Lexical and Phrasal Phonology of Yoruba Nouns

Abstract

This study deals primarily with the interrelationship between the phonological and morphological processes in Yoruba, within the theory of Lexical Phonology. It is shown that the facts of Noun + Verb constructions and Noun + Noun constructions are accounted for in a much simpler and in a more principled way if phonological rules apply not only at the syntactic level, but also in the morphological component. The study presents a detailed account of all the morphological processes in Yoruba: Prefixation, Compounding, and Reduplication. Two types of compounding are proposed: Type 1 Compounding and Type 2 Compounding. Both types are derived in the lexicon which consists of two strata. Type 1 compounds are derived in stratum 1, while Type 2 compounds are derived in stratum 2. A theory that does not recognize the lexicon as consisting of different strata (or levels) is found to be inadequate to account for these two types of compounds in Yoruba. Three types of reduplication processes are also proposed: Syllabic Reduplication, Double Reduplication, and Full Morpheme Reduplication. The Double Reduplication process, in particular, is found to be much simpler and more economical than the previously proposed VCV Reduplication. Apart from differentiating between two types of compounding, the study further presents the semantic, phonological, syntactic, and morphological differences and similarities between compound and phrasal verbs on one hand, and compound and phrasal nouns on the other. The evidence from Yoruba provides a strong support for the most important assumption of Lexical Phonology, which is that phonological rules should apply lexically, post-lexically, or both.