Abstract:
The study investigates phonological and morphological adaptation of loanwords in
Dagbani, a Mabia (Gur) language spoken in the Northern part of Ghana. In contrast to
existing literature in the language, this study examines a typology of loanwords
adaptation in Dagbani. Data of 260 loanwords were drawn from existing literature,
Dagbani dictionary, elicitation and my native intuition, and analysis was cast within
the theoretical framework of Basic Linguistic Theory of Dixon (1997). The findings
demonstrate that phonological processes which underline loanwords adaption are
triggered by syllable structure differences in the adaptor and donor languages.
Loanwords that are adapted from languages such as English, Arabic, Hausa and Akan
into Dagbani undergo some repair strategies to ensure that those loanwords are
adjusted into the syllable structure rules of Dagbani. Some phonological adaptation
processes analyzed here include segmental adaptation, segmental processes (e.g
palatalization, debuccalization, liquid substitution and fortition) and syllable structure
processes including epenthesis, deletion, diphthongs adaptation and importation. The
study also analyzed morphological adaptation processes such as inflectional suffixes,
derivational suffixes, aspectual markers and compounding. I conclude that Arabic
models mostly undergo segmental adaptation in Dagbani whilst loanwords from the
four source languages undergo various forms of segmental processes and syllable
structure processes. Finally, I contend that the need to fill lexical and semantic gaps,
religious and cultural dominance as well as trade license borrowing in Dagbani. The
study is important because it approaches the study of loanwords adaptation from a
perspective that has not been done in the literature available so far.
Description:
A Thesis in the Department of GUR-GONJA Education, College of Ghanaian
Languages Education, Submitted to the School of Graduate Studies, University of
Education, Winneba, in partial fulfilment of the requirement for the award of Master
of Philosophy (Ghanaian Language, Dagbani) Degree.