A morphophonemic study of Ekegusii nominal derivation and pluralization

Abstract

The study investigated and examined the effect of morpheme combinations through prefixation in formation of the noun in Ekegusii. It sought to identify and describe the possible types of derived nouns and the phonological processes involved in the formation of both plural and derived nominals as well as to formulate phonological constraints of prefixation in Ekegusii. It focused on establishing the relationship existing between morphology and phonology and to provide an understanding about nominal morphophonology. A descriptive research design was employed to collect, analyze and describe data. The researcher generated a list of 82 nominals: three derived and two plural nominals and identified Rogooro dialect speakers of Ekegusii in Moi University who verified the data as acceptable. Sample data were obtained from each noun class through purposive sampling which were analyzed and coded into semantic classes and explained using Anti- Faithfulness Theory provided in Optimality Theory. This theory provides specific principles that explain morphophonemic alternations in base and derivative pairs. Findings of the study indicate that nominal derivation forms deverbal, deadjectival, diminutive and abstract nominals while pluralized nouns are classified into personal, cultural, animal, augmentative and diminutive nominals. Noun Class prefixes induce a phonetic modification in the base in nominal formation. The derived and plural nouns display vowel deletion, alternation and lengthening as well as consonant mutation and deletion. Deletion and alternation of vowels is experienced in cases where there is incompatibility of features of vowels occurring in a sequence. Lengthening of vowels preceding nasal consonants in Noun Class 1 /2 is as a result of resyllabification of the nasal from coda to onset position in pluralization. Data also indicate that place assimilation of the nasal prefix to the place of articulation of the initial consonant of the base motivates mutation of the consonants in Noun Class 9a / 10a nouns which consequently leads to hardening of these consonants. Findings imply that morphophonemic modifications occur to simplify articulation and to meet the open syllable structure requirements of Ekegusii. In Optimality Theory, these phonological changes are products of unfaithful mappings of inputs to the outputs due to the interaction of markedness and faithfulness constraints. The winning candidates satisfy Transderivational Anti-Faithfulness constraints which enforce violation of the related faithfulness constraints.