TONES IN IWHURỌHA

ABSTRACT

Phonology is a branch of linguistics that studies the distinctive sounds of a language.The Iwhuroha (Ikwerre) language is the language of study in this work using the Emohua dialect as a case study. Due to the distinctive nature of every natural language and the quest to improve the standard of each language which birthed this work. This research investigates the tonal system of Emọhua dialect of Ikwerre language to check for the tones, tonal patterns, changes in word classes resulting from tonal patterning and various words and sentences emanating from tone change in words and sentences with the same orthography.         

The auto segmental frame work of John Goldsmith (1976) is used as the theoretical framework. The research was carried out using the Ibadan four hundred word list as a guide and other words relevant to the study to elicit data. The ethnographic research method was used and six communities out of the eight communities in Emọhua were used as the population sample and the semi structured interview method was used to elicit data from competent native speakers.

The findings of the data analysis yielded the following; four tones of high, low, rising and falling, six tonal patterns, grammatical tones and some word classes which emanates from tonal patterning.