The Study of Reduplication and Retriplication in the Yoruba Language
(1) University of Ilorin
(*) Corresponding Author
Abstract
The Yoruba language, a regional lingua franca in Nigeria, which belongs to the Kwa sub-family of Kordofanian phylum of the larger African language family, is spoken in Nigeria, Togo, Ghana, Liberia, Brazil, Cuba, etc. The language attests a very productive feature of reduplication which has attracted the attention of many scholars. But its extended form, tagged, “retriplication” in this paper, remains largely unexplored. This study examines the form and functions of reduplication and retriplication which are two morphological processes where the former serves as a pedestal to the latter. While applying the participant observation method to elicit data from main Yoruba cities in Nigeria, the Pulleyblank (2009) model, as well as the descriptive and context usage approaches are employed to analyse and discuss the data. The study reveals that while reduplication process actualises intensification, nominalisation, emphasis and comparative qualifying, retriplication serves for more intensification, wider nominalisation, more emphasis and superlative qualifying. The research further reveals that, while all cases of verb and adjective reduplicates can be retriplicated without generating unacceptable utterances in Yoruba, the gerundive reduplicates cannot culminate in retriplication. However, kinship reduplicate allows retriplication when stretched to the third generation. The paper concludes by calling for more study on retriplication in other languages of the world, particularly, African and Asian languages that massively exhibit the two phenomena.
Keywords
Full Text:
PDFReferences
Abakar, E. (2015). On Tone and Morphology of the Akan Reduplication Construction. Journal of Universal Languagge. 16(1), 1-47
Awobuluyi, O. (2000). Mofoloji ede Yoruba. In Bade A. (ed.), Ekó Ìjìnlẹ Yoruba: Eda Ede, Litiresọ ati Asa (pp. 47-70). Ijebu-Ode: Shebiotimo Press.
Awoyale, Y. (1989). Reduplication and the status of ideophones in Yoruba. Journal of West African Linguistics 2(3), 15-34.
Collins English Dictionary Online (2009). Retrieved from https:// www.collinsdictionary.com
Gomesh, J. Jakendoff, R, Rosen,N.&Russell, K. (2004). Contrastive focus: Reduplication in
Haspelmath, M. & Sims, A. (2010). Understanding Morphology. London: Hodder Education https://doi.org/10.1093/acrefore/9780/99384655.013.80
Ikeokwu, V. (2002). The Aspects of Bokyi Mophology (Undergraduate Thesis) University of Ilorin, Ilorin, Nigeria.
Inkelas, S. (2013). Handbook on Derivation. Published online. Retrieved from achive.org/stream/2013HandbookOfDerivationInkelas.reduplication
Inkelas, S. & Downing L. (2015). What is reduplication? Typology and analysis part 1/2: Typology of reduplication. Language and Linguistics Compass 9(12) 502-515.
Kiyomi, S. (1995). A new approach to reduplication: a semantic study of noun and verb reduplication in Malayo-Polynessian languages. Linguistics (33) 1145-1167.
Moravcsik, E. (1978). Reduplicative Constructions. In J, Greenberg (ed.) Universals of Human Language: Word Structure. (pp. 297-354). Stanford: Stanford University Press.
Nadarajan, S. (2006).A crosslinguistic study of reduplication. (Uploaded paper) Retrieved from https://www.researchgate.net/publication.
Ola, O. (1995). Vowel deletion in Yoruba verb-noun collocation revisited. Research in African Languages and Literatures (1), pp. 95-98.
Pulleybalnk, D. (2009). Patterns of Reduplication in Yoruba. In K. Hanson & S. Inkelas (eds.) The Nature of the Word: Essays in Honour of Paul Kiparsky, (pp 311-357). Cambridge, MA:MIT Press.
Rubino, C. (2013). In Dryer, M. S. & Haapelmath, M (eds.) The World Atlass of Language Structures. Published Online. Leipzig Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology. Retrieved from http:// www.wals.info/uthor/rubico
Taiwo, E. (2017). Prosodic reduplication in Yoruba. Journal of Universal Language. 18(2) 39-59 Retrieved from Https//doi.org/10.2242
Taiwo, O. (2011). Mofoloji Ibadan: Unversal Akada Books Nigerian Limited.
Taiwo, O. (2014). The morphosyntactic interaction and the derivation of nominal compounds in Yoruba. International Journal of Language Studies, 18(2) 39-59.
Tinuoye, M. (1991). A Comparative Analysis of English and Yoruba Morphology. Ibadan: Tafak Publication
Urbancyk, S. (2017). Phonological and Morphological Aspects of Reduplication. (Uploaded Paper) Retrieved from https://doi.org/10.1093/acrefore/9780/99384655.013.80
Xu, D .(2016). Reduplication in languages: A case study of languages in China. Hal Archives-Ouvertes 42-63. Retrieved from https://hal.archives-ouvertes.fr/hal-01386244
Zeitoun, E. (2007) La reduplication en rukaimantuaran. Faits de langues: Reduplication(2).
DOI: https://doi.org/10.24071/joll.v21i1.2933
Refbacks
- There are currently no refbacks.
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.
Journal of Language and Literature (JOLL) is published by Prodi Sastra Inggris, Fakultas Sastra, Universitas Sanata Dharma.
JOLL is indexed in:
This journal is is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License