exhibit morpho-syntactico-semantic relations with
other grammatical elements in utterances. See Tomori (1977) for insights on English
morphology and syntax. Indeed, Corbett (1991) views gender as a particular type of noun
classification strategy. In the Auchi sentence: O no mie em’o rha gwe mie ogie oi mho egbegb’
avbulu ku o egbe (One who has something important to tell the king may have no good garment
to wear) the themes of power, honor and leadership revolve around the word ogie (king) which is
a masculine gender, and this is not incidental in the language. Other themes such as love, care,
tenderness or beauty may be reflected around feminine nouns such as omosi (girl/female), iyo
(mother) or okposo (woman). Francesco (2013) posits that in a language like French, where
grammatical gender is marked on the article, speakers “know that a masculine article has to go
with a masculine noun, if we perceive any other combination we know that something has gone
wrong. Gender systems are components of grammar which are potent in reference tracking 2. In
many African languages, nouns can be assigned to a given gender on the basis of a combination
of semantic and formal (morphologicaland/or phonological) properties. All gender systems are in
a sense mixed since “there is always a semantic core…” (Aikhenvald 2003:22). Auchi gender
dominantly reflect animacy and sex.
4. Conclusion
The paper interestingly engages noun formation in Auchi, a dialect of Afenmai. Apart from
listing the features of noun formation in the language, the paper mentions the functions. Auchi
nouns operate as free or bound morphemes. Therefore, they are affixed as prefixes, stem or
suffixes with certain internal grammatical patterns inherent in the language.
Besides, they
exhibit morphological processes such as reduplication, calquing, compounding. They show
gender, apart from the fact that their use and meanings are sometimes based on tone marking and
context.
Notes
I establish in 2.1 that derivational morphemes are produced in English via phonological features.
Auchi therefore possesses this feature, although it is exhibited differently in both languages. For
example, in certain instances, Auchi does not only add tone mark, but extends last vowel
segment in deriving a verb from a noun as in:
Ojo (Noun)
-
Ô joo (Verb) -
Senior
to be senior
As can be seen above, with the correct placement of Afenmai punctuation marks (tone marks) on
the word, the difference between the noun form and the verb form is made clear (cf. Acheoah
ibid.).
2. Francesca (ibid.) submits that “among the most common sources of gender in language we
count demonstratives and anaphoric pronouns (Greenberg 1978) as well as nouns (Corbett 1991).
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Aikhenvald, Alexandra. (2003). Classifiers: A Typology of Noun Categorization Devices.
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Corbett, Greville. (1991). Gender. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
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