Phonological processes involved in the adjustment of English words borrowed into EkeGusii

Authors

Keywords:

Adjustment, Borrowing,EkeGusii, Lending, Nativisation, phonological process, phonological productivity

Abstract

This paper interrogated the productivity of EkeGusii phonological processes in English words borrowed into EkeGusii, a Kenyan Bantu language. The processes under focus are: voice dissimilation, de-fricativisation, spirantisation, pre-nasalisation and homorganic assimilation and vowel height harmonisation and dis-harmonisation. Data analyzed in this article included English nouns borrowed into EkeGusii as collected from the following secondary sources:  books (especially the EkeGusii Holy Bible), research papers/articles, theses, and the EkeGusii dictionary. The study drew conclusion that English phonemes not found in EkeGusii are changed to the nearest (acoustically) EkeGusii phonemes; to a large  extent EkeGusii phonological rules apply to the output of the phonemic adaptations of English loans; EkeGusii adaptation processes do not differ in any significant way from the regular EkeGusii phonological processes; and finally, productivity the EkeGusii phonological processes in the English loans borrowed into EkeGusii is not as clear cut  as previously thought. It is recommended that this kind of study be extended to other languages to ascertain the productivity of their phonological processes.   

 

 

Downloads

Download data is not yet available.
Dimensions

Archangeli, D., and Pulleyblank, D., (2007). Harmony. In The Cambridge Handbook of phonology, Paul de Lacy (ed.), 353-378. Cambridge: Cambridge University press.

Alnet, A. J. (2009). The clause structure of the Shimaore dialect of Comorian (Bantu).

Anyona, M., (2011). Phonological influence of EkeGusii in the pronunciation of English.

(Unpublished MA thesis, Egerton University).

Anyona, M., (2017). Phonological and morphological nativization of English nouns borrowed into EkeGusii: A constraint based approach. (Unpublished PhD thesis, Kisii University, Kenya).

Batibo, H., (1996). Loanword clusters nativization rules in Tswana and Swahili: A comparative study. South African Journal of African languages, 16(2),33-41.

Bennet, W. (2013). Dissimilation, consonant harmony, and surface correspondence (Unpublished PhD thesis, Rutgers University).

Bickmore, L., (1998). Metathesis and Dahl’s law in EkeGusii.Studies in linguistic sciences.Vol.28.

Bosire, K., and Machogu, G., (2013). Authoritative EkeGusii dictionary: Endabaro endabasi y’EkeGusii. Nairobi: EkeGusii Encyclopaedia Project.

Cammenga, J., (2002). Phonology and Morphology of Ekeusii. Postfach: Rudiga Koppe Verlag.

Clements, G. (1978). Tone and Syntax in Ewe. In Napoli, D. J. (ed.). Elements of tone, stress and intonation. Washington, DC: Georgetown University Press

Clements, G. (1990). The role of the sonority cycle in core syllabification. In Papers in laboratoryphonology1: between the grammar and the physics of speech, by John Kingston and Mary Beckman, 283-333. Cambridge: CUP

Clements, G. & Keyser, S., (1983). CV phonology. MIT Press, Cambridge, Mass

Cruttenden, A., Grimson’s pronunciation of English. Hodder Education: London.

Crysal, D., (1987). The Cambridge encyclopaedia of Language.Cambridge: CUP.

Davy, J., and Nurse, D., (1982). Synchronic versions of Dahl’s Law: the multiple application of a phonological dissimilation rule. Journal of African languages and linguistics 4:157-195.

Demuth, K., (2000). Bantu noun class systems loanword and acquisition evidence of sematic proclivity. In G Senft (ed.) classification systems.Cambridge University press PP. 270-292.

Downing, L. J. (2005). On the ambiguous segmental status of nasals in homorganic NC sequences. In Marc van Ootendorp and Jeroen Weijer (eds.). The internal organization of phonological segments, New York: Mouton de Gruyter, pp.183-216

Ferguson, C. A., (1963). Assumptions about nasals: a sample study in phonological universals. In J. Greenberg (ed.) Universals of language, 53-60, Cambridge, MA: MIT press.

Guthrie, G., (1967-71). Comparative Bantu: Farnborough. Gregg. Vols 1-4.

Hafez, O., (1996). Phonological and morphological integration of loanwords into EgytianArabic.Egypt/Monde Arabic, premiere series 27-28.383-410.

Hargus, S., and da Conceição, M., (1999).Consonant labialization in Ronga. University of Washington working papers in linguistics, Vol. 16, p. 115-140

Harjulla, L., (2005). The Ha noun class system revisited. MS

Haugen, E., (1950). The analysis of linguistic borrowing. Language 26.210–231.

Herbert, R. K. (1975). Re-analysing pre-nasalized consonants. Studies in African Linguistics. 6(2): 105-123.

Herd, J., (2005).Loanword adaptation and the evaluation of similarity. Toronto working papers in linguistics 24.65-116.

Haugen, E., (1950). The analysis of linguistic borrowing. Language, 26: 210-231.

Hyman, L. M. &Katamba, F., (1990). Final vowel shortening in Luganda. In studies in African linguistics, 21, 1-15.

Kager, R. (1999). Optimality Theory. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Katamba, F., (1993). Morphology. Palgrave: Hampshire.

Katamba, F. (1989). An introduction to Phonology. New York Addison Wesley Longman Publishing.

Kenstowicz, M. (1994). Syllabification in Chukchee: A constraint based analysis. In Alice, D, Nicole, M, Glaucia, S & Wan Su, Y. (eds.) Proceedings of the Formal Linguistics Society of Mid- America 4. Iowa, pp 160-181.

Kenstowicz, M. (2005). The phonetics and phonology of loanword adaptation. In S. J. Rhee (ed.), Proceedings of ECKL:Proceedings of 1st European conference of Korean linguistics 17-32:Hankook publishing co.

Kenstowicz, M., and Shuchato, A., (2006). Issues in loanword adaptation: a case study from Thai. Lingua 116. 921-949.

McCarthy, J., (2003). Phonological processes: assimilation. In Frawley, J. (ed.). International encyclopedia of linguistics (2ndedn.), 320-323: Oxford University press.

McCarthy, J., (2004). Headed spans and autosegmental spreading (Unpublished manuscript. university of Amherst, Amherst, MA.

McCarthy, J., (2008). Doing Optimality Theory: applying theory to data. Blackwell Publishing, Malden, MA, USA.

Mecha, G., (2006). The phonology and morphology of EkeGusii reduplication: an optimality theoretic approach. (Unpublished Master’s thesis, Kenyatta University).

Meeussen, A., (1993). Comparative Bantu: test cases for method African language studies 14, 6-18.

Odden, D., (1987). Predicting tone in Kikuria. In Current approaches to linguistics, David o, (ed.) Dordrecht: Foris publications, pp311-326.

Odden, D., (1996). The phonology and morphology of Kimatuumbi. Oxford: Clarendon press.

Odden, D. (2015). Bantu phonology. DO1: 10.1093/Oxfordhb/9780199935345.013.59

Ohala, J., and Sole, M. (2008). Turbulence and phonology. UC Berkeley phonology lab annual report.

Ongarora, D., (1996). Vowel harmony in the Rogoro dialect of Ekegusii (Unpublished MA thesis, Egerton University).

Otterloo, K. &otterloo, R. (2011). The kifuliiru language. (Publications in Linguistics, SIL International publications.1132pp. (2vols).

Owino, D., (2003). Phonological nativization of Dholuo loanwords (Doctoral dissertation, University of Pretoria).

Peperkamp, S., and Dupoux, E., (2001). Loanword adaptations: laboratoire de sciences cognitivesetpsycolinguitique, Universite, de Paris 8 http://www. Ehess.Fr/centres/LSCP/persons/ dupoux/loanwords.pdf.

Pulleyblank, D., (1988). Vocalic underspecification in Yoruba. Linguistic Inquiry 19. 233-270.

Rhodhes, R., (2010). Vowel harmony as agreement by correspondence. Ms., University of California, Berkeley.

Roach, P., (1983). English phonetics and phonology. Cambridge:CUP.

Sasa, T., (2009). Treatment of vowel harmony in Optimality Theory. (Unpublished PhD dissertation, Iowa University).

Shabiro, M., (2015). A unique case of vowel harmony in English (Lambaste). Retrieved from Michael Shapiro’s website, “semantic neo-structuralism in peircean linguistics”

Publishers.

Taber, C. R., (1979). French loanwords in Sango: the motivation of lexical borrowing. In Hancock, I., (ed.). Readings in creole studies.Ghent: scientific studies.

The Bible Society of Kenya. (1990). Ebibiliaecnchenu. The bible society of Kenya. Nairobi, Kenya.

Uffmann, C., (2013). Set the controls for the heart of the alternation: Dahl’s Law in Kitharaka. Nordlyd. 40.1:323-337

Weinreich, H., (1953). Language in Contact: findings and problems. The Hague: Mouton and Co. Ltd.

Whiteley, W., (1967). Loanwords in linguistic description: a case study from Tanzania, East Africa. Ranch, I., and Scott, C., (eds.). Approaches in linguistic methodology: MountondeGruyer.

Whiteley, W., (1965). A practical introduction to Gusii.Nairobi: EALB.

Zivenga, W., (2009).Phonological and Morphological Nativization of English Loans in Tonga (Unpublished PhD dissertation, UNISA).

Published

2023-03-14

How to Cite

Anyona, G. (2023). Phonological processes involved in the adjustment of English words borrowed into EkeGusii. Journal of Linguistics and Foreign Languages, 4(1). Retrieved from https://royalliteglobal.com/jlfl/article/view/1061

Issue

Vol. 4 No. 1 (2023)

Section

Articles
Copyright & Licensing

Copyright (c) 2023 George Anyona

Creative Commons License

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.