Word Formation in Oyda

No Thumbnail Available

Date

2003-06

Journal Title

Journal ISSN

Volume Title

Publisher

Addis Ababa University

Abstract

There are several word formation processes, in Oyda. What they all have in common is that they take an existing base and produce a new form.It is investigated that only nominals, verbals and adjectivals can be used as bases in the formation of derivatives and that only these form classes can be the products of word formation. Therefore, the body of this study explores the nominalization, verbalization, adjectivalization and compounding processes. In the process of nominalization, the paper examines the derivation of abstract, agentive, manner, gerundive and process/result nominals. Regarding verbals, the thesis presents the derivation of causative, passive, intensive/iterative and reciprocal verbals. In the formation of adjectivals, the study analysis adjectival forms produced by different derivational suffixes, such as –iDe, -its,- anco, -e, -a –o and –ma. Concerning the process of compound words, the paper also discusses the formation of compound nominals, compound adjectivals, and compound verbals. Besides, the phonological, morphological, syntactic and semantic constraints observed in the process of nominalization, verbalization, adjectivalization, and compounding are examined. A number of word formation rules are also developed in order to handle the various possible ways of derivation and compounding. Concerning compounding the percolation of the category label from the head to the entire compounds is visualized by using a feature percolation convention.

Description

Keywords

Word

Citation

Collections