Morphological nativization of English loanwords in Olunyole: A constraints-based analysis

Abstract

When speakers of Olunyole come in contact with English language, they tend to borrow words from the English which contain alien sounds to the grammar of Olunyole. These English loanwords must be integrated into Olunyole grammar, which necessitates nativization process. The purpose of this study was to explain how Olunyole integrates English loanwords into its morphological system. A corpus of 170 English loanwords in Olunyole formed the basis for the analysis in this study. This data was collected from native speakers of Olunyole in Luanda Township and Wamasiolo sub-location in Luanda Sub-County-Kenya. Data was collected using Semi-Structured Interviews, Note Taking, and Audio Recording. The findings of this study show that English loanwords in Olunyole are morphologically nativized through class allocation followed by morphological conditioning through prefixation. The goal of the current study was to examine the phonology and morphology of Olunyole loanwords using the framework of optimality theory. The study limited itself to nouns. There are other lexical classes of Olunyole that are affected by the nativization process. These should also be studied to provide a comprehensive Olunyole loanword analysis.