An analysis of the phonological structure of homograph sets in Ekegusii

Authors

  • Alloys Otete Maobe Department of Language and Literature Education, Masinde Muliro University of Science and Technology, Kenya
  • Benard Angatia Mudogo Department of Language and Literature Education, Masinde Muliro University of Science and Technology, Kenya
  • David Barasa Department of Language and Literature Education, Masinde Muliro University of Science and Technology, Kenya

Keywords:

homographs, phonemes, vowel length, vowel type

Abstract

The aim of this paper is to analyze the phonological structure of homograph sets in Ekegusii. The paper is based on the premise that homograph sets in Ekegusii exhibit an array of phonological distinctiveness. Thus, using the distinctive features theory by Jakobson (1968), the paper describes respective sound features that are responsible for the variations that exist between different sets of homographs in Ekegusii. Multistage sampling which involved both purposive sampling and systematic sampling were used to identify the respondents and in selecting the homographs for analysis, respectively. A combined data elicitation method from Ekegusii native speakers and the researcher’s native speaker intuition was used to collect homographs for analysis. The results describe certain strategies that aid in distinguishing peculiar sets of homographs from each other. Accordingly, this paper is on lexical distinctions, thus it not only implicit on the vocabulary of Ekegusii but it also aids in improving the formal grammatical description of the language. It is hoped to be a resource for improvement of materials which aid in teaching and learning of Ekegusii and extend the knowledge of Ekegusii corpus.

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Published

2022-06-20

Issue

Vol. 3 No. 2 (2022)

Section

Articles

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Copyright (c) 2022 Benard Angatia Mudogo, Alloys Otete Maobe, David Barasa

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How to Cite

An analysis of the phonological structure of homograph sets in Ekegusii. (2022). Research Journal in African Languages, 3(2). https://royalliteglobal.com/african-languages/article/view/811