Some Aspects of the Lexical Phonology And Morphology of Tigrigna
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2009-06
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Abstract
There are different theories of phonology with different arguments and claims.
Among these, Lexical Phonology and Morphology (LMP) is one. And having its
interesting innovations, the claims of the theory have not been applied on
Tigrigna - an Ethio-Semitic language. This is the main objective that this study
tries to deal with. To do so, it is found important first to briefly touch upon the
phonological description of the language. Accordingly, first a brief presentation
is made on the phoneme inventory of the language where 27 consonant and 7
vowel segments are identified. In the subsequent chapters, the phonological
and morphological processes in the language are discussed. Accordingly, the
phonological processes of deletion, insertion, and assimilation have been
discussed with relevant examples. Next, different morphological processes:
suffixation, prefixation, circumfixation, infixation, compounding, cliticization,
and zero derivation have been outlined with relevant examples. These two
chapters serve as the scene for the discussion of the major theoretical claims of
LPM.
Subsequently, the following chapter deals with issues that the theory of LPM
innovated. The discussion made on the morphological processes of the
language shows that Tigrigna has rich morphology. Accordingly, the study
assumes that a three strata lexicon for Tigrigna. Stratum I mainly host word
formation processes come from 'root-and-pattern' type. In Stratum II, comprise
different morphological processes of the language take place. The next lexical
level, Stratum III hosts compounding. Besides, some of the basic theoretical
assumptions that the theory of LPM introduced i.e. the Strict Cyclic Condition
(SCC), Bracket Erasure Convention, (BEC) and Elsewhere Condition (EC) have
been discussed in light of the Tigrigna language.
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Lexical Phonology