SEGMENTAL ASSIMILATION IN HAUSA NOMINAL AND VERBAL REDUPLICATIVE MORPHOLOGY

Abstract

Segmental assimilation, which affects features that are inherent in segments, is generally situated within the phonology-morphology interface across languages, including Hausa. Previous studies on Hausa reduplicative morphology have mainly focused on segmental phonological modification, with little attention paid to transparency and opacity in the context of assimilation. Thus, this study was designed to examine the contextual nature of segmental assimilation in Hausa reduplicated nouns and pluractional verbs, with a view to determining their domain, segments involved and features that trigger or block the process. John Goldsmith‘s Autosegmental Phonology was adopted as the framework, while the descriptive design was employed. Three major cities in northern Nigeria (Sokoto, Kano and Katsina) were purposively selected as representative of the three core Hausa dialects. A paradigm of 20 reduplicative constructions were elicited from 45 purposively selected Hausa-literate native speakers; 15 from each dialect. This was complemented with natural conversation. The data was transcribed and subjected to morpho-phonological analysis. Segmental assimilation in Hausa reduplicated nouns applies in the domain of adjacent obstruents ([b, t, d, ɗ, k, ƙ, g, s, z]) and sonorants ([n, m, r, l, w]). Assimilatory processes in this context are either total or partial and they mostly occur in regressively with triggering features of place ([+lab], [+cor], [+pal]) and manner ([+cont], [+lat], [+nas]). This naturally results in the formation of morphosyntactic reduplicated nouns in the language: dígí: → dígdígí: → díddígí ‗inquiry‘; múƙè → múƙmúƙè → múmmúƙè ‗jaw‘and ɗírà → ɗírɗírà → ɗíɗɗírà ‗complicated diarrhea‘. Assimilation also occurs in verb nominalisation to derive ‗deverbalised‘ adjectives where non-palatal obstruent segments ([t, d, s, z]) synchronically become palatalised ([tʃ, ʤ]) as a result of the triggering effect of a suffixal vocalic feature ([+high]). In Hausa pluractional morpho-syntactic verbs, segmental assimilation occurs more in the domain of adjacent obstruents than sonorants and is usually triggered by the place (labial, coronal, dorsal) and manner (continuant) features. This process results in the formation of reduplicated verbs: dákà → dákdàkà → dáddàkà ‗pound repeatedly‘; kámà → kámkàmà → kákkàmà ‗to catch repeatedly‘; dánnà → dándànnà → dáddànà ‗to press repeatedly‘ and mánna → mánmànnà → mámmànnà ‗to paste severally‘. The occurrence of segmental assimilation in the context of Hausa reduplicated nouns and pluractional verbs, demonstrates feature-spreading. This situation is exhibited in the language via association with both source segments in the onset position of the reduplicant root-CVC and the target segments in the coda position of the reduplicated CVC. Segmental assimilation in reduplicative domain in Hausa admits off opacity without transparency. Segmental assimilation in Hausa reduplicated nouns and pluractional verbs, is featuredriven, involving adjacency and opacity at the inter-morphemic boundary.