Yorùbá Worldview

A COMPARATIVE STUDY OF STANDARD YORÙBÁ AND ÀKÚRẸ́ YORÙBÁ ON PHONOLOGICAL, LEXICAL AND SYNTACTIC STRUCTURES

Fadairo, Opeyemi Yusuf

Linguistics, African and Asian Studies

Department University of Lagos.

08066095215.

fadairoyusuf@yahoo.com

Abstract

This study discusses the attestation of the phonological, lexical and syntactic structures in Standard Yoruba (SY) and Akure dialect of Yoruba (AY). A look is cast into the areas of convergence and divergence as regards the mentioned structures in the two forms of language. This will be dealt with critically, as many scholars (Fresco, 1970), (Przezdziecki, 2005), (Baiyere, 2004) just to mention a few, who have written on the comparative study of SY and retinue of other Yoruba dialects have not really delved into this aspect or have dealt with it by a scratch at the surface.

Keywords: Standard Yoruba, Akure Yoruba, phonological, lexical and syntactic structures.

Introduction

This study has two major parts. The first focuses on introduction which gives a general background to all the issues raised in the work and how they are slated for resolution. The second part discusses the phonological process, lexical items/structure and their syntactic domains as they interact between SY and AY. The behavioral stance of these linguistic elements is the major drive behind this study. It is therefore highly imperative to mention here that all our claims here are subject to empirical proofs and counter-proofs by scholars who may see things differently from us.

The Standard Yoruba and Akure Dialect

In general appraisal, Yoruba language is one of the three prominent languages spoken in Nigeria. It belongs to the Niger-Congo family of African languages. It is spoken according to Oyetade (2011) by thirty million people in Nigeria as a first language and the number increases by two hundred thousand if the people speaking it as a second language are added.

The standard Yoruba which is a form of the language that is mutually intelligible to all the speakers of Yoruba is a type which is believed to have been formed or developed from all other dialects put together. It is just that it has a very close affinity with Oyo dialect of Yoruba than it has with others.

The duties ascribed to the standard Yoruba well defines the status with it is accorded. These duties are legislation, media, writing and pedagogy (Yusuff, 2013). In reference to this Przezdziecki (2005) has argued that:

…each dialect is a language in its own right, a system with all the linguistic attributes of a language. Linguistically, there is nothing inherent to these systems that makes one a language and the others dialects of that language. However, politically, a dialect is considered a language by virtue of its status in politics and society. For this reason, Standard Yoruba is referred to as a language by virtue of its status in Yoruba society.

The status mentioned here points to the duties listed earlier. On the other hand, Akure is one of the retinue of dialects of Yoruba which according to Adetugbo (1967), Adeniyi (2005) etc. is characterized as Central Yoruba. Adeniyi (2005) further states the towns covered by the dialect as follows: Àkúrẹ́, Ijù, Ìta-Ògbólú, Ìjàrẹ́, Ìgbátòrò, Ọ̀bà-ilé, Ùṣò, Ìlárámọ̀kín, Òdá etc. The phonological comparison of these two variants of language i.e. AY and SY is discussed under the following sub-headings.

Vowel Harmony System (VHS)

One of the significant restrictions imposed on vowel combinations by many languages of the world is VHS (Ladefoged 1975:202). Yoruba VHS functions under Advance Tongue Root [ATR] system which groups the vowels into two different sets namely: advanced [+ATR] and retracted [-ATR]. In reference to the as created by Steward, J.M, Przezdziecki (2005) defined the [ATR] as being created to:

Describe a distinguishing feature of sets of vowels, mostly in languages of West Africa, exhibiting certain vowel co-occurrence partterns. It has two sets of vowels: one set [+ATR] is characterized articulatorily by a wide pharyngeal volume, and the other set [-ATR] by a narrow pharyngeal volume. In these languages, vowels within a certain domain generally come from either the [+ATR] set or [-ATR] set.

The pattern in SY involves the spreading of [-ATR] from both mid and low vowels which gives us [a, ẹ, ọ] then, that of [+ATR] between mid and high vowels that gives us [I, u, e, o] (Archangeli and Pulleyblank, 1994).

I want to claim in this study that AY exhibits VHS in many ways very different from SY. To substantiate this claim, the harmonic vowel occurrence in phonologically conditioned environment in AY is elicited in the data below.

· Harmony spreading: VHS across word boundary (Przezdziecki 2005)

SY AY SY AY

(1) ó lɔ ɔ́ lɔ (2) ó pɛ́ ɔ pɛ́

3sg went 3sg went 3sg take long 3sg take long

He/she went He/she went it took long it took a long

(3) ó tó ó tó (4) ó pé ó pé

3sg enough 3sg enough 3sg complete 3sg complete

It is enough It is enough it is complete it is complete

· Strict VHS adherence in AY mono-morphemic, non-onomatopoeic[1] tri-syllabic nouns.

(5) SY AY

èlùbɔ́ ɛlùbɔ́ ‘a kind of food’

orúkɔ ɔrúkɔ ‘name’

erùpɛ̀ ɛrùpɛ̀ ‘sand’

òtítɔ́ ɔtítɔ́ ‘truth’

It is shown in (5) that unlike in SY where there is no ATR agreement in the form of words presented above, AY strictly agrees in ATR all through the syllables of the words.

Deletion vs. Assimilation

It is generally believed that phonological rules apply in ordered form. As such, deletion usually comes before assimilation. Where deletion cannot take place, then assimilation becomes obligatory (Akinlabi A. O, F.O Oyebade 1986). I want to propose here that AY prioritizes deletion while assimilation becomes optional. This means assimilation can only take place in few cases when deletion fails to function.

(6)

Natural Form	AY Deletion	SY Assimilation	Gloss
Àkíké	Àíké	Àáké	Axe
Èdídú	Èídú	Èédú	Charcoal
Èrírí	Èírí	Èérí	Dirt
òtítɔ́	òítɔ́	òótɔ́	Truth

The phonological process of assimilation that led to these words under SY as described by Owolabi (2004) is shown below:

(7) Erírú – noun (underlying representation)[2]

Eírú – C deletion (surface representation in AY)

Eérú – assimilation (surface representation SY)

It can be inferred from the three-level rule application above how the difference in the choice of phonological processes came about between SY and AY. Whereas the former completes the level, the latter stops on the second and thus making the outcome the surface representation. It appears that apart from a specific reason like negation, SY does not feature the co-occurrence of different vowels like AY, i.e. a kind that is void of an intervocalic consonant. In which case, it is possible to have words like: àìsùn (without sleeping), àìjẹ (without eating), àìwá (without coming) etc in SY. Apart from this, no other environment can different vowels possibly feature in the like manner. This is different in AY because of the presence of the examples under AY in (6).

The n and l Alternation

These two consonants have been described by Awobuluyi (1978:149) as two sides of the same coin. This implies that where one is found, the other does not occur. There are two basic generative rules written for /n/ and /l/ alternation in SY. These rules are as follows:

(8) R1: n → l/ + syllable (b) R2: l → n / +syllable

+nasal -nasal

I want to claim here that these rules are vacuous in AY as /n/ is not permissible in all the areas postulated by Awobulyi as discussed by Ajiboye (1991), for the choice of /n/ as the phoneme. This is shown in the data below:

(9)

Positions	SY	AY	Gloss
Noun formed from the prefix ‘oní’	onĩʃu onĩlá	olíʃu ɔlílá	yam seller okra seller
VP ‘ni’ and ‘ní’	ni mo sɔ ní owó	li mɔ fɔ̀ lí eó	is 1sg say have money
PP ‘ní’	ní ilé	lí ulé	at home

The above data has been able to establish the fact that the phonological process of /n/ and /l/ alternation does not obtain in the dialect. The reason as shown in the data is because /l/ becomes the choice in AY in all cases where /n/ is chosen to alternate /l/ in SY.

LEXICAL STRUCTURE

The lexical structure of AY is not too different from what we have in SY. All the classes of words are well attested in both variants of language and they are also patterned the same way. However, there are cases of different structure of individual words in both variants. In AY, we usually have /u/ representing /i/ or vice-versa in the initial position of some words. In his take about this, Bamgbose (1984) says that:

The case for recognizing in a contraction more than one variant of the same word which differ only in their initial vowel rest (example of which is) the widespread alternation between the vowels i and u which occurs among the dialect Yoruba, and Standard Yoruba.

(Epenthesis mine)

This is exactly what happens in AY, a bunk of i-initial SY word becomes u-initial in AY. Examples of words that operate within this scope are:

(10) SY AY

Iṣu uṣu

Itan utan

Iná uná

Ilé ulé

Ilú ulú

Ilù ùlù

It is important to bear in mind here that this alternation has nothing to do with the meanings of the lexical items. As seen in the above data, the alternation might have been conditioned by the kind of the harmonic feature that operates in the dialect.

More so, some lexical items appear without some consonants in AY while in SY they are retained. It is difficult to categorically state the reason behind the consonant loss in those words because even in slow and emphatic speeches, the consonants are still not present. The most widespread of this is the loss of w in the following words:

(11) SY AY

owó eó

wá á

àwọ̀ àọ̀

ẹ̀wọ̀n ẹ̀ọ̀n

màrìwò mọ̀rìò (c.f Ajiboye 1991)

Once again, the loss of consonant w in these words does not affect their meanings. Ajiboye (1999) attested to the fact that it is going to be cumbersome to get a principle that accounts for the loss in these forms of words because they do not follow a specific pattern.

SYNTATIC STRUCTURE

The discussion about the sentence structure of both variants of language (i.e. SY and AY) here will feature some components like focus construction and negation. Since the scope of syntax concerning the number of components it has is very wide, I have decided to center my focus on these two while the rest is left for further studies.

Focus Construction

By focus, we mean a way of rendering a constituent emphatic in a sentence. According to Arokoyo (2008), focus is defined as having:

….to do with new information and it indicates where the new information lies and the unit carrying the information.

In both SY and AY, the focused constituent is moved to the initial position of the sentence and ni, a focus marker is introduced in front of the focused constituent. This according to Jones (2006) is represented below:

(12) [XP]_F ni […..]

The (12) above is a typical structure obtainable from focus marking where [XP] represents the focused element that is moved in its former position somewhere in between [….] as described above by Jones (2006). Taking (13) as the underlining representation, the patterning of focus construction in both variants of language is brought to light in (14).

(13) SY AY

Adé ra ìwé Adé ra ùwé

Ade buy book Ade buy book

Ade bought a book Ade bought a book

(14) SY AY

Adé ni ó ra iwé Adé lí[3] Ø ra ùwé

Adé FOC 3sg buy book Adé FOC 3sg buy book

[Ade]_F bought a/the book [Ade]_F bought a/the book

Whereas in SY, as we have in (14), whenever the subject is focused, the third person singular resumptive pronoun ó is obligatory in the extraction site (Jones 2006 and Ajiboye 2006), this is not so in AY as the position of the resumptive pronoun becomes null.

The object (of the verb) can also be focused in both language variants. This is described below:

(15) SY AY

Ìwé ni Adé rà Ùwé la Adé rà

Book FOC Adé buy Book FOC Adé buy

It was [a book]_F Adé bought It was [a book]_F Adé bought

In (15), the only difference that exists is due to the phonological process of assimilation that happened between the focus marker and the passive object of the sentence in AY. Lastly, the way verbs and verb phrase are focused in SY are exactly the same with what obtains in AY. The monosyllabic verb will be changed into a gerundive reduplicated form before it is focused. In both variants, a copy of the focused verb remains in-situ. This is shown in the examples below:

(16) SY AY

Rírà ni Adé ra ìwé Rírà li Adé ra ùwé

Buying FOC Ade buy book Buying FOC Ade buy book

Ade bought a/the book Ade bought a/the book

(17) SY AY

Ríra ìwé ni Adé ra ìwé Ríra ìwé ni Adé ra ìwé

Buying book FOC Ade buy book Buying book FOC Ade buy book

Ade bought a/the book Ade bought a/the book

From the examples above, it is obvious that focusing V and VP in both SY and AY are the same in this part.

Negation

This is a formation that opposes or contradicts the semantic representation of a constituent. It is a construction in grammatical and semantic that typically exposes the contradiction of some or all the sentence meaning. In his explanation of the meaning ascribable to negativity in sentences, Yusuff (2008:135) opines that:

...it is correct to say that negative is used largely to deny supposed belief of the hearer in the context where the corresponding affirmative has been assumed rather than to impart new information in the context of the hearer’s ignorance.

This serves as the basic mode behind the formation of negative sentences in all natural languages which does not sidestep SY and AY.

Olumuyiwa (2012) agrees with many other scholars that we have two basic types of negation in Yoruba which are constituent negation and sentence negation. The constituent negation happens when a part of the sentence is negated while the whole sentence is negated whenever we have sentence negation. This work has the latter type under its view.

In Yusuff (2006:40) description of what makes a sentence negative, he pointed out some elements he called ‘negative markers’ which are: kì, kọ́, má and kò/ò. In this study, two of these markers will be looked into.

The discussion about the first negator, features a phono-syntactic explanation of kò in AY in comparison with how it functions in SY. I want to state here that the negative sentence with the kò when it occurs in an environment where it refers to first person singular or plural subject[4] in AY is phonologically conditioned. This is because negation of this sort in the dialect is motivated by tone assimilation. This is elicited in the data below:

(18) a. SY AY

Tọ́pẹ́ fọ aṣọ Itọ́pẹ́ fọ aṣọ

Tọ́pẹ́ wash cloth Tọ́pẹ́ wash cloth

Tọ́pẹ́ washed cloths Tọ́pẹ́ washed cloths

b. Tọ́pẹ́ kò fọ aṣọ Itọ́pẹ́ ẹ́ ẹ fọ aṣọ

Tọ́pẹ́ Neg wash cloth Tọ́pẹ́ HTS Neg wash cloth

Tọ́pẹ́ did not wash cloths Tọ́pẹ́ did not wash cloths

(19) a. Ayọ̀ ọ́ rìn lọ Ayọ̀ ọ́ rìn lọ

Ayọ̀ HTS walk go Ayọ̀ HTS walk go

Ayọ̀ walked away Ayọ̀ walked away

b. Ayọ̀ kò rìn lọ Ayọ̀ ọ́ ọ̀ rìn lọ

Ayọ̀ Neg walk go Ayọ̀ HTS Neg walk go

Ayọ̀ did not walk away Ayọ̀ did not walk away

(20) a. Ẹ̀bùn ún fẹ́ Ẹ̀bùn ún wá

Ẹ̀bùn HTS want Ẹ̀bùn HTS want

Ẹ̀bùn wants Ẹ̀bùn wants

b. Ẹ̀bùn kò fẹ́ Ẹbùn ún waá

Ẹ̀bùn Neg want Ẹ̀bùn HTS want+Neg

Ẹ̀bùn does not want Ẹ̀bùn does not want

c. ọmọ kò gbọ́ ọmọ ọ́ gbọọ́

ọmọ Neg hear ọmọ HTS hear+Neg

ọmọ did not hear ọmọ did not hear

d. Òjó kò wá ilé Òjó aá ulé (c.f Awobuluyi 1978)

Òjó Neg come home Òjó come+Neg home

Òjó did not come home Òjó did not come home

In the above data, (18a), (19a) and (20a) establish the positive part of the sentences while the others are negative sentences. This is in order to clearly see the pattern of the negator in both variants of language. It becomes obvious looking at the data above that instead of kó which negates the sentences under SY, AY has its own negation being ignited by tone assimilation. This comes in two phases. Before discussing these phases, it is imperative to state here that the form of the negator here is a kind of ‘v’[5] with no surface/phonetic representation; its usage is conditioned by assimilation.

The first phase characterizes the vowel assimilation which takes place between the last vowel of the subject and the ‘v’ or between the first syllable of the following verb as the case may be, while the second deals with the tone of the verb in the sentence determining the tone on the ‘v’. If the verb bears a mid or a low tone, the ‘v’ bears the same tone too. However, the pattern of high tone verb is very different from this in that it usually has the negator infused in the containing verb as its first syllable. This is shown in (20b) and the same idea is further established with (20c) and (d) consecutively.

The second negator is kì which is referred to as a variant of the first (kò) by Awobulyi (1978). According to Yusuff (2006), when kì is followed by the habitual tense marker i, this often makes up a negative marker called habitual negator which appears like kì í in the habitual negative sentences. Whereas the idea of habitual negative marking is formed in SY by two adjacent words, it is a monosyllabic and mono-morphemic word in AY that serves this same purpose which is realized as i in the dialect. This i however, in most times, assimilates the feature of the preceding vowel. This is shown in the following examples:

(21) SY AY

Ọlọ́run kì í sùn Ọlọ́ọrun ún un sùn

God Neg Asp sleep God HTS Neg sleep

God does not sleep God does not sleep

(22) SY AY

Ayọ̀ kì í gbọ́ àlàyé Ayọ̀ ọ́ ọ gbọ́ àlàyé

Ayọ̀ Neg Asp hear explanation Ayọ̀ HTS Neg hear explanation

Ayọ̀ never listens Ayọ̀ never listens (c.f Yusuff 2006)

From (21) and (22) above, it can be inferred that AY introduces HTS before the habitual negative marker which comes in an assimilated version of the preceding vowel. Here we see a phono-syntactic process permeating the environment of this type of negation. This starts with the last syllable of the subject noun through the HTS to the negative marker. It is purely an assimilation process, it just that this time, it happens across word boundaries in a formed negative sentence of AY. This is in contrast with what we have in SY where we have a simpler habitual negative structure.

Conclusion

We have tried to establish some forms of phonological, lexical and syntactic relations in respect to the similarities and most especially, the differences between the Standard Yoruba and Akure Yoruba in this study.

We realized in the course of this study that the patterning of phonological rules, though functions in the same way in both variants of language, have some interesting areas where they differ. The same goes for both the lexical and syntactic structures that obtain in them. All of these are well laid out in the work.

Our contributions in form of critical views and assertions are what we hope will solidify as a contribution to the body of knowledge already established in all aspects touched in the work.

REFERENCES

Adeniyi, H. (2005). ‘Àwọn Ẹ̀ka-èdè Yorùbá’ in Ìlò Èdè àti Ẹ̀dá-Èdè Yorùbá: Yorùbá Linguistics and Language Use, Adeniyi H. and A.Ojo (eds.) Trenton: Afrca World Press, Inc.

Adetugbo, A. (1967) The Yoruba Language in Western Nigeria: Its Major Dialect Areas. Ann Arbor, Michigan: University Microfinance International.

Ajiboye, O.A (1991). Àtúnyẹ̀wò Fonọ́lọ́jì Mọ̀bà, M.A Dissertation, University of Ilorin, Nigeria.

Akinlabi, A. O, F.O Oyebade (1986). ‘Lexical and Post-Lexical Rule Application: Vowel Deletion in Yoruba’. Journal of West African Languages XVII, 2:23-42

Arokoye (2008). ‘A Survey of of Focus Construction in Owé’ in Current Perspectives of Phono-Syntax and Dialectology, Adika, G.F, Abidemi F and A.S Salawu (eds.), pg 120-139, Winneba, Ghana: Black Mask Ltd.

Archangeli, D and D. Pulleyblank (1994), Grounded Phonology, Cambridge: MIT Press.

Awobuluyi, (1967). “Vowel and Consonant Harmony in Yoruba” Journal of African Language Vol.6.

………..(1978). Essentials of Yoruba Grammar, Ibadan: Oxford University Press.

Baiyere, B. (2004), ‘Aspect of Owe Focus Construction: A Government and Binding Approach. MA Dissertation, Dept of Linguistics and Nigerian Languages, University of Ilorin

Fresco M. (1970) ‘Topics in Dialectology’: Studies in African Linguitics, Vol 1.

Jones, S (2006). ‘Focus in Yoruba: A semantics/Pragmatics Account’ in ZAS Papers in Linguistics 46, pg 143-160.

Ladefoged, P. (1975). A Course in Phonetics, NewYork: Harcourt, Brace Jovannovich Inc.

Olasope Oyelaran (1972). Some Hackneyed Aspects of the Phonology of the Yoruba Verb Phrase.

Oyetade, O. (2011), ‘The Yoruba Language in Diaspora: Lesson From English Language’ In Journal of Yoruba Study Association of Nigeria. Ibadan: Hakolad Prints.

Przezdziecki, M.A (2005). “Vowel Harmony and Coarticulation in Three Dialects of Yoruba: Phonetics Determining Phonology”. Doctoral Dissertation, Cornell University.

Yusuff. L.A (2006). Ojúlówó Gírámà Yorùbá, Ibadan: Joytal Printing Press.

……… (2008). ‘Negative Adverbs in Yoruba’ in Ihafa: A Journal of African Studies, Vol. 5, No 3

……… (2013). ‘The Structure of Yoruba’, Department of Linguistics African and Asian Studies Class Note. University of Lagos, Akoka.

[1] These features are adapted from Awobuluyi (1967:3) in his claim that SY exhibits [±Back] VH principle in the last two syllables of mono-morphemic, non-onomatopoeic and polysyllabic nouns.

[2] The two epentheses here are solely my idea; they are not as expressed in Owolabi (2004). They are used in order to present the data more explicitly.

[3] It is noteworthy to state here that ni in SY is realized as li in AY, there is no distributional or semantic difference between both, the only difference observable is at the phonetic level.

[4] The classification of environment in which kò functions has been done by Awobuluyi (1978) and Taiwo (2009). The one used here is based on the work of the latter scholar.

[5] This is adapted from Oyelaran (1972) which refers to Bamgbose’s description of the v as a tone bearing unit found in-between the controversial non-splitting verbs like jókòó which according to him is realized from jó + v̀kó.

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