Word Formation in a Wngi
No Thumbnail Available
Date
2006-05
Authors
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
Volume Title
Publisher
Addis Ababa University
Abstract
This thesis attempts to investigate and explain the word- formation processes of A wngi,
one of the Central Cushitic (Agew) languages. Derivation and Compounding have been
dealt as the word formation processes. The derivational process included noun, verb,
adjective and adverb derivations. These largely represent the non-inflectional aspects of
morphology.
The section on derivation describes the different lexical categories that are derived by
adding various suffixes to bases, stems or roots belonging to different lexical categories.
The addition of the suffixes shows different phonological, morphological, syntactic and
semantic properties of the language.
The section on compounding describes the different lexical categories that are formed by
combining two words. The gaps exhibited in the process of combining different lexical
categories are also shown. The process of compounding also shows the different
phonological, syntactic and semantic properties operating in the language.
The study also attempts to describe the position of the head of derived and compound
words. In both derivation and compounding, the head is detem1ined by its syntactic and
semantic features. The head is considered to be the constituent, which has either the same
syntactic feature as the whole word or the one, which determine the central meaning of
the derived and compound word.
Description
Keywords
Word Formation