The internal structure of words in Èwùlù

Abstract

The make-up of the internal structure of words in Èwùlù provides strong confirmation of the assertion by linguists that words in languages of the world are characteristically composed of morphemic elements known as roots, stems and affixes. Roots are the base form of a word which cannot be fragmented into smaller units without total loss of meaning or identity; whereas stems are a combination of roots and affixes in the formation of entirely new divisible complex words. The objective of this study using existing data is to examine the internal structure of words in Èwùlù , differentiate roots from stems and then show how the productive root -turned-stems combine with affixes to form additional/new vocabulary in Èwùlù. The study adopts the descriptive model of linguistic theory to show the stringent systematic morphological principles that underlie the Èwùlù word internal structure. As the study indicates, Èwùlù words are composed of roots and stems. The roots, particularly the verb roots in combination with affixes are extensively morphologised via affixation processes for the sole aim of creating vocabularies of varying word classes that characterise the world view and culture of the Èwùlù people. On the whole, the study significantly contributes to research efforts geared toward a description of linguistic features of small minority indigenous languages/dialects spoken in Nigeria.