NUMERAL SYSTEM OF THE UTAGBA DIALECT OF THE UKWUANI LINGUISTIC COMMUNITY

ABSTRACT
This research investigates the various word formation processes in the Utagba dialect of the Ukwuani linguistic community. This study relied on interview of competent native speakers in getting the data used for the analysis of this work and also a search of relevant literature. In the Utagba dialect, the complexity of deriving, especially non-basic numerals, involves addition and multiplication. From the available data in this research, Utagba dialect could be said to belong to the group of languages that has the vigesimal number system. This is because the dialect employs a numeral structure where counting is done in mainly multiples of "osu" "ogu" (twenty). This study adopts the packing strategy framework of J.R Hurford (1975, 1987, 2003, 2007). This framework adopted applies to numeral system that uses construction to signal addition and multiplication.
During the course of this research, there were a couple of findings we made and they are;
The dialect has 10 basic number names to which the additive and multiplicative principles are being applied to form larger number constituents. The dialect belongs to the group of Languages which have a vigesimal numeral system, this is because the dialect employs a numeral structure where counting is done in multiples of "osu" and "ogu" which means twenty (20) in the dialect. The dialect uses the conjunction "ni" which means "and" for addition. The dialect does not have a multiplicative morpheme as can be seen in "ogueto- twenty times three 20 × 3".
During the course of the work, I discovered that numerals in the dialect cannot be fully discussed without making reference to their syntax, I therefore recommend for researchers who may find this topic interesting to work on the syntax of the numeral system of the Utagba dialect of the Ukwuani Linguistic community.