Lexical Morphology of Lala: A Morphophonological and Morphosyntactic Analysis

Abstract

The study analysed lexical morphology of Lala. This was done by analysing the morphophonological and morphosyntactic processes involved in word formation. Lala speaking people are found in central province of Zambia in Serenje, Mkushi, Luano and Kapiri Mposhi districts. It is also spoken in some parts across the boarders in Democratic Republic of Congo. Lala is classified as M52 in Guthrie's classification of Bantu languages.

Data were collected using qualitative research design. Semi-structured interviews were conducted on thirty participants for primary data. Stories were also used to collect primary data. Secondary data were collected from a few known books in Lala such as Lala Bible, hymn book, Lala Lamba Wisa English Dictionary and Lala-Lamba Handbook. Data were organised according to specific parts of speech and analysed using two theories namely; Lexical Morphology Theory for morphophonological process involved in word formation, and X-Bar theory of the Government and Binding Theory, for analysing the syntax of compound nouns. 

The findings were that derivation as word formation process in Lala involves the following: a). verbal derivation; this process involves affixation of verbal extension to bases, thereby forming new radicals and formation of verbs from onomatopoeias. b). adjectival derivation; some adjectives are derived from verbs by affixing applicative extension to a verbal root. c). Nominal derivation; this process is used to form deverbatives, de-adjectivals, de-onomatopoeias, de-nominals, abstract nouns and some names of colours. d). Locativization; this word formation process involves affixation of locatives to demonstratives pronoun to form a locative demonstrative. e). Reduplication; this word formation process involves repeating nouns, verbs, adjectives, numerals and idiophones to form a new lexeme.

Compounding is also used as a word formation process in Lala. Compound nouns in Lala are classified under semantic and syntactic categories based on their composition. Lala compound nouns are generally left headed. Under semantic classification, there are nouns in Lala which have semantic heads and others do not have. Endocentric compounds have heads. The head indicates the sub-grouping within the class of entities that it denotes. In the compound noun amatembo ngombe ‘big wasp', the left word gives the semantic category of the compound. On the other hand, exocentric compounds do not contain semantic heads. The meaning of the compound is not easily predicted from any of the constituents of the compound noun. For example, in muntu ngulya ‘evening time before dusk', the meaning is opaque. In copulative compounds, the two words involved in a compound noun contribute to the meaning of a compound noun. For example in amapandwa nshila ‘junction', the two words amapandwa ‘splinted parts' and inshila ‘way' contribute to the meaning of the compound on equal status. Syntactically, all compound nouns in Lala have heads. The head of a compound noun percolates its syntactic features to the rest of the constituents. In most cases, the other constituent acts as a modifier of the head word. Compounding in Lala involves the phonological process of vowel deletion as shown in examples above.      

The conclusion is that word formation in Lala is a lexical property. There are phonological processes at each stage in word formation in the lexicon. Some aspects of syntax are also involved in compounding.