MORPHOLOGICAL PROCESSES IN IKALE DIALECT OF YORUBA LANGUAGE

ABSTRACT

This research project endeavors to provide an in-depth analysis of the morphological processes that characterize the Ikale dialect, a distinct regional variation of the Yoruba language. The aim of this study was to examine the morphological processes in Ikale dialect such as: Prefixes, suffixes, Interfixes and reduplications. Its objectives were to investigate the morphological processes used in the dialect, their functions and the type of morphology used in words in the language. The study relied on a data collected from native speakers of the language and backed up with textbooks and dictionaries by authors who have worked on the language. The descriptive analysis was adopted as the framework for this study for an effective representation and accountability of the morphological processes imbibed in the language. The analysis of the data revealed that Ikale dialect only uses prefixes, suffixes, interfixes and reduplication as it's morphological processes and that these processes have various functions. They can either change the meaning of a word and its word class or retain its meanings. When a new word class is derived from a word, we say it is a derivational type of morphology but when the word class is retained we say it is inflectional. The study concludes that Ikale dialect uses morphological processes to perform different functions in words.