SOURCE:

Faculty: Arts
Department: Linguistics

CONTRIBUTORS:

Aghaegbuna, H.U;
Eme, C.A;

ABSTRACT:

This study investigates the phonology of Ọmambāla varieties of Igbo. It aims at identifying their phonemes, finding out their phonological patterning of words, examining their phonological processes and secondary articulation features. It also intends to reclassify the Ọmambala varieties based on certain similarities among them. Ọmambāla comprises four Local Government Areas. From each, three speech communities were investigated and three respondents interviewed. Data were gathered through interview method and recorded using digital audio recorder. Basically, Swadesh 100 wordlist, researcher-adapted 138 word list and 70 phrases and sentence list are used. Data were analysed using minimal pair/set test for the phonemes identification; descriptive method was used for finding out the phonological patterning of words, the phonological processes and secondary articulation features, while the generative phonology, the autosegmental phonology and the government phonology theories are applied in the analysis. The results, among other findings, reveal that Omambala varieties have the same vowels and tones as the standard Igbo but differ in their number of consonants - 25 consonants in Àgụ̀lerì, Ǹsugbè, Ìkem, Ǹtèjè and Awkuzu; Ogbunikē and Ìfìte Ọ̄gwarị̀ 26; Ànam̀ and Ụmụ̀m̀boō 24; and Anàkụ̀ and Umùòlum̄ 23. Àgụ̀lerì, Ǹsugbè, Ǹtèjè, Awkuzu, Ànam̀, Anàkụ̀ and Umùòlum̄ have the standard Igbo phoneme /r/ contrary to findings of earlier studies. Àgụ̀lerì, Ǹsugbè, Ìkem, Ǹtèjè, Awkuzu, Ànam̀, Anàkụ̀, Ụmụ̀m̀boō and Umùòlum̄ substitute the standard Igbo phonemes /f ɦ/ with [v]; while Anàkụ̀, Ụmụ̀m̀boō and Umùòlum̄ substitute the standard Igbo phoneme /z/ with [r]; Ụmụ̀m̀boō mostly replaces the standard Igbo phoneme /s/ with [ʃ] at word medial position. Consonant, vowel, syllabic nasal and syllable elisions are identified from Ọmambala data. Ìfìte Ọ̄gwarị̀ has all the four kinds of elision; Awkuzu, Ogbunikē and Anàkụ̀ have consonant, vowel and syllable elisions; Àgụ̀lerì, Ìkem, Ǹtèjè, Umùòlum̄, Ụmụ̀m̀boō and Ànam̀ have consonant and syllable elisions; only consonant elision is found in Ǹsugbè. Based on these findings, it can be concluded that Omambala varieties of Igbo are reclassified as Ọmambala dialect, while Otuọcha and Ayamelụm are its sub-dialects.