A Morphological Analysis of Nouns and Adjectives in the Nupe Language

A Morphological Analysis of Nouns and Adjectives in the Nupe Language.

ABSTRACT

Nupe is a language spoken by the Nupe ethnic group in Nigeria. The of Nupe has so far not been studied adequately in a way that the internal structure of the Nupe word is explicitly analysed. The present work studied and analysed the morphological structures of Nupe Nouns and adjectives.

The aim was to bring about increase in and understanding of the morphology of the Nupe Language.

Therefore, the objectives of the study were: to identify nouns and adjectives in the Nupe language and their sub- classifications; to carry out a morphological analysis of the nouns and adjectives in Nupe language; to group the nouns and in Nupe according to their morphological .

To discover the morphological processes of nouns and adjectives in the language and their morphological system. To generate data for this research endeavour, the researcher used a combination of methods of introspection, unstructured interview and non- participant observation.

Therefore, the data for this study were derived from both primary and secondary source materials, such as the written Nupe news items, jottings from interviews and conversations, pamphlets, textbooks and the Nupe Dictionary.

The researcher further used the Hockett’s (1954) morphological model of IA (Item and Arrangement) to carry out the morphological analysis of the data on the Nupe nouns and adjectives.

The findings and conclusion of the study revealed that Nupe uses derivational morphology more than inflectional morphology. The phenomenon of morphological elision is a prominent feature in the morphology of Nupe words.

Furthermore, there are degrees of morphological productivity in the Nupe nouns and adjectives studied. The Nupe plural morpheme ‘-zhi’ seems to rank high in morphological productivity because it can be attached to almost all Nupe count nouns with relative freedom.

In Nupe, the system of gradability of the adjectives is a mixture of regular and irregular patterns. Consequently, the study concluded that Nupe is partly an agglutinating language.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

PAGE
TITLE PAGE…………………………………….…………………… i
DECLARATION…………………………………………………….. ii
CERTIFICATION…………………………………………………… iii
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS…………………………………………. iv
ABSTRACT…………………………………………………………. V
TABLE OF CONTENT……………………………………………… vi
LIST OF APPENDICES…………………………………………….. x

CHAPTER ONE 

1.1 Background to the Study ……………………………………….. 1
1.2 A Brief History of the Nupe People and the Language…………….. 5
1.3 Statement of the Research Problem …………………………………. 7
1.4 Research Questions …………………………………………….. 7
1.5 Aim and Objectives of the Study ………………………………. 8
1.6 Scope and Delimitation ………………………………………… 9
1.7 Limitation of the Study………………………………………….. 9
1.8 Significance of the Study ………………………………………. 10
Definition of Terms ……………………………………………. 10

CHAPTER TWO: REVIEW OF RELATED LITERATURE 

2.0 Introduction ……………………………………………………. 12
2.1 Morphology and Language Study ……………………………. 12
2.2.0 The ‘Word’ and Language Typologies ……………………. 15
2.2.1 Language Typologies ……………………………………… 18
2.3.0 Word Classes, the Lexicon and Linguistic Relations …….. 19
2.3.1 The Lexicon ……………………………………………….. 21
2.3.2 Linguistic Relations ……………………………………….. 22
2.4.0 Morphological Concepts and Morphological Processes ….. 23
2.4.1 Types of Morpheme ………………………………………… 25
2.4.2 Productivity ……………………………………………….. 30
2.4.3 Morphological Processes ………………………………… 31
2.5.0 The Relevant Works on the Nupe Language …………….. 34
2.5.1 Development of Nupe Orthography ……………………… 36
2.6.0 Models of Morphological Theory ………………………… 40
2.6.1 Analytical Models ………………………………………… 41
2.6.2 Lexical Morphology ……………………………………… 47
2.6.3 The Synthetic Model…………………………………………. 49
2.7 The Functional Grammar Theory …………………………… 52
2.8 Catford’s (1965) Translation Theory ……………………….. 52
2.9 Theoretical Framework …………………………………….. 57

CHAPTER THREE: RESEARCH METHODOLOGY

3.0 Introduction ………………………………………………… 61
3.1 Sources and Forms of Data ………………………………… 62
3.2 Methods of Data Collection ………………………………… 62
3.3 Sampling and Analytical Procedure ………………………… 63

CHAPTER FOUR: DATA PRESENTATION, ANALYSIS AND DISCUSSION

4.0 Introduction ………………………………………………….. 65
4.1 Common Nouns in Nupe…………………………………….. 65
4.2 Count Nouns as Base Words (Free Morphemes) ………….. 66
4.3 Derived Words (Complex Words) ………………………….. 69
4.4 Adjectives in Nupe…………………………………………… 83
4.5 Adjectives as Base Words (Free Morphemes) ……………… 83
4.6 Adjectives as Derived Words (Complex Words) …………… 85
4.7 Nupe Nouns and Adjectives as Free Morphemes …………… 90
4.8 Inflectional Morphemes in Nouns and Adjectives …………… 90
4.9 Derivational Morphemes in Nouns and Adjectives ………… 92

CHAPTER FIVE: SUMMARY, FINDINGS, CONCLUSION AND RECOMMENDATIONS

5.0 Introduction …………………………………………………… 97
5.1 Summary …………………………………………………….. 97
5.2 Findings………………………………………………………. 99
5.3 Conclusion …………………………………………………… 101
5.4 Suggestions for Further Research …………………………… 103
BIBLIOGRAPHY ………………………………………………… 104
APPENDICES

INTRODUCTION

1.1 Background to the Study

The chapter contains a background to the study, the history of the Nupe people  and the language including its phonological system. The chapter  further  includes  sections on the statement of research problem and research questions.

This  is  followed by the sections on the aim and the objectives of the study along side the scope and delimitation. The chapter also contains the limitations and the significance of the study together with definition of terms.

Nupe is a minority language spoken by the Nupe ethnic group in Nigeria. The population of Nupe as at 1963 was 650,000 and by 1986 the number expectedly grew to 1,314,000 (Jibril, 1990: 111). It is a majority language spoken by the largest linguistic group in Niger State.

In addition, the language is spoken in Kwara and Kogi States as  well as Abuja (FCT). By language typology, Nupe, according to Greenberg, (1963), belongs to the Kwa-language sub-group alongside Gwari and Ebira etc.

Nupe has had a written tradition and equally been studied as far back as the 1850s by missionaries like Bishop Samuel Ajayi Crowther and Henry Johnson.

Benfield, especially produced ‘Dictionary of Nupe Language’ (volumes I and II) in 1914 and 1916. In fact, the whole Bible was first translated into Nupe in 1953 (Wasagi,  2000:5).

There  are  also indigenous studies on Nupe, especially by native speakers on some aspects of the language (Madugu, 1985; Theophilus, 2000; Bida, 1995; etc).

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Abdullahi, A. (1999) A Comparative Linguistic Study of Some Aspects of Nupe and English Morphologies. Unpublished M.A. thesis. Ahmadu Bello University, Zaria, Nigeria.
Adams, J.B. (1993) Ewo wara nupe Minna: Bayetin Publications.
Adetoro, S.A. (1986) Research techniques Zaria: Gaskiya Coorperation Limited.
Ajulo, E.B. (1994) Investigating lexis in english: Problems of theory and pedagogy Ibadan: Stirling-Horden Publishers (Nig.) Ltd.
Akmajian, A.; Damers, R.; Farmer, A.; Harnish, R. (2001) Linguistics New Delhi: Prentice-Hall of India.
Aronoff, M. and Fundeman, K. (2005) What is morphology? Oxford: Blackwell Publishing Ltd.