MORPHO-PHONOLOGICAL ADAPTATION OF VERB BORROWINGS FROM ENGLISH ON THE VITALITY OF` LUKABRAS LANGUAGE

Abstract

Loan adaptation in language contact situations occurs when a language borrows words or expressions from another language and modifies them to fit the phonological, morphological, or syntactic norms of the borrowing language. The adapted forms might affect the vitality of the receiving language. In this perspective, this study focused on the morphophonological adaptation of Lukabras verbs borrowed from English language and sought to establish the effects of these borrowed verbs on the vitality of Lukabras language. The specific objectives of the study were; to examine the morphophonological processes involved in the adaptation of Lukabras loan verbs from English language, to establish the morphophonological constraints that govern the adaptation of Lukabras loan verbs from English language and to establish the effects of English language loan verbs on Lukabras linguistic vitality. The study was informed by the Optimality Theory by Prince and Smolensky and Ethnolinguistic Vitality Theory. Optimality Theory was used to analyse the morphophonological processes and constraints involved in the adaptation of Lukabras loan verbs while the Ethnolinguistic Vitality Theory accounted for the vitality of Lukabras language during borrowing. Ethnolinguistic vitality theory provided the tenets that were used to measure the vitality of Lukabras language. The study adopted a descriptive research design with qualitative research approach focusing on Lukabras borrowed verbs from English. The verbs were derived from native speakers located in Kakamega North Sub County. Kakamega North Sub- County is multilingual where people speak Lukabras, English and Kiswahili languages. The study employed purposive sampling procedure to arrive at fourteen (14) Lukabras native speakers as respondents and 150 borrowed verbs as the units of analysis. Through systematic sampling, 50 lexical items were picked from the 150 borrowed verbs for analysis. Focus Group Discussions, and In depth interviews were used to collect data. Content analysis also used to describe the data by identifying themes that emerged from the findings. The study established that Lukabras and English morpho-phonology differ and the borrowed English loan verbs are morphologically adapted in Lukabras through morpho-phonological processes such as prefixation, suffixation, vowel epenthesis, deletion, reduction, consonant devoicing, substitution and deletion. The study also revealed that the morphophonological constraints that governed the nativization of the English loan verbs in Lukabras are; COMPLEX, NOCODA, MAX IO, ONSET, DEP IO, IDENT IO, ALGHN (left edge) and PEAK. The loan verbs from English had also added to Lukabras vocabulary thus increasing its vitality. It is hoped that the findings of this study will contribute to the existing literature on Bantu languages in relation to borrowing.