STYLISTIC INTERPLAY OF REPETITION AND PUN IN YORÙBÁ LITERARY GENRES

Abstract

Repetition and pun are prominent tropes in Yorùbá literary genres. Studies have shown that literary tropes have been given independent treatment in Yorùbá stylistic studies with specific attention to their aesthetic relevance. However, not many studies abound on comparative analysis of Yorùbá literary tropes. This study was, therefore, designed to compare repetition and pun in Yorùbá literary genres, with a view to interrogating their interplay, relationship with other tropes and stylistic effects.

Ferdinand de Saussure’s Structuralism and Inkelas Sharon and Zoll Cheryl’s Morphological Doubling Theory were adopted as framework. The interpretive design was used. Yorùbá oral genres (òwe, ọfọ̀, àlọ́, oríkì and ẹsẹ ifá) and written texts (Wándé Abímbola's Ìjìnlẹ̀ Ohùn Ẹnu Ifá Apá kìn-ín ni àti Apá kejì, Ọlátúndé Ọlátúnjí’s Ewì Adébáyọ̀ Fálétí, Akínwùmí Ìṣọ̀lá’s Àfàìmọ̀, Fálétí’s Baṣọ̀run Gáà, Akínwùmí Ìṣọ̀lá’s Fàbú, Sùlèmọ́nù Rájí’s Ewì Àwíṣẹ Yorùbá: Àyájọ́ and Dúró Adélékè’s Aṣọ Ìgba) were purposively selected for being replete with repetition and pun. Data were subjected to content and linguistic analyses.

Repetition and pun are two tropes that are central to most Yorùbá oral genres like ẹsẹ ifá, oríkì, ọfọ̀, òwe and àlọ́. Repetitions occur in layers, from the phonological, morpho-syntactic, phrasal, lexico-structural, semantic to inter-textual. The morpho-syntactic repetition in Yorùbá poetic genres occurs along both syntagmatic and paradigmatic axes. Puns occur at phonological, morphological, syntactic, polysemic and homophonic layers. In ẹsẹ ifá, repetition and pun interplay to perform thematic and effect-based functions. They reveal the client's disposition to ifa's instruction either positively or negatively. When it is positive (Ó gbọ́ rírú ẹbọ, ó rú), it results in joy, happiness and peace; when it is negative (Ó pawo lékèé, ó pèṣù lólè), it results in depression, chaos, disappointment and failure. In ọfọ̀, before the magical potency is exhibited, the invocation has to be repeated three to seven times. Repetition and pun comparatively exhibit context dependency and semantic manipulations. In Ìrosùn Méjì, ‘dáyé’ has polysemic meanings ‘da’ (defeat) ‘aye’ or ‘dé’ (come into) ‘aye’. Both are compressed through elision and contraction as dáyé. Repetition and pun generate other tropes like onomatopoeic and phono-aesthetic ideophones. Their stylistic functions include compounding, sound referencing, and tonemic foregrounding. Ideophones draw materials from qualifiers like burúkú and bùrùkù in Ifa, ẹnírẹ and ẹnìrẹ in ‘ọmọ ẹnírẹ, ọmọ ẹnìrẹ’ (oríkì); and adverbs such as ko-koo-ko in ‘ko-koo-ko làá ránfá adití’ (owe) and gbáńgbáláká and gbàǹgbàlàkà in‘ìdí àlọ́ mi gbáńgbáláká, ìdí àlọ́ mi gbàǹgbàlàkà’ (àlọ́). The by-products of parallelism as a subset of repetition include structural equivalence, lexical matching and tonal counterpoint; and the linguistic output resulted in semantic repetition, as in ‘ọjọ́ kan la ó máa joyin, ọjọ́ kan la ó máa jàdò’, where ‘oyin’ and ‘àdò’ are near synonyms.

Repetition and pun are two indispensable devices in Yorùbá literary genres whose relationship with other tropes is essential for literary creation and appreciation in the language.