A COMPARATIVE STUDY OF ÌGBÒ AND ÀLAGO NOMINAL PLURALITY

Abstract

The morphological process of noun plurality is widely diffused in African languages. Adopting a purely descriptive and qualitative approach, this study aims to ascertain how plurals are marked on nouns in Ìgbò and Àlago languages, and to compare them using three morphological parameters namely: concatenation, base modification and productivity. For the Ìgbo plural markers, data were collected from existing Ìgbo literature, in addition to the researchers’ native language intuition; while the Àlago data were got from three Àlago native speakers who reside in Doma Local Government Area of Nasarawa State. Also, Adagye and Abdullahi’s (2011) book ‘A Dictionary of Alago’ forms the secondary data used in the work. Using a descriptive approach in the data analysis, the findings reveal that Ìgbò marks plural with the use of some inherent plural words like ńdị and ụmụ, quantifiers like imirikiti, numerals like ise, clitic ‘ga’, mass nouns like ìgwè, and the reduplication of nouns like mmadụ mmadụ; while Àlago employs four strategies in the formation of plural nouns. These strategies are zero affixation, àwo- prefixation, lèwà/nwàshìka suffixation, and vowel transmutation. These two languages show some similarities and differences as regards the comparative parameters used to examine them.