A COMPARATIVE STUDY OF ÌGBÒ AND ÀLAGO NOMINAL PLURALITY

Abstract

The morphological process of noun plurality is widely diffused in African languages. Adopting a purelydescriptive and qualitative approach, this study aims to ascertain how plurals are marked on nouns inÌgbò and Àlago languages, and to compare them using three morphological parameters namely:concatenation, base modification and productivity. For the Ìgbo plural markers, data were collectedfrom existing Ìgbo literature, in addition to the researchers’ native language intuition; while the Àlagodata were got from three Àlago native speakers who reside in Doma Local Government Area ofNasarawa State. Also, Adagye and Abdullahi’s (2011) book ‘A Dictionary of Alago’ forms the secondarydata used in the work. Using a descriptive approach in the data analysis, the findings reveal that Ìgbòmarks plural with the use of some inherent plural words like ńdị and ụmụ, quantifiers like imirikiti,numerals like ise, clitic ‘ga’, mass nouns like ìgwè, and the reduplication of nouns like mmadụ mmadụ;while Àlago employs four strategies in the formation of plural nouns. These strategies are zeroaffixation, àwo- prefixation, lèwà/nwàshìka suffixation, and vowel transmutation. These two languagesshow some similarities and differences as regards the comparative parameters used to examine them.