KWARA STATE UNIVERSITY, MALETE

The University for Community Development

FRONT PAGE

Faculty of Humanities, Management and Social Sciences

COMPARATIVE STUDY OF YORÙBÁ AND ARIGIDI MORPHOLOGY

BY

USMAN BABATUNDE ALIYU

17/27LI/316
 CHAPTER ONE

GENERAL INTRODUCTION

1.0 Introduction

This chapter seeks to introduce the study by discussing the issues that triggers a research of this

nature, the essence of the research as well as the prospective findings under the following sub-

headings, which includes ; background of the study, problems, research aim and objectives,

scope and significance of the study.

1.1 Historical Background of Yorùbá

Yorùbá is one of the three (3) major Nigeria languages, spoken in South-Western Nigeria.

According to Akinlabi and Adeniyi (2017) all the various tribes of the Yorùbá nation trace their

origin from a leader called Odùduwà from Ilẹ́-Ifè. Today in South-Western Nigeria, Yorùbá is

spoken by about forty-million people in Nigeria and Diaspora (Eberhard, Simon and Fenning

2019). Yorùbá has many dialects which differ from one another to a very large extent. We

therefore see the diverse varieties of Yorùbá language used by groups smaller than the total

community speakers of the language within the geographical area as dialect of the same

language. Yorùbá is a tone language and its basic word order is SVO (Ilori 2012). Standard

Yorùbá is regarded as the official language used in politics, entertainment, schools, education,

media and it also recognized by the government as a regiọ̀nàl language. The standard Yorùbá is

the form that every Yorùbá can speak and it serves as a common heritage of the Yorùbá people.

1.1.1 Historical Background of Arigidi

The Arigidi people can be traced to Àkókó which are also descendants of

Odùduwà they came from Ilé-Ifè and settled in Benin but they later moved from Benin and
settled in the present day Arigidi town (Francis1819),(Olanipekun1987) classified Arigidi Àkókó

as a member of Yoruboid group (i.e. variant of Yorùbá) found in Akokoland and Arigidi means

“èyàn gidi” which is means to be good people.

Socio-cultural profile of Yoruba

The Yorùbá people are distinguishable from others in their way of life. Their culture is very rich

and they have strong believed in it. Language serves as a means of communication in their

society, at home and even in the religious system. The Yorùbá people practice Animism, Islam

and Christianity. Ọlọ́run, Eledumare and Oba ńlá mean the name of God that Yorùbá people use

at different location Yorùbá people stays. Yorùbá people were originally practitioners of the

Africa Traditional Religion. Yorùbá religion is a blend of indigenous beliefs, myths, and legends,

proverbs and songs, all these are influenced by cultural and social context of western portion of

Africa. The Yorùbá religion include the concept of ‘Àṣẹ́’ a powerful life force possessed by

humans and divine beings alike and “Àṣẹ́” is the energy found in all natural things and also

Yorùbá belief in tradition like worshipping of water which is known to be Ọsun and Sango

festival whereby an individual will be displaying with fire which can be traced to the gods that

are sent to the earth with different purpose. However, with advent of Christianity and Islam,

many got converted to those religions; Islam came through trading with the northern people.

From oral interview conducted Mr. Sikiru Akande, Yoruba people have different tradition

in they which exalts brides who when they go married, were found to be virgins. In the past,

when a man in the present day marries a girl and she is taken to bed, the man will be given a

white handkerchief and if the girl is found to be virgin, the man will use the handkerchief to wipe

the blood, go out to show the both family as an evidence that he is the one that deflowered her
and the groom family will pound a yam with different stews and take it to the bride family to

show some appreciation that they trained and raise their daughter well.

Socio-cultural profile of Arigidi

Arigidi-Àkó̩ kọ́ which is found in Àkókó north east local government area of ondo state is with

rich cultural values with many prominent spiritualist and there are many festival that are

celebrated by the people before Christianity and Islam were introduced, among the festivals are:

Agbógbọ́ which are usually celebrated after the harvest of yam and there is Ẹ̩kún ẹdẹ(before the

masquerade comes out they ring a bell and follow the masquerade while it is said that in the last

three days the spirit speaks through the masquerade because it gives vision and it take place

around June and there is Ajagbọ which happens in October) Agbọrọgi masquerade (which

usually entertain during Àgbógó festival and if the masquerade is moving around it is a taboo for

female to set eyes on it and oral tradition insist that the consequence for such a woman is instant

death and other masquerade includes Ele, Pẹ̀lẹ̀kẹ́, Ẹdẹ, Takọtabo, and there are idols such Illiben

and Ọkọta. Over the years the new yam festival metamorphosed into what is known today as

“Arigidi day” and all these festival most especially Ọkota festival are sponsored by Oòduà

people’s congress under the leadership under the leadership of Ọtunba Gani Adam who

originated from the village because Ọkọta is celebration of Yorùbá culture.

DIALECT OF YORÙBÁ

Yorùbá as a language has different dialects and various classifications by scholars such

Adetugbo (1967), Oyelaran (1970) and Adebuluyi (1998). For the purpose of this study we will

adopt Adeniyi (2010) classifications which is the most recent classifications, he classify Yorùbá

dialects into seven as indicated below:

 I. Eastern Yorùbá (EY): ukare, oba, supare, ido-ani etc

II. Northern-Eastern Yorùbá (NEY) : iyagba ijumu, owe, owọ̀rọ̀, gbèdè, ikiri, bunu Ajere

III. Central Yorùbá (CY): ife, ijesa, Ekiti, Akure, moba

IV. South-Western Yorùbá (SWY): Eko, Awori, Egba, Yewa

V. Western-Yorùbá (WY): Anago, Ketu, Ife (Togo), Ohori, Tsabe and other dialects spoken

in other parts of the world.

VI. South-Eastern Yorùbá(SEY): ijebu, ilaje, ikale, ondo, owo

VII. North-west Yorùbá (NWY): Oyo, isuko, osun, ibolo, igbomina

DIALECT OF ARIGIDI

While Arigidi is also a sub-group under Yorùbá language and have different dialects which are

listed below

 ERUSHU

 IYE

 Ọ̀WÁ

 ÒKÈÀGBẸ̀

 Afá

 Udọ̀

 Ògé

 Ajè

 Oyin

 Igashi

 Uró

All of these are Yorùbá but mutually intelligible

Genetic classification of Yorùbá and Arigidi language

This is a systematic way of grouping languages that share something in common into the same

family according to their degree of diachronic relatedness. According to Ruhlen (1991), a genetic

classification is a sub-grouping of all relevant language into genetic nodes. . However, a genetic

node is a group of languages each of which is more closely related to others in that group than to

any language outside the group. This is a systematic way of grouping languages that share

something in common into the same family i.e. group of languages with common ancestors.

According to Dawkins (1976), a genetic classification is a sub-grouping of all necessary

languages into same Proto-language. However, Proto-language is a language which is

reconstructed by examining similarities in existing languages to try to deduce what a common

ancestor language.

Yorùbá is a language spoken in West Africa, most prominently south western Nigeria. It is

spoken by the ethnic Yorùbá a speaker is estimated at between 45 and 55 million. As a

pluricentric language, it is primarily spoken in a dialectal area spanning Nigeria, Benin and

Togo, with smaller migrated communities in cote d’lvoire, Sierra Leone and The Gambia.

Arigidi language is categorized under Akokoid branch. Adebuluyi (1998) classified Akokoid as a

coordinate of Yorùbá under Benue-Congo of Niger-Congo language family. While Arigidi is a

language spoken in West Africa, most prominently Southern-Eastern and it is also spoken by the

ethic Yorùbá also and it is estimated at between 27and 29 thousand including the sub-

communities under them by (Adeonípekun 2010) .

Yorùbá people are situated among these areas, Federal Capital Territory Niger state, Kwara state

and some other state. While Arigidi people are only situated among Ondo state.

Below is the tree diagram of Yorùbá and Arigidi Language showing its genetic classification
between Yorùbá and Arigidi which was propounded by Sigismund W.koelle (1854).

NIGER CONGO

Mande Atlantic Kordofanian

Kru Benue-Congo Kwa North-Volta

Gur

. Yoruboid Bantoid

Akokoid Edoid Igboid

Cross river Bantu
Arigidi

Language family tree of Yorùbá and Arigidi

Yorùbá and Arigidi is a Benue-Congo language of Niger Congo family

Occupation

The Yorùbá people have different types of occupation which they find profitable and job one can

be involved in to get enough money for their upkeep, among the Yorùbá people a person

occupation is known as “Isẹ́ Ọwọ́”. Yorùbás regard a man without an occupation a useless and

lazy fellow in the society and call such man Ọlẹ́ (lazy fellow) or “Ọlẹ́ a lápá má sisẹ́” (lazy

fellow that has hands but wọn’t work). On the side of women, some work while some stay at

home to take care of their family. It should be noted that the set of Yorùbá women who choose to
stay at home in order to cater for their families might also be engaged in some sort of trading

activities that won’t require them leaving their homes some even rear animals in their

compounds which of course add will to the income of their families or provide meat when

needed.

Among Yorùbá occupation farming is the most practiced and most times, is the most

profitable, farming is common among Yorùbá men, women and children are used as laborers on

the farm and this explain why many farmers resort to polygamous lifestyle (they marry up to

three, four and some even go above six wives so as to have many children who will provide

labor on their farms, farmers are rich and well respected in the Yorùbá society.

Another traditional occupation in Yorùbá land is Palm wine tapping (Ẹmu Didá) and they are

called Adẹ́mu which translates as “palm wine tapper” in English language, the tapped palm wine

known as Ẹmu ògùrọ́ is sold at the market or in palm wine sheds, palm wine is revered in Yorùbá

land; kegs of palm wine are purchased for gatherings, ceremonies and festivals, the tapper might

as well decided to build his own shed where people can buy and drink palm wine.

Another indigenous occupation is Fishing( Isẹ́ Apẹja), it is an occupation which is widely

practiced in Yorùbá land where fishermen can only be found in communities close to the river or

sea and they are known as “Apẹja”. Wood carving is another important occupation in Yorùbá

land; idols used in shrine are carved by experts called “gbẹ́nà gbẹ́nà”.Palace decorations are

mostly carved wooden objects. And we have Hunting which is known as (Ọdẹ) they work mostly

in the forest and kills some animal and the animal are mostly sold at the market.

And another important occupation in Yorùbá land is Blacksmithing which is known as

“Àgbẹ̀dẹ” this profession required a lot of strength to achieve the best results, thus making it

harder or almost impossible to find a female blacksmith in Yorùbá land, Blacksmiths known as
 produce weapons for their communities to protect itself from attacks and wars and they also

produce farming implement such as cutlass, hoes and others, all blacksmiths in Yorùbá land

worship Ògún( the Yorùbá god of iron) because of their constant usage of iron.

While in Arigidi town it is only farming they have as indigenous occupation, their man

takes their wife and children and children when going to the farm but when going to hunt, they

only the boys that are allowed to follow their father to the farms. Others include trading,

bricklayers, native doctor (Awo) among Yorùbá women, pottery, weaving, dyeing, hairdressing

(Teslim Opemipo Omipidan 06, 2015).

In studying the structure of words in Yorùbá and Arigidi language, there are 2 basics goals

which are;

i. To determine the rules by which words are formed.

ii. To isolate the component part of words.

Aim and Objectives of the study

This research work aims at investigating how words are formed in both Yorùbá and Arigidi

language and will also serve as a reference material for further researches and analysis of Yorùbá

and Arigidi languages. This study is expected to create awareness and a good understanding of

the morphological process that has taken place in the languages. Therefore this study intends to

achieve these, through the objectives stated below.

a) To carry out morphological analysis of Yorùbá and Arigidi language.

b) To test for the case form.

c) Inquire how nouns are pluralized in both languages (Yorùbá / Arigidi).

d) To identify the processes in Yorùbá and Arigidi languages.

e) To investigate how tense are used in both languages.

f) To examine the negation operation.

g) To investigate how words class changes in both languages.

Bearing in mind the stated aim and objectives above, in the study provides answers to the

following research questions;

Research Questions

The objectives of the research will be followed by these questions;

a) What are the most used morphological process used?

b) What are the case forms that are attested in Yorùbá and Arigidi languages?

c) How is aspect marked in Yorùbá and Arigidi languages?

d) How are noun pluralized in both languages?

Justification of the study

The topic of this project is chosen in order to identify and investigate the morphological process

Yorùbá and Arigidi languages. This research work serve as a useful material or document for

students of linguistic interested in research and study of the morphology of Yorùbá and Arigidi

language, to as a guide to the Yorùbá and Arigidi people who find it difficult to speak the

languages and are interested to learn the morphological process of both languages and to

contribute to literacy of Yorùbá and Arigidi people, to contribute to linguistic knowledge. This

project topic is also chosen to serve as a priority and a means of developing Yorùbá and Arigidi

languages and to safeguard it from going into extinction; it will suit the desires of those that want

to learn the languages as a means of communication.

Scope and Organisation of the study

The central focus of the study is to inquire the morphological processes in Yorùbá and Arigidi

languages, the study is limited to only 2 languages which are Yorùbá and Arigidi languages
except whereby the two languages are used for the purpose of comparison, this research work is

organized in a way that it will comprises five (5) chapters.

The first chapter will be the general introduction; it will include a brief definition of

morphology, historical profile, socio-cultural profile of the speakers of the language under study,

geographical location, the genetic classification, aim and objectives, research methodology,

problems and limitations of the study, justification of the study, and theoretical framework to be

adopted.

In chapter two (2), it will introduce and explicitly explain with examples in Yorùbá and

Arigidi language, the review of the past works on Yorùbá and Arigidi, the review of theoretical

framework that will be adopted in this research work, and the past works that have been done on

morphology will be reviewed.

The third chapter will focus on the research topic which is morphology of both languages, where

the phenomenon of morphology will be fully examined in Yorùbá and Arigidi languages.

The fourth chapter will be on the analysis of morphological typology with adequate and

illustrating data from Yorùbá and Arigidi languages.

Chapter five (5) which is the last chapter will be based on conclusion, findings,

recommendations and summary of the whole chapters.

Problems and Limitation of the research

Saying there is no problem while conducting this research, will be a totally

fallacy. During the course of carrying out the research, the speakers in which I worked with are

categorized under the working population and a minimum of three informants were involved in

my data collection, because of the qualitative research method I employed to collect my data.

The native speakers which happens to be my informants, were the busy type, the inability of
them wanting to sacrifice their time due to their busy and tight schedule was a problem on this

research work.

Another problem I encountered was the road that leads to the community, the road was

dangerous and the journey was indeed a stressful one because the inability to get a direct bus to

my destination was energy consuming. And there is no reference teaching material especially on

Arigidi morphology. Also, lack of adequate description of Arigidi language.

During the course of gathering my data from Arigidi language some native speakers were not

willing to help in documenting their language which will be assistance to them but Yorùbá is a

language that has been documented and worked on before and many of their native speakers are

willing to help because they see it as big assistance to their language.

CHAPTER TWO

LITERATURE REVIEW AND RESEARCH METHODOLOGY

2.0 Introduction

In this chapter, we will be reviewing of existing research works on different linguistic areas

of the Yorùbá Language and the Arigidi Language which are related and relevant to this research

work and also discuss the major concept that are relevant to this study as well as the empirical

studies to lay a good foundation for our present study. Since the study focuses on the

comparative study of Yorùbá and Arigidi morphology, attempt shall be made to discuss the

concept that are relevant to the present study which has been presented by different scholars and

also reviews the theoretical framework that is adopted for the analysis of this research work.

More so, some research works that have been done on both Yorùbá and Arigidi languages will

be reviewed at the end of this chapter.

2.1 Morphology

Morph- means “shape”/ “forms” and -logy means “the study of something”, morphology refers

to the in language or a language when words are broken down into the utmost grammatical study

of form and structure. Morphology in linguistics refers to the study of the structure and forms of

words components, the basic unit of structure is morpheme and morphology is not equally

prominent in all languages. What one language expresses with a morpheme may be expressed by

separate words or left implicit in another language.

Mulyan (2007), states that the term refers to the study of words, how there are formed, and their

relationship to other words in the same language.

Nidas (1974) states that morphology is a study of morphemes and morpheme

preparation for the creation of the word.

Ramlan (1978) morphology is part of science of language to talk about or to learn the in and

out of the structure of words as well as the effect of changes in the structure of the class of words
and the meaning of the word.

Mulyan (2007) posit that morphology is a subsystem of the entire system of a language

must be integrated or at least integratable into a fairly specific general theory of a language. This

explains that through morphology must have its specialty as a subsystem but it leads to

interaction with other subsystem that makes up the entire language.

Morphology studies word structure and the importance of words cannot be over-emphasized.

It interfaces between phonology, syntax, and semantics, hence the field of morpho-phonology,

morpho-syntax and morpho-semantics. Morphology is language specific i.e. the expression of

morphology in language is differ. What language A expresses via morphology is expressed via

words in language B. for example, Igala and Hausa express pluralisation by names of

morphology while Yoruba makes use of a word. The plural form is expressed via inflections in

Igala and but not in Yoruba. The morpheme am- is prefixed to nouns to form plural nouns while

in Yoruba the word “awon” is used to express plurality. English make use of the morpheme –ed

to mark past tense while in Yoruba past tense is not morphologically marked; it implied. Hausa

has resumptive pronouns and also marks gender on it. Yoruba neither use resumptive pronouns

nor mark gender.

The example below taken from Ilori (2009) while the Hausa example is from Amfani (2010).

Igala

1. Singular Plural

a. Ewo ‘goat’ am-ewo ‘goats’

b. Ata ‘father’ am-ata ‘fathers’
c. Agboji ‘leader’ am-agboji ‘leaders’
Hausa
2. Singular plural
 a. Fari ‘white’ fara-re ‘whites’
b. Sabo ‘new’ sab-abbi ‘new ones’
Looking at the example above, we could say that Igala and Hausa make use of morphology very
well.

2.1.2 Morpheme

Aronoff (1976) describes morpheme as the smallest meaningful and syntactical or grammatical

unit of a language that cannot be divided without changing its actual meaning. And also hocket

(1958) refers morpheme as the smallest individually meaningful element in the utterance of a

language.

R.J. Lloyd’s (1958) refers morpheme as the most important constituent of a given

word such as root, suffix and prefix and also said as the minimal meaningful units of which a

language is composed and may be part of a word independently, out of all the definition there is

one important characteristics which is the fact that morpheme must have meaning on their own

whether they are joined with another or constitute a words.

According to Nida (1949) who states morpheme as the minimal meaningful units which a

language composed and may be part of a word or constitute a word independently.

There are two (2) types of morpheme;

 Free morpheme

 Bound morpheme

The different between the two types morpheme is their nature, composition, structural

position and functions.

Affixes
 Prefix Suffix

FREE MORPHEME

According to lieber (2009:34) free morpheme is a morpheme which can stand alone to make a

word and also free morpheme has a basic meaning without any addition of grammatical function.

And free morpheme can be categorized into sub-types, which are:

 Lexical morphemes

 Grammatical morphemes

1. Lexical morphemes: are those morphemes that are large in number and independently

meaningful and the lexical morphemes are:

 Noun: Bola, Akure, Bags

 Adjective: Clever, Smaller

 Verbs: Sleep, Walk

 Adverb: Quietly, Suddenly

2. Grammatical or functional morphemes: are those morphemes that consist of functional

words in a language, they belong to closed class morpheme. Functional morphemes are few in

numbers than lexical morphemes.

Example is:
 Preposition: On, Behind

 Conjunctions: And, But

 Determiners: The, An, A

 Pronouns: He, It

BOUND MORPHEME

According to Booji (2005) bound morpheme is a morpheme that cannot stand alone i.e. it

cannot be formed by itself; it needs combination to stand as a word. And it is also seen as a

grammatical unit that never occurs by itself because it is always attached to another morpheme.

Bound morphemes are also sub-categorized into (2) two. They are:

 Bound roots

 Affixes

1. Bound roots: are those bound morphemes which lexical meaning when they are

included in other bound morphemes to form the content words.

Examples: Deceive

Retain

Contain

2. Affixes: are those bound morpheme that are naturally attached to different types of words

and used to change the meaning or function of those words.

According to Haspelmath (2010) “affixes attached to a word or main part of a word, it usually

has abstract meaning and affix can occur by itself”.

While katamba and Stonham (2006) “affixes are a morpheme which only occurs

when attached to some other morpheme or morphemes such as a root, stem or base”.
Examples: (-ment), (-ing), (-able), (un), (re)

 Enjoyment

 Enlargement

 Reading

 Singing

 Dependable

 Unhappy

 Re-apply

Affixes can be categorized into five (5) sub-classes according to their position in the word and

function in a phrase or sentence. They are:

 Prefixes

 Infixes

 Suffixes

 Derivational

 Inflectional

 PREFIXES

According to katamba and Stonham (2006) “prefixes are affix attached before a root, stem or

base word like: re

In

un
 Pre

And according to Fromkin, Rodman (2003) “thus, un, pre”, (premeditate, prejudge) and bi

(bipolar, bisexual) are prefix “in other words prefix occur before other morpheme. Base on Bauer

(1983), said “the most general rule that can be given for prefix is that they do not bear primary

stress and do not affect the stress of derivatives’.

Example:

In-justice

Non-compliance

1. INFIXES

According to Martello’s (2013) definition, infixation is described as a process where an affix

(called an infix) is inserted in the middle of a word. That also means that infixes are different

from affixes in the way that they “occur in the body of a base”, while affixes “appear before (e.g.

re-touch), or after a base (e.g. un-touch-able).

2. SUFFIXES

According to (Aronoff and Kristen 2011) it means suffix is the affixes that can be added to the

end of words. And also Wiley (2006) defined suffix as a letter group which is added to the end of

the base. It is frequently signify the part of speech and sometimes add meaning.

Katamba and Stonham (2006) suffix is an affix which is attached after the root words or
base. Yanagihara (1999) says that there are twenty common suffixes as follow.

N Suffix Meaning Example

o
1 -e, -es Plurals Books
2 -ed Past-tense verbs Hunted
3 -ing Verb form / present participle Watching
4 -ly Characteristic of Greatly
5 -er, -or Past connected with Singer, Actor
6 -ion, -tion, -ation, -ition Act , process Action
7 -ible, -able Can be done Responsible
8 -al, -ial Having characteristics of Final

Based on Fromkin and Hyams (2003) said ‘some morpheme occur only as suffix following other

morphemes’ it means that morpheme occur only as following suffix.

According to Cristina 2012, he explains that there are two types of bound morpheme and it

includes.

 Derivational morpheme:

Derivational morpheme is also known as derivational meaning. According to Aronoff (2011)

“derivational morpheme involves the creation of one lexeme from another, such as selector or

selection from select” from derivational morpheme change a lexeme into different and new. So

derivational morpheme creates a new specific word.

Based on Haspelmath (2010) “Derivational morpheme is the relationship between lexemes

of a family” based on this definition, the writer infers that Derivational morpheme still has a

relationship from word family to lexeme that occurs in a word. So lexeme still has a word family

relation in term morphology. According to various scholars derivational morpheme is a process

 of changing word into a new world class. Derivational morpheme creates a new word specific

word by adding affix, in Derivational morpheme the lexeme has its own family. It means that the

lexeme are still connected to each other even it already has different meaning, because of the

process of derivational morpheme.

There are different types of Derivational morpheme. They include:

i. DEVERBAL NOUNS

V N

Examples: VERB NOUN

Sing Singer

Dance Dancer

Drive Driver

Swim Swimmer

ii. DEADJECTIVAL NOUN

ADJECTIVE NOUN

ADJECTIVE NOUN

Kind Kindness

Sad Sadness
 Good Goodness

iii. DENOMINAL NOUN

NOUN NOUN

NOUN NOUN
Fish Fishmonger
Man Manhood
Politics Politician
Woman Womanhood

DEVERBAL VERB

VERB VERB

VERB VERB
Write Re-write
Play Re-play
Check Re-check

Inflectional morpheme:

Inflectional morphemes are required to make a sentence grammatically correct, but they add little

meaning to the word. Those morphemes never change a word from one grammatical class to

another, but each grammatical class has its own set of inflectional morpheme. Consequently,

those morphemes can be useful for helping you determine whether the word is verb, adjective,
adverb and noun.

Inflectional morpheme provide additional meaning to the word they are attach without change in

the fundamental meaning or word class of the word to which there are attach. E.g. the tense

markers in the English language express inflectional value; in that they do not change the

syntactic class of a word they are attached.

Example:

Walk-s Talk-s

Walk-ed Talk-ed

Walking Talk-ing

Prove Proven

Stole Stolen

Standard Standardize

Computer Computerize

Thought Thoughtful

To summarise this basic morphological concept (morpheme), Yule’s (1996) illustration has been

presented in the diagram below:

Morpheme
 Free Bound

Lexical Functional

Derivational Inflectional

Adopted from Yule’s (1996)

Morphological processes

Howard and Etiene (2007) define morphological processes as ‘the different devices which are

used in language too build new words from the existing ones’

This concept explains the ways and manners words generated. Knowledge of these basic

processes offers insight into understanding of vast potential and structure of the English

vocabulary. Morphological process is also known as morphological patterns through which

languages form words.

Morphological processes are words formation processes. Different languages have

principles through which they form new words some features are language universal (they are

obtainable in any language of the world).

Types of Morphological processes (principles of word formation)

Affixation
 This explains the morphological process in which parts are added to a base word. The

parts that are so added are called affixes. Affixes can be added at the beginning or end of the

base word. The base of the word ‘unproductive’, for instance, is ‘product’ and the parts added at

the beginning and end of it are ‘un’ and ‘ive’.

They are three types of affixation, which includes;

Prefixation; the process of adding an affix before a base word is referred to as Prefixation and

an affix that is added to the base word ‘happy’ to generate a new word ‘unhappy’. The addition

of a prefix to the base may or may not change the word class of the base:

React (verb) - over-react (verb)

Broken (verb) - unbroken (adjective)

Friend (noun) - befriend (verb)

Practice (verb) - malpractice (noun)

Announce (verb) - unannounced (adjective)

Suffixation; the process of adding an affix to the end of the base word is called suffixation and

an affix that is added to the end of such a base may or may not result in a change of the class of

the added base:

Bank (noun) --- banker (noun)

Happy (adjective) --- happiness (noun)

Edit (verb) --- editor (noun)

Absent (adjective) --- absentee (noun)

 Compounding

This is a morphological process in which two or more base words are joined together to
form new words e.g. these words are either separated by space as in hand made, call girl, horse

race or by hyphen as in mouth-piece, day-dream, air-condition, etc . And at times, they are not

even separated as in wristwatch, course mate, sunshine, etc.

Chair + man chairman

Take + away takeaway

Basket + ball basketball

o Borrowing

Borrowing involves taking words from other language in order to cope with new ideas and

concepts that are foreign to the language. It is a very common morphological process. Any

language in contact will definitely have borrowed words. The words that are borrowed are made

to conform to the phonological and morphological specification of the host language. Borrowing

can be classified into two; direct borrowing and indirect borrowing. Yorùbá and Arigidi have

borrowed words from different origin, i.e. no language is superior to the other.

Direct borrowing involves words that are not subjected to major phonological nor

morphological modifications. These words retain their original form and meaning but at times

with very slight modifications.

o Reduplication

Reduplication according to Spencer (1991) involves adding material whose identity is

partially or wholly determined by the base; some part of the base is repeated, either to the left, or

to the right, or occasionally in the middle. When the entire base is duplicated, we have total

reduplication but when part of the base is copied, it results in partial reduplication. The two types

of reduplication are attested in Yorùbá and Arigidi language.

 Reduplication is a form of compounding where two or more base words are either identical or

slightly modified. The two identical words are often (but not usually

Reduplication in English

I. Chiller-killer
II. Ragtag
III. Hanky-panky
IV. Goody-goody
V. Walkie-talkie

o Calquing

Calquing is a process whereby a whole sentence or a noun phrase is compressed to one word to

derive names. It is common to agglutinative languages.

a. Adé wá ilé Adéwálé

Crown come house

Crown has returned home

b. Olúwa tó sìn Olúwatósìn

God enough serve

It is good to serve God

c. Adé rẹẹwà Adérẹwà

Behavior better beauty
Good behavior is better than beauty
o Clipping

Clipping reduces the form of a word and still shares the meaning and the grammatical class of

the full form (Arokoyo 2013) the clipping could be the beginning of the word, at the end or the

both sides of the word. For example:

  Deletion at the beginning of the word

i. Cab from taxicab

ii. Bus from omnibus

 Deletion at the word final position

I. Bra from brassiere

II. Exam from examination

 Deletion at both initial and final positions

I. Fridge from refrigerator

II. Flu from influenza

o Conversion

This is a derivational morphological process in which a word is inserted and made to

function in another class without subjecting it the process of affixation. A noun, for instance, can

be converted and made to function as a verb and vice-versa:

Noun to verb

i. Slow:
Your walk is slow
Don’t slow your pace.
ii. Call:
The police swiftly responded to our call
I will definitely call you if the need arises.

o Blending

This is a morphological process in which fragments of existing words are put together to

form a new word in new combination. The result is the actualization of a different meaning as in
 the following examples:

i. Sm(oke) + (f)og = smog

ii. Inter(natiọ̀nàl) + pol(ice) = Interpol

Morphological typology

The term typology refers to a classification based on the comparative study of types.
Morphological typology involves grouping of languages into structural types based on the
relationship that exist between them.

Morphological typology was the first systematic method used by linguists in the nineteenth
century to compare the structure of different languages.

According to Arokoyo (2017), Morphological typology does not consider genetic or

historical relationship between languages but is rather concerned with structural similarities.
Morphological typology entails classifying languages to their structural features or similarities.

Language can be classified into two groups based on a number of different linguistic criteria.
One such way to categorized language is by the type and extent of morphology they use. For
example, some languages string many morphemes together while other language tends to realize
most words as independent or mono-morphemic segments. The latter types of language are
called analytic and the former is synthetic. The typology should be seen not as a strict dichotomy
between analytic and synthetic but rather as a scale on which languages can be place depending
on the degree to which they exhibit that types of morphology. Some languages may display
different types of their grammars and thus it is best to see languages as tending towards a type,
rather than strictly adhering a single one.

Languages are classified into two morphological typologies which include:

 Analytic language
 Synthetic language
And synthetic is further broken down into agglutinative and fusional languages.
1) Analytic language
Analytic language are so called isolating languages because they are made up of
 sequences of free morpheme each word consists of single morpheme, used by itself with
meaning and function intact. Purely analytic languages also called isolating language; do
not use affixes to compose words. Semantic and grammatical concepts which often
expressed in other languages through the use of affixes are expressed by the use of
separate words in analytic.
And analytic languages are found in three separate parts of the world: East and
Southeast Asia, West Africa. Although comparison of the languages of these three areas
have hardly ever been conducted and they tends to share a number of linguistic features;
a. Extensive use of tonemes
b. Extensive use of function words
c. Less rigid grammatical rules
d. Relatively fixed word order
e. Predominantly monosyllabic morphemes
Mandarin Chinese is an example of a language that has a highly analytic structure. In
the example below, for instance the concept of plurality and the concept of the past tense
are communicated in mandarin through the use of invariant function words rather than
the use of a change of form (English, I to we to indicate plurality) or the use of an affix
(English -ed for past tense).

1. [ wᴐ m∂n tan tcin ]

I plural play piano
“We are playing piano”

2. [wᴐ m∂n tan tcin l∂ ]

I plural play piano pst
“We played the piano”

The form of “we” (I-plural) that is used in the subject position is (wᴐ m∂n ) and that the pronoun
has the same form when it is used as the object, place after the verb.

1) [ ta da wᴐ m∂n ]
She hit I plural
 “She hits us”

Only the position of a word in a sentence shows its function. Yoruba is unlike mandarin in this
respect, since the personal pronoun ‘we’is changed in forms to us when it is used as the object of
a verb, but Yoruba is like mandarin in that word order is used to show the functions of nouns in a
sentence and in that nouns (unlike pronoun) are not marked by affixes to show their function. For
example,in the sentence “girls like cats” the noun girls functions as the subject and the noun cats
as the direct object.

But just the opposite is true of cats like girls; these differences in function are signaled only by
the order of words in the sentence in both Yorùbá and mandarin. Non-analytic language may use
morphology to mark these differences. Although only affixation has been explicitly mentioned in
this section, recognize that prototypical analytic language make use of no morphological
processes attain.

2) Synthetic language

In synthetic languages, bound morpheme are attached to other morphemes, so a word

maybe makeup of several meaningful elements. The bound morpheme may add another
element of meaning to the stem (derivation) or indicate the grammatical function of the stem
in a sentence (inflection). The term stem refers to that part of the word to which affixes are
added. It may consist of one or more morphemes. For instance, in reruns, “-s” is added to the
stem rerun which itself made-up of two morphemes, re- and the root run.

Hungarian is a synthetic language. In the examples below, bound morphemes show

the grammatical functions of nouns in their sentences;

 [ ɔzƹmbertla:tjɔ ɔ kuca:t ]
The man (subj) sees thedog (obj)
“The man sees the dog”

 [ ɔ kucɔla:tʃɔɔzƹmbert ]
The dog sees the man (obj)
“The dog sees the man”
As mentioned above, in English it is the position in the sentence of the noun phrase ‘the man’ or
‘the dog’ that tells one whether the phrase is the subject or object of the verb, but in Hungarian, a
noun phrase may appear either before or after a verb in a sentence and be recognized as the
subject or object in either position because it is marked with a bound morpheme (the suffix [t]) if
it is direct object (many synthetic languages behave similarly, therefore, both examples below
mean the same thing, even though the position of the noun phrase meaning “the man” is different
with respect to the verb meaning “sees”

I. [ ɔ kuɔla:tjɔɔzƹmbert ]
The dog sees the man (obj)
II. [ ɔzƹmbertla:tjɔ ɔ kuɔ ]
The man (obj) sees the dog
“The man sees the dog”

Synthetic language like Hungarian may also use bound morphemes to indicate some concept that
English signals by means of free morphemes. For example, Hungarian indicates personal
possession and location by the use of suffixes attached to the stem ([ha:z], house), where as in
English these concept are expressed by the use of free morphemes.

Examples;

i. [ ɔ haizunkzøld ]
The house-our green
“Our house is green”
ii. [ɔse:kedɔhaizunkbɔnuɔn ]
The chair-your the houseour in is
“Your chair is in our house”

The categories of synthetic language can be further subdivided into two which includes the
following;

 Agglutinating
 Fusional
a. Agglutinating languages combine (word elements) to express compound ideas. To
 be more specific, agglutinating is the kind of synthetic (puttingtogether) of a
morphemes we find in Hungarian is known as agglutination in agglutinating
languages, like Hungarian the morphemes are joined together relatively “loosely” that
is, it is usually easy to determine where the boundaries between morphemes are;

i. [ ha:z- unk- bɔn ] [ha:z - bɔn ]

House-our-in house-your-in
“In our house” “in your house”
ii. [ha:z - ɔd ] [ha:z– unk ]
House-your house-our
“Your house” “our house”

Swahili is another example of an agglutinating language, Swahili verb stems take prefixes to
indicate the person of the subject of the verb (first, second, or third) and also to indicate the tense
of the verb as in the following list of forms for the verb “read”.

 [ni - na - soma ]
I - present- read
“I am reading”
[u - na – soma]
You – present – read
“You are reading”
 [ ni – li – soma]
I – past – read
“I was reading”
[u – li – soma]
You – past – read
“You were reading”

A second characteristics feature of agglutinating languages is that each morpheme (ordinarily)

carries only one meaning;

Ni = I A = s/he
U = you Na = present
Li = past

b. Fusional languages
In Fusional languages, another subtype of synthetic language, words are formed by
adding bound morphemes to stems, just as in agglutinating languages but in Fusional
language the affixes may not be easy to separate from the stem. It is often rather hard
to tell where one morpheme ends and the next begin; the affixes are characteristically
fused with the stem.
Spanish is a Fusional language that has suffixes attached to the verb stem to
indicate the person, (I, you, he, she, it) and number (singular/ plural) of the subject of
the verb. It is often difficult to analyze a verb form into its stem and suffix, however,
because there is often a fusion of the two morphemes. For example, in the following
forms.

 [ hablo ] “I am speaking”
 [ habla ] “s/he is speaking”
 [ hable] “I spoke”

O – First person singular present tense

E – First person singular past tense

A – Third person singular present tense

However, although these forms would suggest a stem (habl – that means “speak”, such a form
never appears in isolation in Spanish. There is no Spanish free morpheme habl).

Fusional languages often differ from agglutinating languages in another way as well.
Agglutinating languages usually have one one meaning indicated by each affix, as noted above,
but in Fusional languages a single affix more frequently conveys several meanings
simultaneously. Russian is a Fusional language in which bound morphemes attached to verb
stem indicate both the person and the number of the subject of the verb and the tense of the verb
at the same time.
For example

[tʃitajƹt] “S/he is reading”

The bound form [-jƹt]signifies third person as well as singular and present tense.

[tʃital] “He was reading”

The suffix [-l] means singular, masculine and past tense, simultaneously.

Research Methodology

The data for this research will enhance the analysis of morphological process in Yorùbá and

Arigidi languages. The type of research methodology adopted is the qualitative method, this is

because there will be a quite number of samples, it is concerned about the validity and reliability

using the terms internal and external validity, the data will be written, transcribed, and recorded

for verification and documentation and also this research is descriptive. The outcome of the

research will be analysed after the collection of data using KWASU 500 wordlist from Yorùbá

and Arigidi speakers. Another instruments used for obtaining data were tape record, note pad and

pen.

This section also discusses different methods and tools used for eliciting data method of

collection in this research.

Which includes?

1) Area of study

2) Instrumentation

3) Method of data analysis

4) Method of data collection

5) Research design

Area of study is a study of geographical area i.e. relevant area which includes the historical
background. I.e. the history of Yoruba and Arigidi (how Yoruba and Arigidi language came into

existence including the tradition of the speakers and their occupation and their religion.

Instrumentation is the process of constructing research instruments that could be used

appropriately in gathering data on the study i.e. it is the act of using or adapting instrument; a

series of instrument used in carrying out an assignment ( use of tape recorder or phone in

acquiring data from the speakers).

Research design is a guide to the process of collecting, analyzing and interpreting the data

generated from the fieldwork carried out. The research method adopted for this study is purely

descriptive. This method is employed to ensure detailed and systematic description of facts and

characteristics of the study to help in analyzing the morphology of Yorùbá and Arigidi

languages.

The data for this study was obtained mainly through; research observation, language

helpers, oral interview, and intuitive knowledge of native speakers of Yorùbá and Arigidi

languages.

1. Research observation: the act of noting and recording data needed for the study.

2. Oral interview: having spoken test with the language helpers in other to record and put

the data into written form.

3. Intuitive knowledge of native speakers of Yorùbá and Arigidi languages as used on a

daily basis by the Yorùbá and Arigidi people.

4. Language helpers: speakers of the language that provided assistance for the

documentation of the study, competent language helpers were consulted.

The data for this study was collected via two sources; primary and secondary. For the primary
 source, research observation and interview were used, the native speaker who are competent in

both Yorùbá and Arigidi languages and whose age range from 29 and above were interviewed

with specific reference for those who have not left the area where the language is spoken. The

chief of Arigidi town is one of the language helper, his name Francis Rotimi (53 years old).

Arigidi language is not documented but Yorùbá language is documented.

For secondary source, the Kwara State University 500 wordlist which was rendered

into Yorùbá and Arigidi was helpful in revealing some of the morphological process of the

languages.

The data collected in this research work was analyzed using Qualitative method in analyzing

the morphology of Yorùbá and Arigidi languages.

Qualitative method can be described as method used in describing research work, it does not

deal with number, it gives full details of the study and it is the easier method used for this study.

It will help others have better understanding of this research work.

Three native speakers were involved in the research in order to collect and collect data from

them for further analysis.

YORÙBÁ LANGUAGE HELPERS

No Name Age Occupation No of years

spent in the
community
Informant 1 Mariam 34 Makeup artist Since birth
Informant 2 Amope 54 Trader Since birth
Informant 3 Sikiru 43 Farmer Since birth

ARIGIDI LANGUAGE HELPERS

No Name Age Occupation No of years

spent in the
 community
Informant 1 Kayode 29 Student Since birth
Informant 2 Mary 31 Hairdresser Since birth
Informant 3 Chief 53 Chief Since birth
F.R( Francis
Rotimi

Summary

I have been introduced to morphology in this chapter; we looked at some of the concepts that are

important to the field of morphology; words and lexemes. We also examined the two different

approaches to morphological analysis and I presented a description of how linguistics examples

can be formatted, different languages differ with their morphology. And I also worked on the

morphological typology and the research methodology in which the data is acquired.

CHAPTER THREE

DERIVATIONAL AND INFLECTIONAL IN YORÙBÁ AND ARIGIDI

MORPHOLOGY

3.0 INTRODUCTION

In this chapter, details will be provided on the morphology of Yorùbá and Arigidi

languages as derived from the data gathered for the study. The morphology which explains the

morphological processes of Yorùbá and Arigidi languages and nominal inflection which explains

the pronominal and plural formation system of Yorùbá and Arigidi languages, and the verbal
inflection which explains tense, aspect and negation in Yoruba and Arigidi will be explained.

Morphology in Yoruba and Arigidi

Morphology is a branch of linguistics that deals with words, their forms, their internal structures

and how they are formed. I.e. morphology is concerned with the forms of words, how they are

formed and how they are inflected.

Example;

Singular plural

English ------ bag bags

Yorùbá ----- (àpò-ẹyọ) (àpò-ọ̀pọ̀)
Arigidi ------ (àpò) (oàǹkanre-àpò-wà)

English ------ cup cups

Yorùbá ----- (ife-ẹyọ) (ife-ọ̀pọ̀)
Arigidi ------ (ikèké) (oàńkanre-ikèké-wà)

English ------ chair chairs

Yorùbá ----- (àga-ẹyọ) (àga-ọ̀pọ̀)
Arigidi ------ (ata) (oàǹkanre-ata-wà)

Plural noun are expresses with the use of morphology in English language while Yorùbá make

use of separate word for the expression of the same meaning. E.g. Àwọn, opo while in Arigidi

language make use of prefix (oanikare) and suffix (wa) to indicate their plurality and also make

use of ‘uwọn’ as the expression of the same meaning.

In this case Yorùbá and Arigidi are similar when making use of their plural noun by means of

morphology, because both languages make use of separate word for the expression of the same

meaning and generally speaking we can say English language that was used to cite as an example

make used of morphology than Yorùbá and Arigidi.

Yorùbá

i. Arákùnrin wá he came
ii. Mo wá I came
iii. Arákùnrin wá bá a he came to meet him
iv. Mo wá bá a I came to meet him

Arigidi

i. Ihen rà sin where are you?

ii. Úwọn ébórá asín how old are you?
iii. Má fẹràn oyè I love children
iv. Jonú gbàbó ejín john drank water

The important of morpheme as expressed by the various scholars above the way words are

structured cannot be ignored. The next section will be made to discuss the concept of morpheme.

Morpheme

Morphemes are minimal indivisible grammatical unit. A simple word is made up of a single

morpheme while a complex word is made up of more than one morpheme.

E.g. ilé. house

oko farm
ilá okra
And morpheme can broadly divided into free morphemes and bound morphemes. One basic
feature of the morphemes is that it must be meaning bearing.
Free morpheme
Is a morpheme that can exist in isolation. It is morpheme that has independent existence.
The Examples of free morpheme in Yoruba and Arigidi languages include the following below;
i. Ọmọ child
ìyá mother
 ii. Asọ cloth

Arigidi

i. Akọdọ̀ - Toilet
ii. Arigà - Insult
iii. Asà - Pot

Free morphemes can also broadly divided into two namely lexical and functional morphemes.
Lexical morphemes are the meaning bearers of sentences. They serve as the carriers of the
information being conveyed in a sentence.
 Noun: Bola, Akure, Bags
 Adjective: Clever, Smaller
 Verbs: Sleep, Walk
 Adverb: Quietly, Suddenly

Lexical morpheme in Yorùbá and Arigidi language

Arigidi lexical morpheme

 Úho - Sun
 Sò - Call
 Agidi - Roof
 Ọdọ̀ - Elder

Yorùbá lexical morpheme

 Àga - Chair
 Àgbàlagbà - Elder
 Jẹ́jẹ́ - Slowly
 Sùn - Sleep
 Rìn - Walk

3. Grammatical or functional morphemes: are those morphemes that consist of functional

words in a language, they belong to closed class morpheme. Functional morphemes are few in
numbers than lexical morphemes.

Example is:

 Preposition: On, Behind

 Conjunctions: And, But

 Determiners: The, An, A

 Pronouns: He, It

Functional morpheme in Yorùbá and Arigidi

Gloss Yorùbá Arigidi

Pronoun

She Obìnrin Eséré

He Okùnrin Okóre

Conjunction

And àti Igín

But sùgbọ́n àmọ́

Yorùbá and Arigidi are similar when making use of lexical and grammatical morpheme.

Bound morpheme
Bound morpheme is a dependent morpheme. It is a morpheme that cannot occur without
being attached to a root. And their major function is to derive new words in which case they may
change the grammatical class of the word and to provide additional grammatical information.
For example in Yoruba, all vowels except ‘u’ can serve the derivational purpose of creating
nouns from verb. For examples’, the noun ese ‘sin’ is derived from the verb se ‘to sin’ by the
addition of the bound morpheme e- which function as a nominalizer. The same explanation
obtains for the noun iku ‘death’ and Ife ‘love’ derived from the verbs ku ‘to die’ and Fe ‘to love’.
Affixes
Are bound morphemes that are attach to other morphemes to form words. They only occur as
part of another morpheme, attached to the root or stem. Affixes perform lexical functions when
they derive new words and grammatical functions when they inflect existing words.
Affixes are attached to other morphemes through the process of affixation. And affixes is
sub-divided into three which are;
 Prefix
 Suffix
 Infix
Prefixes
A prefix is an affix that occurs before the root. It is an affix which appears before the root,
stem or base to which it is attached.
Examples in Yoruba and Arigidi languages;
Prefixes which are known as “afomo-ibeere” occur at the word initial.
Lílo àwọn fáwẹ́lì àìránmúpè.

i. (ì-) + (fẹ́) ----------ìfẹ́

ii. (ọ̀-) + (mu)---------ọ̀mu
iii. (ọ̀) + (dà)----------ọ̀dà
Lílo(àì-) mó ọ̀rọ̀-ìṣe tí a kòṣẹ̀dá :

i. (àì-) + (jó) --------- àìjó

ii. (àì-) + (gbọ́) -------- àìgbọ́
iii. (àì-) + (wí) ------------ àìwí
Lílo (àti-) mó ọ̀rọ̀-ìṣe tí a kòṣẹ̀dá :

i. (àti-) + (dé) ---------- àtidé

ii. (àti-) + (lọ) -----------àtilọ
iii. (àti-) + (jẹ) -------------àtijẹ
Lílo gbogbo irúàfòmó tí a ti mẹ́nuba móàpólàìṣe:

i. (ì-) + gbé + ìyàwó ------ìgbéyàwó

ii. (àì-) + ní + obìnrin ------àìlóbìnrin
 iii. (ati-) + gbé + ìyàwo ------atigbéyàwo
Lílo (oní-) mo ọ̀rọ̀-orúkọ ti a ko ṣẹ̀dá :

i. (oní-) + (ilé) --------- onílé

ii. (oní-) + (aṣọ) ----------aláṣọ
iii. (oní-) + (orí) -----------olorí

Prefix is attested in Arigidi

i. È + réèèréé (bygone)
ii. I + jén ijén (king)
iii. Àháké + kòkòàháké (unimportant)

Yorùbá and Arigidi prefix are distinct because Yorùbá prefix perform lexical functions as they

derive new words while Arigidi prefix perform both lexical and grammatical functions. And in

Yorùbá the (ati-) which is also attached to verb and verb phrases to derive gerundive noun while

the (oní-) morpheme with its variants oní~ ala~ olo~ ele~ are also prefixes in Yorùbá which

could mean ‘lord, owner, seller, possessor’ e.t.c. they are also agentive prefixes, attached to

nominal’s. Oní- could be attached to both root and derived nominal.

Infixes

, infixation is described as a process where an affix (called an infix) is inserted in the middle of a

word.

Examples in Yoruba and Arigidi languages;

1. ọmọ {-dé-} ọmọ ---------ọmọdọ́mọ ‘useless child’

2. ènìyàn {-kí-} ènìyàn ---------ènìyànkénìyàn ‘bad people’
3. ìgbà {-kí-} ìgbà ------------ ìgbàkígbà ‘bad time’
4. Ilé {-kí-} Ilé ------------------Ilékílé ‘useless house’
5. Ojú {-kan-} ojú --------------Ojúkojú ‘face to face’
 It is attested in Arigidi

1. Úwọn + kú + úwọn ------------- úwọnkúwọn ‘bad child’

2. Akú + tú + kòtò----------------- akútúkòtò ‘bad road’
3. Ìya + sì + Ìya --------------------- ìyasíya ‘In farmland’
4. Egú + si + egú ------------------- egúsíegú ‘from town to town’

The morphemes –ki-, -kan-, -dè- are the infixes bringing the two identical roots together in

Yorùbá while the morphemes –kú-, -si-, -tú- are the infixes bringing the two identical roots

together in Arigidi language.

Suffixes

Suffixes are bound morpheme that occurs after the root. When a suffix attaches to the root

the result could be the derivation of a new word which could lead to a change in the

grammatical class of the root.

Ọ̀rọ̀ 1 Ọ̀rọ̀ 2 Wúnrẹ́n igbẹ̀yìn

Kónko kònkòlò {-lò}

Gin-ǹ-gin gin-ǹ-gin-ni {-nì)

Ràbàtà ràbàtàtà {-tà}

Rògòdò rògòdòdò {-dò}

Bènbẹ̀ bènbèlè {-lẹ̀}

In Arigidi language
Àpò + oàǹkanre ------------- oàǹkanreàpòwà

Bag (pl) s Bags

Àgbà + sòo ------------------ àgbàsòo

 Derivational morpheme:
Derivational morpheme is also known as derivational meaning. According to Aronoff (2011)

“derivational morpheme involves the creation of one lexeme from another, such as selector or

selection from select” from derivational morpheme change a lexeme into different and new. So

derivational morpheme creates a new specific word.

Examples include the following;

In Yorùbá

Ọ̀rọ̀-ise si ọ̀rọ̀-orúkọ

 Kọ́ ------------ olùkọ́

Teach (teacher)

 Kọ́ ------------- Akọrin

Sing (singer)
 Kú ------------ ikú
Die (death)

Inflectional morpheme:

Inflectional morpheme provide additional meaning to the word they are attach without change in

the fundamental meaning or word class of the word to which there are attach. E.g. the tense

markers in the English language express inflectional value; in that they do not change the

syntactic class of a word they are attached.

In Yorùbá

o Rin ------- Irin

Walk (walking)
o Jó ---------- ijó
Dance (Dancing)

Attested in Arigidi

o Ìkánrè-ọwọ̀-ni - hands

o Oàǹkanre-àta-wà - chairs

o Oàǹkanre-ikékè-wà- cups

Morphological processes

Are the means by which words are created or derived in a language. This concept explains

the ways and manners words generated. Knowledge of these basic processes offers insight into

understanding of vast potential and structure of the English vocabulary.

 Compounding

This is a morphological process in which two or more base words are joined together to

form new words.

Examples;

It is attested in Yorùbá language

i. Aya + ọba ------------- ayaọba (king’s wife)

ii. Iṣẹ́ + ọwọ́ --------------Iṣẹ́ọwọ́(craft)
iii. Ọmọ + ọkùnrin ----------- Ọmọọkùnrin (male child)
iv. Orí+ òkè ---------------Oríòkè(hilltop)
v. Ojú + ẹkùn ------------- Ojúẹkùn

It is attested in Arigidi language

 i. Kẹ́tẹ́tẹ́ + esè ------- kẹ́tẹ́tẹ́sùkọ̀
ii. Horse race horse-race
iii. Wájú + ègìrí ---------wájúègirí
iv. Fore head forehead
v. Sẹ́rẹ́n+ ijẹ̀n ------------sẹ́rẹ́nijẹ̀n
vi. Wife king queen
vii. Sò + èsèrè ------------- sòèsèrè
viii. Call girl callgirl

In Yoruba, the first word in the compound serves as the head and determines the lexical category
of the new compound. When the compounded words belong to the different lexical categories,
the derived compound will belong to either of the lexical categories.

Borrowing

Borrowing involves taking words from other language in order to cope with new ideas and
concepts that are foreign to the language.

Examples;

Source word Yorùbá Arigidi

English table tébù tabili

Class kíláàsì kilaasi

Bed bẹ́ẹ̀dì bedi

Cupboard kọ́bọ̀dù kobodu

Hausa suya súyà

Alubarika àlúbáríkà

Alubasa àlúbọ́sà

Lemu lemu

Indirect borrowing involves both phonological and morphological adaptation of the

borrowed word to suit the target language. The sounds could be modified, the tone could be
modified and even the meaning could also be modified as exemplified below:

Source word Yorùbá Arigidi

English Chair sià sia

Doctor dọ́kítà dọ́kità

Yardley yadile yadile

Hausa laafia alaafia

Albasa alubasa

There are many words from other languages that have made their way into Yorùbá. The fact
remains that any languages that continue to make contact with other languages and cultures will
definitely have vestiges of such relationships. Yorùbá and Arigidi are similar in a way that they
make same contact with other languages while taking their lexicon to be part of their own.

o Reduplication

Reduplication involves adding material whose identity is partially or wholly determined by

the base; some part of the base is repeated, either to the left, or to the right, or occasionally in the
middle.

Partial reduplication in Yorùbá

Base Form Reduplicated

Tà t+í+ tà títà

To sell Act of selling

Lò l+í+ lò lílò

To use Act of using

Rà r+í+rà rírà

To buy Act of buying

Jó j+í+jó jíjó

To dance Act of dancing

Total Reduplication in Yorùbá

Gbọ́mọ gbọ́mọgbọ́mọ

Carry child kidnapper

KíáKíá + KíáKíákíá KíáKíákíá

Quick quick

Paná + Paná Panápaná

Off fire firemen

Reduplication in Arigidi language

Partial reduplication:

Ere - kére

Go going

Wé - kéwe

Sell selling

Sà - késá

Buy buying

Soó - késóo

Take taken

Total reduplication:

Úwọnwọn - grandchild

Kokoko - biggest

Iyasiya - same farmland

o Clipping

Clipping reduces the form of a word and still shares the meaning and the grammatical class of

the full form (Arokoyo 2013) the clipping could be the beginning of the word, at the end or the
both sides of the word. For example:

It is also attested in Yorùbá

A. Tolúwase tolú
B. Ọmọ́nálé nálé
C. Foláṣadé ṣadé
D. Mofolúwakẹ́mi folúwakẹ́

It is attested in Arigidi

a. Adélékè - lékè
b. Olúsọlá - sọlá
c. Ọláyínkà - yínká
d. Ìfẹ́olúwa - ìfẹ́
Conversion

This is a derivational morphological process in which a word is inserted and made to

function in another class without subjecting it the process of affixation. A noun, for instance, can

be converted and made to function as a verb and vice-versa:

It is attested in Yorùbá

Jó (dance) - oníjó

Ògùrò (bamboo-wine) - ológùrò (bamboo-wine seller)

Ìjà (fight) - oníjà (fighter)

NOMINAL INFLECTION IN YORUBA

Yorùbá language has different ways in which they can inflected a words to derive new

words . And one type of nominal inflection that can be conveyed in Yorùbá is the plural

formation of noun. In Yorùbá the plural is formed by the word (Awon) which can literally

translate as “they”, “those” both can be use base on what it was been refer to (wood 1879).
Therefore, (Awon) is used before an animate noun to make it plural. The examples displayed

below shows the pluralisation of animate noun in Yorùbá that I have gathered from my

informant.

-Ọkunrin- “Awon-Okunrin”
Boy they boy
“Boy” “boys”

-Obinrin- “Awon-Obinrin”
Girl they girl
“Girl” “girls”

Therefore, one can conclude that “Awon” can express pluralisation in a syntactic way since

the words comes before the noun in each example to make it plural. However, according to

(Tinuoye 2000) no allomorphic variation was found for making plurals in Yorùbá. In English, a

noun can be inflected with the morpheme (-s) for instance the noun “Book” become plural by

adding “-s” morpheme to create “Books”. Some allomorphs in this morpheme would be “-ies” or

“-es” because of the phonological environment in some nouns.

NOMINAL INFLECTION IN ARIGIDI

One type of Nominal Inflection that can be conveyed in Arigidi is the plural formation

of Noun. In Arigidi the plural is formed by the use of prefix (Oanikare) and suffix (Wa) and

(Uwọn) which can literally translate as “they”, “those”. The prefix (Oanikare) is use before an

inanimate noun and the suffix (Wa) is place after the noun to make it plural. The example display

below show the pluralisation of inanimate noun in Arigidi that I have gathered from my

informant.

-Àpò- “Oanikare-àpò-wa”
Bag those bags
“Bag” “bags”
-Ikẹ́kẹ́- “Oanikare-ikéké-wa”
Cup those cups
“Cup” “cups”

-Ata- “oanikare-ata-wa”
Chair those chair
“Chair” “chairs”

The prefix (Oanikare) and suffix (Wa) are used to form plural in Arigidi language.

Plural noun are expresses with the use of morphology in English language while Yorùbá make

use of separate word for the expression of the same meaning. E.g. Awon and Arigidi make use of

prefix (Oanikare) and suffix (Wa) to indicate their plurality and also make use of (Uwon) as

expression of the same meaning. In this case Yorùbá and Arigidi are similar when making use of

plural noun by means of morphology, because both languages make use of separate word for the

expression of the same meaning and generally speaking we can say English language cited an

example makes use of morphology than both languages.

PLURAL FORMATION IN YORUBA

Nouns in Yorùbá are pluralised using various morphological strategies such as Reduplication,

Borrowing, Compounding, Prefixation, and Use of cardinal, Use of ordinals and Quantifiers by

inflecting another morpheme to the initial word. Same applicable to Arigidi language.

o Use of Reduplication

Is a morphological process in which the root or stem of a word (or a part of it) or even

the whole word is repeated exactly or with a slight change and attached to the base. It reduces the

intensity of adjective and also changes the meaning of words. I.e. reduplication is used in

inflections to convey a grammatical function such as plurality, intensification etc. and in lexical

derivation to create new words.

There is a presence of full reduplication in Yorùbá and Arigidi languages. For example in

Yorùbá.

1. Meji + meji (mejimeji) “ two each”

2. Mẹrin + mẹrin (mẹrinmẹrin) “four each”
3. Mẹta + mẹta (mẹtamẹta) “three each”
It is attested in Arigidi

a. Iyiyi “two each”

b. Idida “three each”
c. Inene “four each”
d. Ititọn “five each”
e.
o PREFIXATION

Yoruba nouns can be pluralized using such prefix as “Awon”. The example below

shows the uses of this strategy. It is only Awon that marks plurality in Yorùbá language.

Singular nouns Plural nouns

Ọkunrin ‘man’ Awon Ọkunrin ‘men’

Ife ‘cup’ Awon Ife ‘cups’

Ẹja ‘fish’ Awon Ẹja ‘fishes’

Eku ‘rat’ Awon Eku ‘rats’

Obinrin ‘woman’ Awon Obinrin ‘women’

It is attested in Arigidi language

Arigidi nouns can be pluralized using such prefix as “Uwon”, but not all nouns are

pluralized using “Uwon” some can be pluralized using different forms. The example below

shows the uses of this strategy. It is not only “Uwon” that marks plurality in Arigidi language.

Singular nouns plural nouns

Esere (girl) uwọn-esere “girls”

 Okore (boy) uwọn-okore “boys”

Yorùbá and Arigidi are similar when pluralizing their nouns using prefix. Yorùbá pluralized their

nouns using “Awon” as prefix while Arigidi pluralized their nouns using “Uwon”, but not all

nouns are pluralized in Arigidi using “Uwon”, some are pluralized using both prefix (Oanikare)

and suffix (Wa), to marks some words plurality.

o USE OF QUANTIFIERS

Quantifiers are word that usually goes before a noun to express the quantity of the object. For

examples, there are quantifiers to describe large quantities (a lot, much, many) small quantities (a

little, a bit, a few) and undefined quantities (some, any).

Yoruba nouns can be pluralized using the quantifier “”. Quantifiers are words that express

entity.

o Lexical items the quantifier “Ọpọlọpọ” fused with lexical items.

1. Ilé ‘house’ Ọpọlọpọ-ilé “many houses”

2. Eku ‘rat’ Ọpọlọpọ-eku “many rats”
3. Ife ‘cup’ Ọpọlọpọ-ife “many cups”
4. Ẹsin ‘horse’ Ọpọlọpọ-ẹsin “many horses”
5. Mọto ‘car’ Ọpọlọpọ-mọto “many cars”
6. Èyàn‘people’ Ọpọlọpọ-eyan “many peoples”
7. Iwé‘book’ Ọpọlọpọ-iwé “many books”
It is attested in Arigidi language

Arigidi nouns can be pluralized using the qualifier “upo”.

i. Ohan ‘tree’ ohan-upo “many trees”

ii. Musinu ‘cat’ musin-upo “many cats”
iii. Oran ‘bird’ oran-upo “many birds”
 iv. Bata ‘shoe’ bat-po “many shoes”
Qualifier is a word that usually goes before a noun to express the quantity of an object. Yoruba

and Arigidi qualifier are similar but are quite different the way there being positioned. Yoruba

qualifier is being added at the word initial while Arigidi qualifier is added at the word final.

And Yorùbá qualifier is “Ọpọlọpọ” while Arigidi qualifier is “Upo”, which

literally means many.

o USES OF CARDINAL NUMBERS IN YORUBA

The Yorùbá numeral system is intricate and unique. Majority of the numerals within the

system are derived. In actuality, with the exception of one to ten and isolated numbers such as

twenty ‘Ogún’; thirty ‘Ọgbọn’; two hundred ‘Igba’; three hundred ‘Ọọdunrun’; and four hundred

‘Irinwo’, all others are derived. Excluding thirty, three hundred and four hundred, these

exceptions in fact serve as the ‘building blocks’ for the formation of the other numerals in

Yorùbá. This is most obvious in the formation of numerals within the range of eleven to one

hundred and ninety-nine. Number one to ten: Ọkan, Eji, Ẹta, Ẹrin, Arun, Ẹfa, Eje, Ẹjo, Ẹsan, and

Ewa serve as the core counting forms in the system. There are various types of reckoning for

these numbers, they are done in slightly different tongues such as Eni/Ọọkan, Eeji, Ẹẹta, Ẹẹrin,

Aarun-un, Ẹẹfa, Eeje, Ẹẹjọ, Ẹẹsan-an, and Ẹẹwa. Beyond counting, Yorùbá numbers serve as

numeral qualifiers and they come in forms of cardinals which are adjective forms in the

language. There are also numbers that serve a larger than numeral role in Yorùbá mythology,

religion and world view. Numbers such as seven, fifteen (also used in reduced form Ẹẹdogun),

twenty (also known as okoo), forty and two hundred (also known as ogowa) are significant in

various renditions about Yorùbá beliefs and lifestyle.

In Yorùbá language, numbers are used to show plurality. Cardinal number can be define

as a numbers that are used for counting something, the meaning of cardinals ‘ how many’ of
 anything is existing in a group and are related to ordinal numbers such as third, fourth, and fifth.

Example of cardinal numbers: 3,4,5,6.

Example of cardinals in Yorùbá language includes;

Basic forms cardinals fused with the basic forms

Mọto ‘car’ mọto-kan “one car”

Ilè ‘house’ ilè-kan “one house”
Ọsàn ‘orange’ Ọsàn-meji “two oranges”
Kẹ̀kẹ́ ‘bicycle’ kẹ̀kẹ́-mẹrin “four bicycles”
Isu ‘yam’ isu-kan “one yam”
It is attested in Arigidi

Arigidi numerals are listed below

i. Ikan one
ii. Eeye two
iii. Ida three
iv. Inẹn four
v. Itan five
vi. Ifa six
vii. Iso seven
viii. Iro eight
ix. Idan nine
x. Iye ten
Example of cardinals in Arigidi language includes;

Basic forms cardinals fused with the basic forms

Ọsọ ‘house’ ikan-ọsọ“one house”

Atá ‘chair’ iro-ata “eight chairs”
Àsà ‘pot’ inẹn-asa “four pots”
Àpo ‘bag’ eeye-apo “two bags”
Both languages numerals are place differently Arigidi cardinal numeral are place at the word

initial and Yoruba cardinal numerals are place at the word final.

o USE OF ORDINALS
 Ordinal is one generalization of the concept of a natural number that is used to describe a

way to arrange a (possible infinite) collection of objects in order, one after another. And can also

be seen as words used in representing position or rank in a sequential order. E.g. third, second.

Ordinals are used to show different positions such as first, second, third etc. They take reckoning

of positions –in “order” of merit. These forms are used to answer the question Keloo “which

position”. Just like counting forms and cardinals, there are also many reckoning types for

ordinals in Yorùbá. The first type is: kin-in-ni/kinni, keji, kẹta etc. the second type is classified as

nominal and can also be in two forms as follows: Ekinni, Ẹkeji, Ẹketa, or ikinni, ikeji, ikẹta etc.

as stated before, numerals in Yoruba can act as modifiers to other nouns in the language.

Basic forms the ordinals fused with the basic forms

i. Ọwọ‘hand’ ọwọ-keji “second hand”

ii. Ẹni ‘person’ ẹni-kinni “first person”

iii. Ẹsẹ̀‘leg’ ẹsẹ̀-keji “second leg”

iv. Apá ‘arm’ apá-kẹta “third arm”

o PRONOMINAL SYSTEM

In Yorùbá and Ariigidi, pronouns are connected with each person and those nouns are referred to

as Nominative (is the case used for a noun or pronoun which is subject of a verb)

and accusative is referred as a case used to mark a direct object of a transitive verb. And it is also

used in some language for the object of a preposition.

The first person refers to the speaker; the second person refers to the listener while
the third person refers to the people that are not participating in the conversation.

NOMINATIVE ACCUSATIVE
Singular Plural Singular Plural
1st I We Me Us
Emi Awa Emi Awa
2 nd
You you You You
Iwọ Ẹyin Iwọ Iwọ
3 He/she/it
rd
They Him/her Them
Oun won Awon won

It is attested in Arigidi

NOMINATIVE ACCUSATIVE
Singular Plural Singular Plural
1st
I We Me Us
Ame Aao Ame Aho

2nd You You You You

Aran Aran Aran Aran

3rd He/she/it They Him/her Them

Uwon Awa Uwon Awa

Yorùbá and Arigidi pronominal system are similar because both languages pronoun depends on

whether it is the subject or the object of the sentence. For example the sentence “you eat pizza”

and “I like you” in Yorùbá and Arigidi would have different pronouns for the word “you”.

In the languages mentioned above have two types of subject pronoun. One group are called

emphatic pronouns, there are used when any pronoun are to be emphasized. While the other

groups are called standard pronouns but both are used interchangeably.I.e. only the

person and number features are marked on both languages pronouns (they are not marked for

gender or animacy), but the forms of the pronouns vary depending on their case. Both languages

pronouns are divided into two classes, the standard and emphatic that is mentioned above, the
emphatic is analyzed as noun (Awobuluyi 1978) while the standard are analyzed as clitics

( Akinlabi and Liberman 2000).

ANAPHORIC
Singular Plural

1st Myself Ourselves

Ara Ara a wa
ami
2nd
Yourselves
Yourself Ara a yin
Ara a rẹ
3rd Themselves
Himself/herself Ara a won
Ara a
rẹ

It is attested in Arigidi

ANAPHORIC
Singular Plural
 1st Myself Ourselves
Ẹjẹran Ẹjeo
2 nd
Yourself Yourselves
Ame Aofurajẹ
3 rd
Himself/herself Themselves
Aranfunraejeni Awonfunraeje
3 rd
Itself wa
Awonfunraejeni

Apart from the use of otherwise independent pronouns to express anaphoric relations, there are

only two other morphological strategies for achieving anaphoric readings. One, the null pronoun

strategy, has a very small class of verbs that are compatible with it. The second strategy, the

“Ara” strategy, is very widely used, lexically unrestricted, though subject to syntactic locality

restrictions. “Ara” forms are derived by combining “ara” (body) with genitive pronoun.

o VERBAL INFLECTION

In Yorùbá and Arigidi, this phenomenon is attested. Verb is a core syntactic category that is

common to every human language. But are used in different ways, we shall examine how

language verbs are inflected for tense as well as aspects.

o Aspect:

Aspect is a grammatical category that expresses how an action, event, or state, denoted by verb,

extends over time.

Aspect in Yorùbá
 Oyelaran (1982) claim that both the perfective and what he regarded as the perfect aspect in

Yorùbá are not controversial. One could say that none of the Yorùbá scholars to date has actually

written anything on this subcategory of aspect. What previous writers (i.e. Awobuluyi 1967 and

Oke 1969) often mention are the durative and the habitual aspects. Though these could be

regarded as subcategories of the imperfective as defined by Comrie (1976) if tentatively take

durativity as equivalent to progressivity, they characterized differently by these writers and no

attempt is made by any of them to account for “both in relation to each other and each to other

categories” (Oyelaran 1982).

For example, Awobuluyi (1967) regards both maa m /maa n and m/n as in (1) and (2)

respectively as having the same meaning, hence, “the preverb maa seems redundant” in (1).

1) Bola maa n ta iwé

“Bola sells books”
2) Bola m ta iwé
i. Present: “Bola is selling a book (right now)”
Or Bola sells books”
ii. Past: “Bola was selling a book”
Or Bola used to sell books”
He even confuses issues by stating that there is no difference (if we understand him correctly)

between the usages of the word maa in the following sentences.

3) (i) Bola maa n ta iwé

“Bola sells books”
Or “Bola used to sell books”

(ii) maa ta iwé

“Keep selling books”
(iii) Bola maa lo
“Bola will go”
Oke (1969), on the other hand, regards maa n as a single auxiliary. Awoyale (1974) disagrees

with his view and concludes without justifying his claim that “there is no entity maa n in Yorùbá
but ma and n.

Yoruba one can say: “I’m in the process of going to market “the verb does not change its

form or the personal its shape with any change along a time-scale”.

o Yoruba imperfective aspect:

Imperfective aspect is used for situations conceived as existing continuously or repetitively as

time flows (“I was helping him”, “I used to help people”).

Comrie (1976) takes the imperfective aspect as referring “to the internal structure of a situation,
viewing a situation from within”. He also identifies two different types of imperfective in
languages- one in which imperfective is realized as a single subcategory of aspect and the other
in which imperfective itself could still be divided into other subcategories. The Yorùbá
imperfective belongs to the second class. It differs, however, from Comrie (1976) classification
shown in (4) in that there is no non-progressive continuous marker in the language shown in (5).
(4) Imperfect

Habitual Continuous

Non-progressive Progressive

(5) Imperfect

Habitual progressive

o The Progressive Aspect

The progressive aspect according to Freed (1979) and Dahl (1985), could be regarded as a
 subcategory of the imperfective which allows us to view an activity not only as durative or

continuous but essentially as on-going. The item that performs these types of functions in

Yorùbá and so could be said to mark progressive aspect in the language is n. it has suppletive,

maa, which replaces it after modal verbs.

I. Mo ń na Adé
I prog hit Ade
“I am hitting Ade”

II. Màa lọ
Prog go
“Start to go (now)”

III. Mo le maa na Tunde

I prog beat Tunde
“I can start hitting Tunde

IV. Mo ń gbón si i
I prog wise more
“I am becoming wiser”

V. Mo ń gbó Yorùbá si
I prog hear Yorùbá more
“My knowledge of Yorùbá is improving”

Progressive Aspect is attested in Arigidi

1. Ma ń gba bọlu sọsan
I (prog) playing football
“I am playing football”
2. Ma ń nakan egirewo ifọ yihon awa
I (prog) be bold when talking to them
“I will be bold when talking to them”
3. Ma n feran yagiri seren isiri
I (prog) love combing her hair
“I will love combing her hair”

Yorùbá and Arigidi language are similar when making use of progressive aspect, both language
make use of n and suppletive maa when marking their progressive aspect

o The Yorùbá Habitual Aspect

The habitual aspect is regarded as “describing a situation which is characteristic of an extended

period of time, so extended in fact that the situation referred to is viewed not as an incidental

property of the moment but, precisely as a characteristic feature of a whole period” Comrie

(1976). The notion of “extended period” as used in the above definition is conceptualrather than

linguistic; hence, Comrie (1976) warns that habituality should not be confused with iteratively.

According to him, “the mere repetition of a situation is not sufficient for that situation to be

referred to by a specific habitual form”. The reason for this is that “a situation can be referred to

by a habitual form without there being any iterativity at all” (Comrie 1976). In support of this

view. Dahl (1985) adds that “the difference between ‘once’ and ‘twice’ or even seven times’ is

almost totally irrelevant to habitual.

What actually marks the habitual aspect in Yorùbá is the polymorphemic word

‘maa n’. What the use of this item in any sentence indicates is that the action expressed “took

place in the majority of those occasions” (Dahl 1985) indicated and understood in the sentence.

1. Ó máa ń lo
He Hab go
“He usually goes”
2. Ó máa ń wá
He Hab comes
“He usually comes”
3. Ó máa ń wá ni ibé
He Hab be in there
“He is usually there”
4. Jẹjẹ máa ń sun saa ni
Jẹjẹ Hab sleep always be
“jẹjẹ always sleeps”
Habitual aspect is attested in Arigidi
 Ogunbo ma i ju aran
Ogunbo Hab eat meat
“Ogunbo usually eats meat”
 Ade ma i ve uwa
Ade Hab go farm
“Ade usually goes to the farm”
 Sola ma I gunran
Sola Hab tells-lies
“Sola usually tells lies”
The polymorphemic item “ma I” as used above view that there should be a distinct habitual

subcategory of aspect in standard Yoruba. The aspect that marks the habitual aspect in standard

Yoruba is “maa n” while that of Arigidi is “ma i” the two are polymorphemic.

 Tense

Tense is a category that expresses time reference. Tense are usually manifested by the use of

specific forms of verbs, particularly in their conjugation patterns. The main tenses found in many

languages include the past, present, and future.

According to Bamgbose (1990) who argues that there are two tenses in Yoruba, which are

asiko ojo iwaju and asiko afanamonii (the future and the past/present)

Examples: Adding the action verb directly to a pronoun or noun subject

E.g. Mo + jeun = mo jeun

I to eat I ate

Mo + ra = mo ra
I to buy I bought

O + fo + aso = o fo aso

He to wash clothes he washed clothes

Another way of marking tense in Yoruba is adding the non- action verb directly to a pronoun or

noun subject.
 Won + Jo = won jo
They to dance they danced

A + fe = a fe
We to want we wanted

Afanamoni; Oba gba Ade

Oba n gba Ade

Asiko ojo iwaju; Olu yoo jeun

Won maa gba ebun
Adajo a soro

It is attested in Arigidi

In Arigidi language, isolated morpheme are used to differentiate between present and the

continuous tense, tense in Arigidi is used to indicate time an action takes place.

PRESENT TENSE PRESENT CONTINOUS TENSE

i. Work “jodan” working “ijodan”

ii. Run “suko” running “isuko”

iii. Play “debo” playing “idebo”

iv. Lie “soye” lying “isoye”

Yoruba language different ways of marking tense base on the context and Arigidi mark present

continuous tense using “I” prefixing the verb.

 NEGATION

The following are formative are recognised by Yoruba language scholars like Bamgbose (1990),

Ogunbowale (1970), Banjo (1974), Oke (1982), Awobuluyi (1978) and Adewole (1999) as

negative markers in Standard Yoruba language.

i. Ko/o
 ii. Ki i
iii. Ko
iv. Ma/maa
v. Mo
vi. Ye
Examples;

a. Ajo-olugbejo naa ko ko lonii

Tribunal the Neg meet today
“The tribunal didn’t meet today”
b. Oba ko ni o pase yii
King Neg he give-order this
“It was not the king who gave this order”
c. Mo soro Kankan
Neg say-word any
“Don’t say anything”
d. E ko lo
2p Neg go
“You didn’t go”
e. A ki rayi
1p Neg buy-honour
“Honour can’t be bought”
f. Won ki i se olorun
3p Neg are God
“They are not God”
g. Ye soro
Neg say-word any
“Don’t say anything”
It is attested in Arigidi language

Arigidi language uses ee (not) as negative elements. However, different languages have specific

ways of negating structures or construction in the language.

Examples;
1. Ee see soko e?
Neg who is-husband 2s
“Who is not your husband?”
2. Ee do ji mi nowuo
Neg is wake me in-morning
“Do not wake me up in the morning”
3. Oko ne ee ti saju
Motor the Neg run much
“The motor is not over speeding”
4. Elu wee ee to?
How much Neg sell
“How much are you not selling it?”
5. Wee da ti lo in?
Neg yet go now
“Have you not gone yet?”
Yoruba and Arigidi language are distinct when marking negation. Yoruba have different ways of

marking negative (not), which are listed above while Arigidi marks their negation using

morpheme “Ee” depending on the form of the vowel preceding the NP or a copy of the final

vowel of the morpheme at the end of the utterance.

Summary

This chapter has presented and analysed the data collection for this study. The analysis

reveals how new words are derived and possible derivational meaning and also the analysis

reveals how verbs are also inflected for tense and different aspectual categorization in the

language. The data shows how nominals in Yoruba and Arigidi are inflected with specific

reference to how nouns are pluralized as well as the different case forms of the language. The

data also reveals the strategy adopted to negate utterances in Yoruba and Arigidi.
 CHAPTER FOUR

MORPHOLOGICAL TYPOLOGY OF YORUBA AND ARIGIDI

4.1 Introduction
In this chapter, we will discuss in details, the morphological typology of Yoruba and Arigidi
language derived from the data gathered for the study.

4.2 Morphological typology

The term typology refers to a classification based on the comparative study of types.
Morphological typology involves grouping of languages into structural types based on the
relationship that exist between them.

Morphological typology was the first systematic method used by linguists in the nineteenth
century to compare the structure of different languages.

According to Arokoyo (2017), Morphological typology does not consider genetic or

historical relationship between languages but is rather concerned with structural similarities.
Morphological typology entails classifying languages to their structural features or similarities.

Languages can be classified into two groups based on a number of different linguistic criteria.
One such way to categorized language is by the type and extent of morphology they use. For
example, some languages string many morphemes together while other languages tend to realize
most words as independent or mono-morphemic segments. The latter types of languages are
called analytic and the former is synthetic. The typology should be seen not as a strict dichotomy
between analytic and synthetic but rather as a scale on which languages can be placed depending
on the degree to which they exhibit that type of morphology. Some languages may display
different types of their grammars and thus it is best to see languages as tending towards a type.
Languages can be classified into two morphological typologies which include:

 Analytic language
 Synthetic language

And synthetic is further broken down into agglutinative and fusional languages.

Analytic languages/isolating languages

Analytic/ isolating languages are languages where words consist of free morphemes with few or

no affixes; they are languages with reduced morphology. Words in these languages are free,
usually monomorphic. Syntactic relations are expressed by word order and not by inflections as

seen in fusional languages. This means that word order plays a highly significant role in these

languages. Yoruba and Arigidi are examples of analytic languages because they tends to consist

of single, independent morphemes and words in these languages are free and usually

monomorphic.

Examples;

a) Obinrin nàá ti dé

Woman the has come

“The woman has come”

b) Ọmọ mi nìyí

Child my be this

“This is my child”

c) Awọn ọmọ mi niyi

Pl child my be this

“These are my children”

d) Awọn obinrin nàá ti dé

Pl woman the have come

“The women have come”

e) Ó máa ń wá ni ibé

He Hab be in there

“He is usually there”

 f) Jẹjẹ máa ń sun saa ni

Jẹjẹ Hab sleep always be

“jẹjẹ always sleeps”

It is attested in Arigidi

1. Folashade ma i juaran

Folashade Hab eat meat

“Folashade usually eats meat”

2. Ade ma i veuwa

Ade Hab go farm

“Ade usually goes to the farm”

3. Ma ń nakan egirewo ifọ yihon awa

I (prog) be bold when talking to them

We can see that the forms of the words do not change as most grammatical information are
coded via morphemes unlike what obtains in other morphological language types. And also the
language attests some instance of agglutination as seen in the examples. A distinction is made
between analytic and isolating languages.
Haspelmath (2010) say that isolating refers to a language that ‘exhibits an extreme
degree of analyticity’. In isolating languages, words are made up of single morphemes, tense and
agreement affixes are not marked on verbs and nouns. With this distinction, English falls into
analytic languages but not isolating as tense and agreement are affixes on nouns and verbs, while
Yoruba and Arigidi are isolating.
Yoruba and Arigidi are similar when classifying their language because both languages fall in
analytic languages which means both language are classified under analytic language because of
the relationship that exist between the two language and it doesn’t change in meaning or form.

Synthetic languages
Synthetic languages have multiple morphemes making up a word. Words are formed with the
addition of affixes to root morphemes. In most synthetic languages, word order does not serve
much importance as affixes serve to indicate grammatical relations rather than position which
word order shows. We will examine agglutinating languages and fusional languages as sub-type
of synthetic languages.

Agglutinating language

Agglutinating languages have one or more morphemes attached to a root with each morpheme
having one distinct meaning. Words are made up of morphemes that are clearly separable;
coding more than one meaning per word. Morphemes that can stand as a sentence are
transformed into words in agglutinating languages. Yoruba and Arigidi attested some instance in
agglutinating languages.

Examples;

Yoruba

1) Wọn mu “they drink”

2) Mo mu “ I drink”
3) Ẹyin mu “ you (pl) drink”

Arigidi

a. Aransọ “you buy”

b. Uwonsọ “they buy”
c. Aaosọ “we buy”

The word “mu” in Yorùbá is the verb “drink” and the word "sọ” is the verbs “buy” in Arigidi
language. The example above show some instance of agglutinating languages but there are
analytic language.

Summary

In this chapter, I have been able to do the analyses of the morphological typology Yoruba and
Arigidi. Both languages are analytic languages because they are made up of sequences of free
morpheme each word consists of single morpheme and do not use affixes to compose words as
stated in the structure of Yoruba and Arigidi morphology.