SOME PHONOLOGICAL PROCESSES IN IULEHA DIALECT OF OWAN LANGUAGE

ABSTRACT

This study is titled phonological processes in Iuleha dialect, this dialect is a member of the dialect cluster of Owan language, having Ora and Emai as the other members of this cluster. The languages in Edo state are viewed by most people to be one language. The motivation for this study is the need to determine the phonological processes of Iuleha. This study aims to comprehensively describe some phonological processes found in the Iuleha dialect, an Edoid language spoken in Edo state, Nigeria. It adopts the auto-segmental phonology framework to analyze both the segmental and suprasegmental aspects of the language. Data for analysis is gathered from primary sources, complemented by the insights of native speakers. Key phonological processes such as nasalization, elision, and glide formation are identified and examined. The process of vowel elision occurs when forming new words. It removes the second vowel (v2) across word boundary. Examples are ékúà òẹ́ =/ékwàɛ́ / ‘thigh’. Then the process of glide formation occurs within and across word boundary. Nasalisation process occurs when a nasal consonant precedes an oral vowel thereby inheriting the nasal quality. The collected data is transcribed, translated, and analyzed using the autosegmental phonology method which accounted for the segments and supragements.