Aspects of Morpho-phonology in Ekwulá»bịa Igbo

Abstract

Studies on Igbo Morph-phonology have mostly focused on the interaction between vowel harmony and the morphological process of affixation. Less attention is given to other phonological features such as vowel copying with respect to its role in the encoding of certain grammatical categories. Although vowel copying is rarely attested in the standard Igbo, it is a common feature in many dialects of Igbo, particularly of the Aguata area. This paper investigates two morpho-phonological features (vowel harmony-VH and vowel copying-VC) as they apply to the Ekwulobia Igbo. It examines the interaction of vowel copying with the formal marking of grammatical categories such as tense and negation. It also discusses the prominence of VC in the realization of lexical categories such as the demonstratives and pronominals, as well as the evidence of vowel harmony in the realization of proximal demonstratives. Our findings show that quite a number of allomorphs in the Ekwulobia Igbo are phonologically conditioned by vowel copying and vowel harmony. The negative hV morpheme (suffix) for instance, is realized by seven allomorphs which include: -hi, -ha, -he, -ho, -hị, -hu, -hụ, and -há». Similarly, the 2SG object and possessive pronoun is a hV word realized by eight allomorphs conditioned by VC. Also, the distal demonstrative is encoded by a VhV word, realized by seven allomorphs phonologically conditioned by VC while the proximal demonstrative is realized by two allomorphic variants na and ne ‘this’ conditioned by VH.