By Ezeorah, Emmanuel Chike Pg/Ma/12/61872 Department

PHONOLOGICAL VARIATIONS IN AKU AND UKEHE DIALECTS OF THE IGBO LANGUAGE

EZEORAH, EMMANUEL CHIKE PG/MA/12/61872

DEPARTMENT OF LINGUISTICS, IGBO AND OTHER NIGERIAN LANGUAGES UNIVERSITY OF NIGERIA, NSUKKA

JANUARY, 2017 i

TITTLE PAGE

UNIVERSITY OF NIGERIA, NSUKKA DEPARTMENT OF LINGUISTICS, IGBO AND OTHER NIGERIAN LANGUAGES

PHONOLOGICAL VARIATION IN AKU AND UKEHE DIALECTS OF IGBO LANGUAGE

A Thesis Submitted in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Award Master of Arts (M.A) in Linguistics (Phonology)

EZEORAH, EMMANUELCHIKE PG/MA/12/61872

SUPERVISOR: DR. (MRS) J.O. UGURU

JANUARY, 2017

CERTIFICATION

This is to certify that Ezeorah Emmanuel Chike, a postgraduate student in the

Department of Linguistics, Igbo and other Nigerian Languages, University of Nigeria,

Nsukka has satisfactorily completed the requirements for the courses and project work for the degree of the Master of Arts (M.A) in Linguistics.

The work embedded in this project is original and has not been submitted in part or full for any diploma or degree of this or any other university.

______Ezeorah Emmanuel Chike Dr. (Mrs) J.O. Uguru (Student) (Supervisor)

iii

APPROVAL PAGE

This research project has been approved for the Department of Linguistics, Igbo and other Nigerian Languages, University of Nigeria, Nsukka.

______Dr. (Mrs) J.O. Uguru Prof. C. U. Agbedo (Supervisor) (Head of Department)

______External Examiner Internal Examiner

______Prof. Christian Onyeji (Dean of Faculty)

DEDICATION Giving God all the glory, I dedicate this work to my parents Mr. and Mrs. M. U.

Ezeorah for their boundless love and care to my siblings and I.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

I have come to the full understanding of the saying that “iron sharpens iron”. My success in this thesis would have been a will-o-the-wisp without the unquantifiable contributions of some people whose moral and academic support enhanced the accomplishment of this work.

I owe a lot to my supervisor Dr. (Mrs) J.O. Uguru whose motherly directives, co- operation and patience all through the duration of this research; and through whose constructive criticisms, guidelines and library materials, we were able to manoeuvre all hurdles. Mummy! Without mincing words, you have made an indelible mark in my life. May

God continue to grant your heart’s desires.

My sincere appreciation goes to all the lecturers in the Department of Linguistics,

Igbo and other Nigerian Languages: Dr. E.E. Mbah, Professor G. I. Nwaozuzu, Professor

(Mrs) Ijeoma Okorji, Dr. Chuma Okeke, Dr (Mrs) M. I. Iloene, Professor B. M. Mbah, and the Departmental Coordinator for Postgraduate Studies, Professor Chris Agbedo for all their efforts and good wishes till the end of my M.A. Programme. I also express my gratefulness to all the non-academic staff of the Department for their friendly relations.

I give special thanks to all my academic advisers at the Ebonyi State University,

Abakaliki from where I obtained my B.A. degree. They are: Prof. Eric C. Okoli of the

Department of Food Science and Technology (FST), Dr. Jerry C. Chukwuokolo of the

Department of Philosophy, George O, Iloene of the Department of Languages and

Linguistics. My thanks go to Dr. M. A. Nwala Linguistics Department, University of Port

Harcourt. Others are Dr. E. C. Obianika, Mrs. Ngozi Nwobia, Mrs. Onu, Mr. Anyabuike,

Mrs. Umeche, Mr. Jerry Nwankwegu, Mr. O. E. Ubi, and Dr. Chinwe Okolo for all their care, concern and closeness, especially during this research. vi

I thank my loving parents Mr. And Mrs. M. U. Ezeorah who “fought tooth and nail”, paying prices of every form to see to the successful completion of my post graduate programme. Dad and Mum! I’m not surprised, you did it before, and you have done it again. I cannot forget to acknowledge in a more special way, my Uncle Prof. G.C.E Mbah who never looked back financially, especially when it comes to the issue of my academics. Uncle! Only

God will bless you for me. Other siblings who deserve my acknowledgement are Ezeorah

Calistus Chukwuma, Ezeroah Kenneth Agunecheibe and Chinenye Jane Ezeorah for all their affectionate supports and good wishes.

Next in my appreciative memory are my research respondents, helpers and informants who come from the two communities Aku and Ukehe where my research work was conducted. I give special kudos to all my friends and well wishers: Mr Ugwu Gerald

Okechukwu, Mr. Nsude Solomon Afamuefune, Isife Oluchi Victory, Ezike Genesis, Miss.

Nwani Chinasa and Nnabuchi Ebere Miracle for all their positive thinking and good wishes to me throughout the period of this research.

For want of space, I cannot mention everybody’s name. I hereby plead with all my people whose names are not mentioned here to bear with me. You are wonderful people and I cannot forget your special love for me. Please join others in sharing the credit of this work, while all the errors of commission or omission in the work are mine, and to that effect, I tender a humble apology.

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TABLE OF CONTENTS

Title Page ------i

Certification ------ii

Approval Page ------iii

Dedication ------iv

Acknowledgements ------v

Table of Contents ------vii

Abstract ------ix

CHAPTER ONE: INTRODUCTION

1.1 Background of the Study ------1

1.2 Statement of the Problem ------2

1.3 Research Objectives ------3

1.4 Research Question ------3

1.5 Justification of the Study ------4

1.6 Scope and Limitations ------5

CHAPTER TWO: LITERATURE REVIEW

2.0 Introduction ------6

2.1 Theoretical Studies ------6

2.2 Empirical Studies ------18

2.3 Summary ------31

CHAPTER THREE: METHODOLOGY

3.0 Introduction ------31

3.1 Area of Study ------31

3.2 Research Instrumentation ------31

3.3 Method of Data Collection ------31 viii

3.4 Method of Data Analysis ------32

CHAPTER FOUR: DATA ANALYSIS

4.1 Introduction ------34

4.1 The Phonenemic Inventories of Aku and Ukehe Dialects - - - 34

4.1.1 The Concept of Variation ------34

4.1.2 Consonant Variation in Aku and Ukehe Dialect - - - - 36

4.1.3 Consonant Similarities between Aku and Ukehe speech communities - 39

4.2 Vowel Chart of Aku and Ukehe Dialects - - - - - 40

4.2.1 The Concept of Vowel Variation - - - - - 41

4.2.2 Vowel Variations in Aku and Ukehe Speech communities - - - 42

4.3 Tones in Aku and Ukehe Dialects ------43

4.3.1 Tones Variations in Aku and Ukehe Speech Community - - - 44

4.3.2 High Tones in Aku and Ukehe Dialects - - - - - 46

4.3.3 Low Tones in Aku and Ukehe Dialects - - - - - 47

4.3.4 Down Step Tones in Aku and Ukehe Dialects - - - - 47

CHAPTER FIVE

5.1 Summary and Conclusion ------48

5.2 Recommendations ------49

REFERENCES

ABSTRACT This research work critically examines the phonological variation in Aku and Ukehe dialects of Igbo language. The method of data elicitation was mainly perceptual against descriptive approach. This was achieved through systematic observation and analysis of the speakers’ use of language in natural situations. In collecting the data 16adult male and female were interviewed with 8persons from each dialect, 4male and 4female respectively. We observes that the phonemes [dv], [ʃ], [ʒ], [r],[m], from Aku dialect was pronounced differently to Ukehe dialect as thus: [v], [s], [z], [l], [n]. Looking at both phonemes, one will think of different meaning from both dialects or rather that the meaning lied on their accent. From our findings, they are semantically the same but phonologically variants. Through the primary and secondary data, we were able to identify areas of similarities and differences in their phonology. The study focuses on the phonological variables of the selected dialects of Igbo language. We have also established that at the segmental level, the choice and use of certain segments by some dialectal groups may bring about phonological differences. The study also explores the use of tone and intonations in these dialects and clearly shows that tone and intonation play a dominant role in phonological variation in their dialects. Above all, the study reveals that there is a high level of mutual intelligibility amongst Aku and Ukehe dialects in spite of the phonological variation.

CHAPTER ONE

BACKGROUND OF THE STUDY

1.1 Introduction

This research work studies the phonological variation in Aku and Ukehe dialects of

Igbo Etiti local government area of Igbo. Igbo is one of the four largest languages of West

Africa. Within Nigeria, Igbo is spoken primarily in the following Southern Delta region state:

Abia, Anambra, Ebonyi, Enugu and Imo. Igbo speakers are typically bilingual, speaking

English as well. Igbo language is of the Benue-Congo sub family of the Volta Congo and

Atlantic Congo branches of the Niger Congo language family. According to Barmby (1929) there are approximately thirty Igbo dialect including the Igbo Etiti dialect; Within the Igbo

Etiti, ‘Aku and Ukehe’ are the most populated town within the dialectal zone. These dialects vary considerably with respect to degree of intelligibility with the standard dialect.

In studying any language in the world it is obvious to note that one has to take a look at the speech sound level. Through the available record, not much work has been done in

Igbo, especially the Igbo Etiti dialects of Aku and Ukehe respectively. This is what led to the choice of the topic of this project report, ‘Phonological variations in Aku and Ukehe dialects.

This work is expected to show clearly the Aku and Ukehe dialect of Igbo Etiti and further reveal parameters that account for their differences especially on the basis of their sound structure. Variation is mostly lexical and phonological. The standard literary form is itself a dialect under development. It is based on the Owerri, Onitsha and Umuahia dialects.

Aspiration and nasalization are also phonemic (contrastive) in the language. The tone systems of Igbo consist of two primary tones (high and low). When this tone changes, the tonal melodies occur. As in many West Africa languages, tone is both lexically contrastive and grammatical. In fact, the grammatical role played by tone is quite considerable, as more grammatical relations are expressed via tone than by word order/morphology. 2

As earlier stated, our choice of the phonological aspect is as a result of the primary and centrality of speech sounds in human language. According to Quirk and Greenbaum

(1975:2) “Regional variation seems to be realized predominantly in phonology that is, we generally recognize a different dialect from a speaker’s pronunciation before we notice that his vocabulary (or lexicon) is also distinctive”. It is against this background that this study investigates the phonological variations in Aku and Ukehe to elucidate the similarities and differences in the dialects.

1.2 Statement of the Problem

Phonological variation is a common phenomenon in human language all over the world. Interest in phonological variation is probably as old as interest in language itself.

However, since language is said to be inherently variable, there are many variations in Igbo language. These variations have been classified by dialectologists. The history of variations could be traced to the Sanskrit grammarian Panini (C. 600BC) (Chamber 2002:6).

The researcher is interest in studying phonological variation in Aku and Ukehe dialect is as a result of the fact that every human language begins at the speech sound level, that is, the phonetic level of every human language. Therefore the study of phonological variation in

Aku and Ukehe dialects of the Igbo language is to enlighten those who see speakers differently from their dialect as substandard and inferior, that there are factor that bring about the variation.

This work is therefore intended to bring out the phonological variations in Aku and

Uke and the use of suprasegmental features like tone and intonation will be looked at as they contribute to the phonological variation in both dialects.

Finally, the dialect in this type of linguistic endeavor has a lot to unveil.

1.3 Research Objectives

The broad objective of this work is to study the phonological variations in Aku and

Ukehe dialects as thus:

i. To investigate the mutual intelligibility among the speeches of Aku and Ukehe

dialects.

ii. To identify as much as possible the available speech sound variation in Aku and

Ukehe dialects iii. To ascertain whether or not suprasegmental features like tone and intonation

contribute to the phonological variations in both dialects. iv. To establish to some extent, the phonological relationship between both dialect in

terms of similarities and differences.

v. To determine the extent to which the phonological variation theories and principles

examined in literature can be apply to this research work.

1.4 Research Questions

i. To what extent can speech sound variation be identified in Aku and Ukehe dialects?

ii. What is the degree of phonological relationship between the Aku and Ukehe dialects

in terms of their similarities and differences? iii. What is the relative degree of mutual intelligibility among speeches of both dialects in

question (I or II) of the above? iv. To what extent are the phonological variation in Aku and Ukehe dialects are

compatible with the basic phonological variation theories and principle was examined

in the literature?

1.5 Significance of the Study

From the available literature at the disposal of the researcher, it appears this is about the first work that attempts to look at the phonological variations in Aku and Ukehe dialects in a fairly comprehensive and systematic manner.

Therefore, this study will reveal some of the hidden linguistic treasures in Aku and

Ukehe and will go a long way in enlightening the dialect groups the differences and similarities between the various dialects in the language. This will further bring about mutual understanding and peacefully co-existence as the various dialects will now understand why others speak and pronounce words the way they do.

Again, there is no gain saying the fact that this work will provide useful linguistic data that will help individual, government and non-governmental organizations that may wish to undertake linguistic research in Aku and Ukehe dialects, as there is need to standardize and modernize the dialects especially now that there are various attempts to studying it as an academic subject in our various schools. Also, the outcome of this kind of linguistic investigation will help to fill the gap that exists in the study of Igbo.

As earlier mentioned, speech sound is the primary level in the study of any language, and knowing the different sounds that exist in the different dialects of a language will enhance a proper acquisition of such a language and will go a long way in enhancing in other aspect of linguistics such as morphology, syntax and semantic? Above all, it is important to note that any native speaker of a language who is a linguist stands a better chance of properly analyzing his or her language. Looking at the significance of this issue, we can now conclude with the assertion of Ikekeonwu (2007) that “this is the time more than ever before, for linguistics, literary scholars and teachers of Nigerian language to become more resourceful in their approach to the propagation of the indigenous language to reach as many people as possible. 5

1.6 Scope and Limitation

This project investigates phonological variation in Aku and Ukehe dialects to ascertain the differences and similarities of the sounds in the dialects and also to show the level of mutual intelligibility among their communities.

We shall investigate the suprasegmental features like tone and intonation and reveal the various ways they have brought about phonological variation in both dialects. This research work does not cover all the dialects found in Igbo-Etiti Local Government Area, rather we select Aku and Ukehe which has the most population to study.

The work also has some limitations. One of them is paucity of knowledgeable scholars of a sound linguistic background in the study of Aku and Ukehe language for consultation.

Finally, not all levels of variations are considered, rather we focus mainly on the phonological variation (specifically the segmental and suprasegmental phonemes). This focus is based on the fact that variation abounds in these areas.

CHAPTER TWO

LITERATURE REVIEW

2.0 Introduction

The focus of this work is to x-ray the phonological variations in Aku and Ukeh dialects of the Igbo language. Here we are going to look at Aku and Ukehe dialects in order to point out areas of similarities and differences and also to show the uniqueness of the dialects.

The review of the related literature is divided into two sections: section one deals with the review of relevant theoretical work while the second is concerned with the review of empirical finding from similar research work.

2.1 Theoretical Studies

Here we are going to look at the theoretical review of the work because it is the lamp that lightens the path of any investigation.

Phonology is described as an aspect of language that deals with rules, structure and sequencing of speech sounds. Sommerstein (1977), states that phonology starts where phonetics stops. He explains further that phonology deals with the sound and the prosodic features defined by phonetics which is used in human language.

Katamba (1984:1) in his own contribution defines phonology thus: “phonology is the branch of linguistics which investigates the ways in which sounds are used systematically in different languages to form words and utterances”. Loos (2004) describes phonology as the study of how sounds are organized and used in natural languages. These sounds should illustrate the rules which show how sounds interact with one another. Loos point out further that phonology is one of the branches of linguistics which relate to other components of linguistics like morphology, syntax, pragmatics etc. 7

He shows them thus: Pragmatics

Semantics

Morphology

Phonology

Phonetics

Figure I: Level of linguistics analysis (Loos 2004)

He differentiates between phonology and phonetics. According to Loos, phonetics paves the way for phonology. Any phonological analysis is narrowed down to phonetics in describing human speech sounds despite the language of description while phonology paves way for morphology, syntax and discourse. These areas of language according to Loos, describe the sound patterns of a particular language by pointing out which speech sound that are distinctive and how they bring about meaning distinction.

Phonology is the study of the sound patterns found in human language; it is also the term used to refer to the kind of knowledge that speakers have about the sound patterns of their particular language (Fromkin and Rodman, 1978). Langacker (1973:145) asserts that the sounds of speech can be studied from various points of view. One can investigate the physical properties of speech sounds as they are transmitted through the air, measuring the amount of energy present in the acoustic signal, its distribution over the frequency spectrum, how these measurements change in the course of an utterance, and so on. According to him, another approach is to study sounds with respect to how we perceive them, asking questions like these: How much of a physical difference must there be between two sounds before a person can tell them apart? Which acoustic cues does the hearer rely on most heavily in speech 8 perception? Which physical properties of sounds does he ignore altogether? A third way to study speech sounds is to examine the way they are produced, or articulated by the speech organs.

Clark, Yallop and Fletcher (2007) also claim that phonology is concerned with the coordination of components of speech within a specific language or with the system and design of sounds that occur in a specific language. Lyons (1995) describes phonology as a universal phonetic system which determines the distribution of phonemes. Hyman (1975) on his analysis postulates that phonology is the study of the properties of the sound system which a speaker must adopt in order to use their language for the purpose of communication.

Yule (1996) explains that phonology is concerned with the abstract or mental aspect of the human speech sounds rather than the production of speech sounds. According to Yule, phonology deals with the underlying design of speech sounds that present the basis of all variation in different physical articulation of speech sound in different contexts. Yule supports his claim thus, when we think of the [t] in star and writer as being the same. In production of speech, the speech sounds are not the same but the difference between them is of less importance. What is important is the distinction between the [t] in general.

O’ and Archibald (2009) describe the phoneme as a mental representation, the way in which sounds are stored in the mind. They explain further that phonemes make differences when it comes to the meaning of words, that is, when two segments are phonologically the same and phonetically different, they are referred to as allophones of one phoneme. O’ and

Archibald further describe allophones as phonetically similar. According to them, allophones are predictable variants. They are in complementary distribution and where one occurs, the other will not occur.

They illustrate thus:

[1]

[ị] [1] 9

Figure II: A phonemic description (Ogbu Archibald 1987)

Stork and Widdowson (1981) posit that the phoneme is a unit in a sound system. They point out that to understand phoneme, it is important to think in a phonological space. They explain phonological space as a space where all sounds would be classified as the same element for the sound system of a definite language. According to them every phonological system of a language has its phonemic inventory which equips a speaker in producing grammatically sentences. Adrian, Richard, Ann and Robert (2001:109) also say that two or more languages may have the same phonemic inventory of phonetic sounds but differ in their phonological systems. Crystal (1997) defines the phoneme as speech sounds. According to him, these sounds are made up of consonants, vowels and suprasegmentals or like stress, tone, syllable structure etc. Crystal point out that the use of pitch and intonation is very important in a language to show meaning distinctions.

Anagbogu, Mbah and Eme (2010) explain that the main goal of phonology is to understand and describe how sets of sounds with prosodic features can organize themselves and give meaning in a language. They explain further that the sound that brings about meaning distinction in a language is referred to as a phoneme. They used minimal pair to show the distinction of the phoneme with the following examples. sit /sit/ fit /fit/

The sounds /s/ and /f/ in the above words bring a distinction therefore the /s/ and /f/ is regarded as phonemes in the English Language.

Sommerstein (1977:1) opines that there are two basic questions or view to determine the orientation of phonological studies or theories in the 20th century. 10

I, what phonic features serve in the language under investigation and how many of these

features are capable of serving in natural language to distinguish one utterance from

another?

II, what are the principles of determining the pronunciation of words, phrases and

sentences of a language?

Question one seeks to investigate how many of the speech sounds produced by normal human beings can be grouped as linguistic sounds and which of them can be used for linguistic study? In addition, how many of these sounds are used in specific languages such as, Hausa, Igbo and Yoruba?

Question two tries to ascertain and establish whether there is the possibility of unifying or harmonizing the patterns and principles adopted and used by different languages with the view to deriving the underlying representation of how languages are organized and used.

From the two questions or views above, it is clear that the first question provide the theoretical orientation and bedrock to the study of phonology from the mid 1920s and to the mid 1960 that is, the classical phonemics. The second view led to the revision of the phonological orientation of classical phonemics in the 1960s, which culminated in generative phonology and its subsequent modifications – autosegmental phonology, metrical phonology, lexical phonology and prosodic phonology (Ikekeonwu 1996).

Although Yul-Ifode (1996) links the origin of generative phonology to Panini

(500BC), what seems to be the formal inauguration of the transformational generative phonology was the publication in 1968 of the sound patterns in English (SPE) by Chonsky and Halle. Yul-Ifode however acknowledges the sound pattern of English as the theory of generative phonology, this she put in the following words.

The orthodox version of generative phonology began with the watershed work of Chomsky and Halle (1968), 11

the central work constitutes what is often referred to as standard theory of generative phonology. Generative phonology came up as a child of necessity owing to the inherent weakness associated with the classical phonemic framework.

Ikekeonwu (1996), Oyebade (1998) and Yul-Ifode (1999) are in agreement that the weakness and inability of classical phonemics to account for speech phenomena resulted in the revision of the orientation of phonological studies in the late 1960s. Omachonu (2001) declare thus:

The introduction of generative phonology into phonological analysis was consequent upon the flaws, weakness, inadequacies inconsistencies and shortcoming identified with classical taxonomic phonemics.

Generative phonology, according to Newmayer (1980) embodies three contemporary trends in linguistics. Firstly, it incorporates the unformalized insight about phonological processes that characterized the works of some American linguists. Secondly, it draws from the American structuralist the practice of explicit formalization of all rules and thirdly, it owes to the Prague school the overall explanatory goal of the psychological theory along with the ideal/concept of the distinctive features. Omachonu (2001) describes Newmayer’s position as a mere survey of linguistic theory in America in the first two decades of the existence of Transformational Generative Grammar (TGG).

The most recent theory is the Optimality Theory (OT) which is similar to the (SPE) model of generative phonology; it evolved as a child of necessity. Though from the late

1950s, philologists have determined to change the focus from the classical phonemic orientation towards generative phonology and all the modifications that followed. Despite the problem solving efficiency of SPE, the answer to the question of how utterances are derived remained unanswered. The quest for explanatory adequacy resulted in the current phonological model – Optimality Theory (OT). 12

Optimality theory OT, first introduced by Prince and Smolensky (1993), stands in contrast to rule-based theories of phonology. Optimality theory dictates that an optimal output form is selected from a set of candidates based on a ranking of violable well- formedness constraints. The candidate that minimally violates the constraints in the given ranking is selected as the optimal candidate and thus appears as the surface form. These candidates are evaluated in parallel of ordered rules, as a in a rule-base theory. Additionally, the set of constraints in OT is proposed to be universal, and the phonologies of languages theoretically differ solely in the ranking order of the constraint. OT is able to account for a range of phonological phenomena that rule-based theories cannot explain. Crucially for this paper, OT provides an arguably more realistic explanation of free variation.

The standard version of OT requires irreflexivity (no constraint can be ranked above or below itself), asymmetry (if x is ranked above y, it cannot be ranked below y), transitivity

(if x is ranked above y and y is ranked above z, then x is ranked above z), and connectedness,

“every constraint is ranked with respect to every other constraint” (Anttila and Cho,

1998:36). However, in order to account for variations, some of these principles must be violated, namely asymmetry and connectedness. The following version of OT provides alternate ways of representing phonological variation.

One method of accounting for variation as proposed by Anttila (1997) is the theory of partial ordered constraint (POC). This theory suggests that rather than having a fully determined ranking of constraints in one grammar, the speaker has multiple grammars that each has a different set ranking of the constraints relevant to the variation. These specific constraints that account for the different variants are unranked in the speaker’s grammar. At the moment of evaluation of a candidate, one of the possible grammars with a set of order of constraints is randomly selected, “when some of these total orders pick different candidate as optimal, variation result” (Coetzee and Pater, 2009:7). Additionally, the POC theory provides 13 a theoretical statistical calculation of the probability that a specific candidate will win. “If a candidate wins in n tableaux [where each tableaux represents one of the possible total orders given by the partially ranked constraint] and t is the total number of the tableaux, then the candidate’s probability of occurrence is n/t” (Anttila and Cho, 1998:39). The POC theory accounts for variation and provides some measure of the probability that certain variants will arise.

However, there are a number of drawbacks to the POC version of optimality theory.

For one, the theory predictions about the probability of certain candidate have been argued by many to be too strong because they determine a rigid probability for a given candidate based on the fraction of possible fixed ranking that would result in that candidate (Coetzee and

Pater, 2009:12). Boersma and Hayes (2001), for example, suggest that the POC would not be able to account for the “case that involves large disparities among output frequencies.

Additionally, it is unclear how a speaker could possible rerank constraint during acquisition in order to learn POC grammar. Stochastic OT, on the other hand, accounts for non-absolute probabilities of output forms and has an associate learning algorithm.

Stochastic OT and gradual algorithm in contrast to the rigid probabilities of the POC theory, the Stochastic version of OT first proposed by Boersma (1997) and further developed by Boersma and Hayes (2001) present a theory of an unbounded, “linear scale of constraints strictness, in which higher values correspond to higher-ranked constraint” (2001:3). Each constraint has a ranking value that is conceptualized as a probability distribution with a normal (Gaussian) distribution whose standard deviation is identical to the other constraints

(Boersma and Hayers, 2001:4-5). The following diagram from Boersma and Hayes (2001) present a visual interpretation of constraint with overlapping probability distribution.

Overlapping ranking distributions

C1 C2

Strict 90 88 80 84 82 80 lax

Figure III: The Overlapping probability distribution (Boersma and Hayes 2001)

The continuous nature of the scale of constraints allows the grammar to “maintain the degree of optimality” (Boersma, 1997:2). Crucially “at every evaluation of the candidate set, a small noise component is temporarily added to the ranking value of each constraint (in order to generate a random selection point within the probability distribution), so that the grammar can produce variable outputs if some constraint ranking are close to each other”

(Boersma and Hayes, 2001:1-2). A visual representation of this variation, also from Boersma and Hayes (2001) is presented below:

2.1 A common result: C2 >>C3 C3 3 2 C2

Strict lax

2.1 B Rare result C3 >>C2

3 2 C3 C2

Strict lax

In short, the amount of overlap between two constraints corresponds to the probability that one constraint will be ranked over the other in the moment of evaluation, which thus 15 corresponds to the predicted frequency of one candidate over another (Boersma and Hayes,

2001). If those two candidates are different, the grammar will exhibit free variation (Boersma and Hayes, 2001:4). Thus, Stochastic OT “predicts that final state grammar can be variable”, meaning that there is free variation within those adult grammars (Jarosz, 2011:7-8). However,

Stochastic OT still allow for relatively strict ranking, if two constraints are sufficiently far apart such that their overlap is negligible, they are understood to have the same effect on candidates as if they were ranked in a non-Stochastic version of OT (Boersma and Hayes,

2001). Another linguistic term crucial in this review is the term ‘Dialect’.

Dialects

Being that this work focuses on the dialects of a language, we hereby review some literature on the definition of dialects. Various attempts have been made by scholars towards the definition of the term “dialect”. Dialects emanate from varieties. Trudgill (1984: 5) says

“dialect refers to varieties, which are grammatically and perhaps lexically as well as phonologically different from other varieties”.

According to Fromkin and Rodman (1974:252), “language of a group of people may show regular variation from that used by another group”. They illustrated this with the example that the English spoken on a different social groups shows systematic differences.

Such groups are said to speak dialects of the same language.. Hudson (1980) asserts that what make one variety of language different from another are the linguistic items that they incorporates, so that the dialect of a language is a set of linguistic items with similar social distribution.

Also, the Dictionary of language and linguistics defined dialect as a linguistic system that shows a high degree of similarities to the other systems so that at least a partial mutual intelligibility is possible. Dialect is tied to a specific region in such a way that the regional distribution of the system does not overlap with an area covered by another such systems. In 16 her own contribution, Ikekeonwu (1986) writes “dialect is now generally known as the overall which is based on the assumption that minimal pairs of individual phoneme when considered in their totality would account for all the differences or contrasts found in the speech of any one speaker in a given language area of community. Weinrich quoted in

Ikekeonwu (1986), introduced the concept of ‘diasystem;’ that is, dialectology on one hand and structural linguistics on the other. This acknowledges the existence of dialects. He points out that the dialects of a language have to be established on the basis of the phonemic correspondences. The diasystem reveals areas of similarities and differences. It has been often overtly upheld that for two speech varieties to be regarded as dialect of a language, they must be mutually intelligible.

The term linguistic variation refers to the variable use of certain linguistic items as observed in the speech patterns of language users. If a structure is the heart of language then, variation defines its soul. As Sapir cited by Wolfram (2005), puts it, “Everyone knows that language is variable” furthermore, variation allows us to differentiate individual or group nature of variability in language. According to Labov (2001), variability is everywhere in language, from the unique details in each production of a sound or sign to the auditory or vision processing of the linguistic signal. Meanwhile the amazing facts about human communication is the demonstrated ability to normalize the inherent variation within every spoken or sign message processing the linguistic signal. Then the interpretation of dialect is usually where the problem lies. To define clear-cut rules by which different forms of speech become a language in its own right is extremely difficult. As Sihler (2000) points out, “there are infinitely many graduations between some languages and mutually unintelligible languages”. This difficulty leads to dispute over whether two different forms of speech are dialects or different languages. 17

Therefore, using the major dialects of the Yoruba such as Ekiti, Egba, Igbomina and

Yagba as example, Sotiloye in Yusuf (1992), refers to dialect as a regional variety of standard language. She further noted that the use of dialect is restricted to informal occasions where the interlocutors have a common medium of communication and that the dialect does not have any inferior status in relation to the standard variety as has been conceived at some quarters.

Language varieties should have some basic qualities for them to be deemed as dialect.

Such qualities are: Mutual intelligibility and Structural similarities.

Mutual intelligibility: This is one of the yardstick for measuring dialects and languages. It is a situation where speakers of A understand speakers of B and speakers of B understand A, where A and B, are two speech forms. If there is mutual intelligibility, the A and B are therefore dialects of the same language (Agbedo, 1998).

Structural similarities: Speech forms are said to be dialects of the same language if they share some kind of similarities on their grammatical levels of phonology, morphology and syntax. Perhaps, variables are concerned with phonological factors, word structure, word meaning and syntax. Variables are normally put in round brackets.

Agbedo (2000:173) also, says that language and dialect constitute a continuum so that you don’t know where language A begins and where it stops. You cannot pose a sharp boundary between language and dialect because the two of them are interwoven. There is no way you can cut off one without cutting off the other.

From the foregoing therefore, phonology studies the forms that make up vocal symbols, and how they are patterned into meaningful units. It is all about the ways through which the distinctive features of the language are organized and exploited by speakers to 18 enhance communication. A speaker is said to be phonetically competent in a language when such speaker is able to discern speech sounds that are phonetically different or similar in different environments.

Having gone thus far with theoretical issues, it is now necessary to turn to the empirical review as it relates to our area of investigation.

2.2 Empirical Studies

Commenting on the importance of empirical findings in research, Ikekeonwu (1986) states that the “General theories are more profound and convincing if firmly rooted in empirical data.” This part of the review focuses on the findings on phonological variation in

Aku and Ukehe dialect of the Igbo language.

The term phonological variation is accent. Accent is about pronunciation and it is referred to as internal variation, the property of language having different ways of expressing the same meaning. This internal variation referred to occurs within language, not across language differences. Accent in other words, refers to the phonology of a given dialect. Since we all have a dialect, we all have an accent and this leads to variation. This phonological variation, as the name implies, is the study of variation in a language relating to distinctive speech sounds. It varies in different contexts. These contexts refer to things like ethnicity, social class, sex, geography, age and a number of other factors.

Studies in linguistic variation have been handled by several language experts and linguists from various domains of linguistics, namely phoneticians, philologists, sociolinguists, dialectologists, to mention just a few.

The proponent of variation study was William Labov. His first variation study was carried out in 1961 on a small island off the New England Coast (Massachusetts) called

Martha’s Vinyard. In his study, Labov (1970), demonstrated the existence of differences between speakers in their use of certain linguistic variables. The main aim of the research was 19 the direct observation of a sound change in the context of the community life from which it stems.

According to Labov (1972:1) in Agbedo (2001:34) the change is a shift in the phonetic position of first elements of the diphthongs /ay/ and /aw/. By studying the frequency and distribution of phonetic variants of /ay/ and /aw/ in the several regions, age, level, occupation and ethnic groups within the island, Labov came to a conclusion that a linguistic change was in progress. He further observed that on-going sound change was in the form of a movement away from the standard New English realization of the vowels towards a pronunciation of the second element of the diphthongs associated with the conservative and characteristically vineyard speakers.

Also, Labov, Sharon and Boberg (2006), critically looked at the North American

English as regional phonology. They divided their speakers into several regional dialects based on phonological, phonetic, lexical and some syntactic features. North American

English includes American English, which is more homogeneous. American English

(especially the Western dialect) and Canadian English have more in common with each other than with the many varieties of English outside North American. Commenting on the North

Midland, Labov and his associates, said, “the region stretch from East to West across Central and Southern Ohio, Central Indian, Central Illinois, Iowa and Northern Missouri, as well as

Nebraska and Northern Kansas where it begins to blend into the West. The major cities of this dialect area include Columbus, Cincinnati and Indianapolis. This area is currently undergoing a vowel merger of the short O, /D/ (as in cot) and ‘aw’ /c/ (as in caught) phonemes. Many speakers show transitional forms of this so called cot-caught merger, which is complete in approximately half of the rest of North America.

The /æ/ phoneme (as in cat) shows most commonly as so called continuous /æ/ is raised and tensed toward /æ/ before nasal consonants and remains low /æ/ before voiceless 20 stop consonants and other allophones of /æ/ occupy a continuum of varying degrees of height between those two extremes.

For Ladefoged and Johnson (2011:45), the symbol /t/ may represent a wide variety of sounds. In tap /tæp/, it represents a voiceless alveolar stop. But the /t/ in eight, /eitө/ may be made on the teeth, because of the influence of the following voiceless dental fricative /θ/.

This /t/ is more accurately called voiceless dental stop. They cite examples with most forms of both British and American English, saying that the /t/ in bitten is more accompanied by a glottal stop, and for many younger British English speakers, the /t/ in catty /kæti/ symbolize a voiced, not a voiceless sound. They argue that all these different sounds are part of the /t/ phoneme. Each of them occurs in a specific place: /t/ before /θ/ is a dental stop, /t/ before a word final /n/ is a glottal stop, and /t/ after a vowel and before an unstressed vowel is a voiced stop.

According to Ladefoged and Johnson (2011), none of the variations is different enough to change the meaning of a word in English; again, that all these variations occur in speech and are not simply the result of failing to hit the target when speaking quickly. They discuss other symbols representing sounds in different contexts such as /l/ and /r/ which normally stand for voice approximants, giving words like ply /plai/ and try /trai/ in which the influence of the preceding stop makes them voiceless. They conclude that the /i/ in heed /hid/ is usually very different from the /i/ in heel /hil/, and much longer than the /i/ in heat /hit/.

Ezeugwu (1999) in his study of Ohodo dialect discovers that there exists a schwa sound in the dialect. He explains that the schwa /ә/ is neutral in the dialect because it occurs freely with vowels in the +ATR or –ATR group. For example

àgә́ ‘sing’

gbàrә̀ ‘dance’

jèrә̀ ‘went’ 21

In the study of assimilation of Adazi nnukwu dialect of Inland West Igbo, Eme (2008) explains that progressive assimilation, the demonstrative ‘a’ may assimilate to any of the vowels. She gives example as follows

Table I: Phonemic assimilation (Eme 2008)

Before assimilation After assimilation Gloss

ńní à ńní ì this food

égó à égó ò this money

ónyé à ónyé è this person

ébé à ébé é here

Eme explains further that when two of the same vowels end a word, the first segment of the second word will move left to assimilate the last segment of the first word. For example:

Table II: Vowel assimilation

Before assimilation After assimilation

kà é sì kè é sì

íné à íná à

nà èbídó nè èbídó

Eme also gives some examples of vowels-vowel; regressive assimilation and consonant- consonant regressive assimilation.

Table III: Vowel-vowel regressive assimilation

Before assimilation After assimilation Gloss

là èmé lè èmè Doing

íhé óbù íhọ́ ọ́bù What it is 22

là ìgbò lì ígbò In Igbo

Table IV: Consonant- consonant assimilation

Before assimilation After assimilation Gloss

ùyom na nnekwu ùjọ푚̀ ñà nnékwú The chick and the hen

ága m n- ekwu ágà m né èkwú I shall continue to talk

nye m ma-nnu jé 푚́ ńnú Give me salt

From the example of the consonant- consonant regressive assimilation above, the

syllabic bilabial nasal (m) becomes assimilated by the alveolar nasal (n) causing (m) to

change completely to (n).

Olateju and Oyeleye (2005:25) posit that, the phonological component is only

interpretive. It assigns appropriate pronunciation to surface structure. For them, through this,

it accounts for the native speaker’s knowledge of the phonology of his language. They use the

following illustration to buttress their claims.

Figure IV: PHRASE STRUCTURE RULES LEXICON

Deep Structure

TRANSFORMATIONAL RULES RULES OF SEMANTIC INTERPRETATION

Surface Structure

Readjustment rules UNDERLYING REPRESENTATION

Phonological rules

Phonetic Representation Semantic Representation

Rogers (2000:16) posits that phoneticians divide sounds into two basic categories,

Segment and suprasegmentals. Segments comprise vowels and consonants. Vowels include things like the sounds in the word oh, eye, ooh, ah, they are made with no major obstruction in the vocal tract so that air passes through the mouth fairly easily. He adds that consonants such as /p n g s l / involve some type of obstruction in the vocal tract. When you make a /p/ for instance, your lips are closed thereby completely preventing air from leaving through the mouth. Suprasegmentals involve sound components other than consonants and vowels. He then mentioned a number of items like stress, pitch, tone, intonation and length as being parts of the suprasegmental.

Tone is a suprasegmental feature realized on the syllable to convey grammatical or lexical information. In other words, tone is pitch variation applied to syllables in tone languages for the distinction of meaning. A difference in the tone of two or more words that have the same sound segments can constitute a difference in the meaning of these two or more words in a language. Emenanjo (1978) posits that a tone language is a language that uses pitch to bring about distinction in the meaning of a word or utterances. Katamba (1989) explains that the pitch of an utterance can be seen on the extent of vibration of the vocal cord, if the vocal cord vibrates higher; the pitch will also be higher. Pike (1948) defines tone language as one in which the distinctive pitch forms the intonation tune of a sentence and also extends as a contrastive factor into the lexical element of the language. Goldsmith (1976) expresses that tone should have a separate tier that is independent of the segmental tier.

Katamba (1989) highlights the common tone feature as

High [/] / (rising)

Mid [-] \ (falling)

Low [\] √ (fall-rise) 24

Fabb (1997:29-30), the basic building block of prosodic phonological structure is the phonological segment. A segment can be thought of as a sound carrying unit. He adds that the sound a segment carries is determined by the articulatory instructions attached to the segment. In his illustrations, has the word “fortification” as a sequence of segments to clarify his intentions, as in the following.

Sequence of segments = X X X X X X X X X X X

Identity of the sounds = f c I f I k e I ʃ n

He explains that the first segment is defined by articulatory instructions which make the sound consonantal, labial, voiceless and continuant (i.e. the sound [f], as indicated above).

The second and their segment are co-defined by the articulatory instructions which make the sound a vowel (i.e. the sound [q]). According to him, the fact that the same vowel are used on two segments means that the vowel is long, for instances with the vowel [e] which is seen later in the word and attached to the single segment therefore, it is always short. He concludes that the difference between long vowels (taking up two segments) and short vowel (taking up one) is important for syllable weight.

Uguru (2009) points out that whereas other Igbo dialects manifest tone only; Ika dialect of Igbo manifests intonation in addition to tone. Although Ikekeonwu (1987) reports the existence of an up-step tone in Abakaliki, this, argues Uguru (2009), is not intonation as there is no attitudinal meaning attached to it. In Ika, intonation gives out attitudinal meaning.

Ika manifests both tone and intonation, so, pitch plays both tonal and intonational roles in this dialect

Six tune patterns exist in Ika. They are as follows:

High Fall tune pattern HF (ʹ) 25

Low Fall tune pattern LF (ˎ)

High Rise tune pattern HR (ʹ)

Low Rise tune pattern LR (ˏ)

Fall Rise tune pattern LR (v)

Rise Fall tune pattern RF (Ʌ)

Examples of intonation in Ika

1 Low Rise 2. High Rise

/We – ‘They’ (emphasis) / We? – ‘They?’ H H 3. Fall Rise 4. High Rise We? – ‘You mean them?’ l/ si? ‘Pardon/come again’ H H H L L

5. Kә w /taani? “(Did you say?) What day is today?” 6. Rise Fall The effects of tone on intonation, notes Uguru (2009), make Ika tune patterns to sound slightly different from those of English. Igbo, being a syllable-timed language, usually affects English, a stress-timed language. Timing in English depends on the stressed words.

That is, much time is going to be spent on the stressed words. But in Igbo every syllable is given its own time. Many a time, Igbo learners of English employ syllable-time to English words rather than stress-time. This is the influence of tone in Igbo.

For instance, an Igbo learner of English may employ syllable-time in the pronunciation of the word “tribalism” as “*trìbalís‘m”. It is then the duty of the language instructor to correct such a learner by providing the stress-timed version of the word thus

“'tribalism” and ensure that the learner pronounces it correctly. 26

An Ika instructor of English will be very useful in teaching intonation to Igbo learners of English. Similarly, Ika learners of English will not find intonation practices difficult in anyway. The Rise Fall tune in Ika is reported to be slightly different from the type found in

English. Also, the High Rise in Ika often sounds a little lower than that of English when it occurs with a low tone. We should expect this influence of tone on intonation since Ika manifests both. But the intonation inherent in Ika native speakers will go a long way in facilitating the learning of intonation patterns in English.

McGregor (2009:45) questions how many phones the English language has. He explains that every time you utter a word or sentence, there will be slight difference in the precise configuration of your vocal tract and the surrounding air. He continues that with sufficient accurate instruments, you could find minor differences in the shape of the vocal tract, and in the sound wave. In this sense you might say that English effectively has unlimited number of phones. According to him, many of the differences are too small to be perceived. Some differences are perceptible in principle, that is, are not beyond the distinguishing capabilities of the human ear, but are ignored by the speakers. Phonology investigates the sound differences that are linguistically relevant in a language, and how the sounds pattern as a system.

Agbedo (2001) studied Ezikeoba dialect of Igbo. In his findings, he claims that the phoneme alveolar roll /r/ has binary variant /r/ and /d/ which occurs in the imperative and progressive forms in the dialect. He reports that the standard norm is /r/. According to him, the introduction of the /d/ variant is as a result of social factor of contact between Ezikeoba native speakers and the Obollo speech community during business activities. He supports his claims with the example below.

Ihelugwu imelugwu gloss

Jere jede go 27

The native speakers of Imelugwu in Ezike Oba dialect of Igbo are those speakers that have contact with the speakers of Obollo during trade.

Nwaozuzu (2008) examines Ezeagu dialects. She finds out that Ezeagu operates with thirty six consonants. She discovered that Ezeagu has some sounds which are merely associated with the Igbo language and its varieties. The sound segment according to her is their theta /θ/ a voiceless dental fricative and ashes /ð/ a voiced dental fricative. These two sounds are included in the thirty six consonants. The thirty six consonants comprise twelve plosives, eleven fricatives, six affricates, five nasals, one roll and two approximants.

Nwaozuzu (2008) studies the phonology of Agbo, a dialect under the West Niger group of dialect according to her classification. The voiced velar nasal /ŋ / is replaced with voiced labialized velar nasal /ŋw/. For example in the word ‘anuli’ it is realized as ‘anwuli’.

She explains that Agbo has the syllabele structure as follows;

V, CV and N

V as in ‘a’ – ‘this’

N as in Nga – ‘prison’

In Agbo, only two basic tones can be observed a high [́ ] and a low [ ̀] tone, the down step [ ᷈ ] is not basic in Agbo dialect.

Mbah and Mbah(2007) the elision and vowel raising in Oba dialect of Igbo. She asserts that if a word comprise two lexical item for instance two verbs that the first verb bears a consonant and vowel while the second voiced palatal nasal is elided. /u/ and a mid front vowel /e/ then the voiced palatal nasal is elided. After elision, the vowels which are not high are raised. Examples are shown below.

Slow speech Slow speech Gloss

bùé buìí ‘carry and give to’

dùé dùí ‘head to’ 28

bèé bìí ‘cut off’

sìé sìí ‘cook on’

According to Mbah, the mid vowel /e/ of the second verb is raised to the high front vowel /i/ or /I/ agreeing with the rule of vowel harmony.

Eme (2009) describes elision in the Akpo dialect of the inland West Igbo. Eme posits that the segment introduced during liaison can be the optional element.

The examples below are illustrative.

Before After elision Gloss

Chí dị ́ chìí dị ́ God is

Chí mè é chìí mè é God did

Chí nw è chìí nw è God’s own

The vowel introduced during elision is rarely dropped in Akpo dialect according to

Eme. Nwaozuzu (2008:117) made an extensive classification of the Igbo dialect. In one of these classes which she calls the Northern Group of Dialects (NGD), this group exhibits the most intriguing patterns of speech sounds. Most speech communities under this group have at least nine vowel systems of which the schwa sound /ә/ is one of them. She adds that all the dialects which are grouped under this section were speaking such form of a language. For example: Echara, Isakpu, Ihe/Owerre, Nru, Ezema, Nkpunano, Iheagu, Umuopu, etc all in

Nsukka, Ogboli, Olido, Ezilo, Ufodo, Okpo, Umuopu, Aji, Ekposhi, Igogoro, Umuogbo Uno,

Umogbo Agu etc, al in Enugu-Ezike; Ezeagu, Achi, Oji-River, Ngwo, Awkunnaw, Nenwe,

Nkanu, Agwu, Mgbowo, and all the towns and villages in Udi Local Government Area such as Awhum and Eke.

Since Aku and Ukehe is in Igbo-Etiti. And Igbo-Etiti is one of the local government in

Nsukka which falls within the above classification, Igbo-Etiti dialects automatically belongs 29 to the “Nothern Group of Dialect (NGD), and from all the literature reviewed, it appears that the phonological variations of Aku and Ukehe, has not been studied before.

Finally, since this research work is purely descriptive, therefore the researchers do not apply any theoretical framework.

2.3 Summary

The literature review started with a highlight on the relevant theoretical models, followed by the review of the empirical findings on dialectical differences on language.

Firstly we concentrated on the two phonological theories that formed the bedrock and orientation of the study of phonology in the 20th century, the classical phonemics and generative phonology. The introduction of the sound pattern of English (SPE) in 1968 by

Chomsky and Halle marked the formal inauguration of Generative phonology. Generative phonology, as a child of necessity was introduced to address certain inherent weakness and inabilities found with classical phonemics

Generative phonology accounts for two levels of analysis, which are the surface and the underlying representation. There is also the rule component which interpolates between the surface or systematic phonetic level and the underlying or systematic phonemic level. The contribution of generative phonology is the introduction of this new approach to phonological theory. The SPE which is the standard theory also, was on able to accounts for suprasegmental features like tone, stress, pitch and intonation. The weakness in the SPE model results in the formation of the auto-segmental framework by Goldsmith in (1976). Auto- segmental model adopts a multitier approach to generative phonology. Goldsmith autosegmental model accounts for phonological phenomena like vowel harmony and nasalization.

Besides the classical phonemics, the generative phonology, the sound pattern of

English and auto-segmental theory were basically studied before we glided into the most recent theory known as optimality theory (OT). The optimality theory came up as a 30 phonological theory and drastically changes the focus from the rule base to constraint based analysis with the purpose of accounting for how the natural intelligence processes utterance.

It was first introduced by Prince and Smolensky (1993), which letter studied by Anttila (1997 et seq.) has two methods of accounting for variation, the theory of Partial Ordered Constraint

(POC) and Gradual Algorithm, by Stochastic Optimality Theory.

From this point, we now shifted our focus to the review of variation study so far. It was noted that one of the earliest pronouncements on phonological variation was in (c.138) by John of Trevisa. The works of several authors in this regards were reviewed; notable among them are Katamba(1984), Hyman(1975), Crystal(1997), Ikekeonwu(1996), Coetzee and Pater(2009).

Also, the researcher reviewed the importance of studies on variation to several fields of human lives as shown by scholars. Being that the term Dialect is linked to variation, the researcher attempt to review some issues raised by scholars like Fromkin and Rodman

(1974), Ikekeonwu (1986), Sotiloye (1992) etc

Apart from these theoretical frameworks, a review of some relevant empirical studies was conducted. Beside Labov (1971), Labov, Sharon and Baberg (2006) which focus on North American English phonology, work by Nigeria linguistics were reviewed (cf

Ikekeonwu 1987, Ogbu 1987 Emenanjo 1971 and Okorji 1991).

Even though, Aku and Ukehe dialect have not been studied before, yet we are able to study those phonemes notable to the researcher and also review some of the related work.

Finally, it is clear from the foregoing that nothing has been done on the phonological variation of Aku and Ukehe, hence the necessity of this work is to fill the gap.

CHAPTER THREE: METHODLOGY

3.0 Introduction

3.1 Area of study

The focus of this research work is in Aku and Ukehe. The towns are located in the western and eastern part of Igbo Etiti Local Government, of Enugu State. According to

Barmby (1934), quoting (Fullard et al (eds) 1920) they inhabit areas lying appropriately

7.80N and 6.40E. The hight of the area is roughly 482m and 1936m above the sea level.

Barmby (1929) has aptly noted “the town is broken and highly except in the extreme east where the settlers from Umunko, Diogbe, Ugwuogo-Nike etc have pushed their farms and houses out into the plain. It is quite impossible to have a view of the entire town because of its topography.

The town is situated for the most parts at the foot of the hills, the top of which is grassy and incent of tree. It is the last town of Nsukka senatorial zone of the present Enugu

North. The town is bisected by the two Enugu-Nsukka roads, the old Enugu Nsukka road and the other Enugu Nsukka express road.

3.2 Research Instruments

The research instruments used in this study are; interview, observation and tape recording for the ease and assessment of the data by the researcher.

3.3 Method of Data Collection

As a native speaker of Aku, I was involved in the working excises to elicit the variation between Aku and Ukehe as both dialects are related. During the elicitation of data, I also apply both the primary and secondary data. On the primary source, sixteen (16) adult speakers of Aku and Ukehe dialect were selected and interviewed, eight (8) persons from each of the towns. Among these adults are four (4) male and four (4) female respectively. eight (8) of them are youths while eight (8) are adults of fifty (50) years old and above who 32 have according to them, lived within the town since birth. They are so selected for their linguistic and communicative competence of their various dialects. The interview was conducted on different occasions, while each of them was visited separately in his or her house and interviewed.

These are the phonemes variables studied by the researcher.

i. [dv], [v] as in ọ́ dvụ̀ ọ́ vụ̀ tail /ɔdvʊ/ /ɔvʊ/

ii. [ʃ], [s] ‘’ ‘’ óshíshí ósísí tree /oʃiʃi/ /osisi/

iii. [ʒ], [z] ‘’ ‘’ ẹ́ zshígbó ẹ́ zígbó good /ɛʒigbo/ /ɛzigbo/

iv. [r], [l] ‘’ ‘’ ńrọ́ ńlọ́ dream nrɔ nlɔ

v. [m], [n] ‘’ ‘’ chị́dị́ḿmá chị́dị́ńmá God is good ʧɪdɪmma ʧɪdɪnma

The researcher used a tape recorder, cell battery and a memory card. This enabled him to get the accurate information from his respondents under conductive atmosphere and with a confirm state of happiness of the respondents.

The secondary source of the data collection then covers the library information where the researcher consults dictionary, textbooks, journals, magazines, encyclopedias, project reports, thesis, dissertation and symposia paper.

3.4 Method of Data Analysis

The method used in analyzing the data for this study is perceptual. This is realized by critically analyzing the responses from the informants of the dialects selected. Areas of variations are noted in the sound segments, tones and intonation of the dialects.

The similarities and differences are noted from the dialects. lkekeonwu (1986) quoting Ladefoged (1971) and Armstrong (1983) notes the efficacy of the use of mainly 33 perceptual method for the elicitation of sound segments. She acknowledges that an instrumental analysis would probably reveal a number of subtleties that could escape the ears, she argues that the “pronunciation or production sessions” involving several hours, though usually rigorous have proved quite useful in data collection and analysis.

CHAPTER FOUR

DATA ANALYSIS

4.1 The Phonemic Inventories of Aku and Ukehe Dialects

Table V: Phonemic chart of Aku consonants

Manner Bilabial Labio Alveolar Labiolized Palato Palatal Velar Lebiolized Labial Glotal Labialized dental alveolar alveolar velar velar glottal Plosive p b t d k ɡ kw ɡw kp

ɡb

Nasal m n ɲ ŋ

Fricatives f v s z ʃ ʒ ɣ h wh

Affricate tf dv ʧ ʤ

Laterals l approximants j w

Roll r

Table VI: Phonemic chart of Ukehe consonants

Manner Bilabial Labio Alveolar Labiolized Palato Palatal Velar Lebiolized Labial Glotal Labialized dental alveolar alveolar velar velar glottal Plosive p b t d k ɡ kw ɡw kp

ɡb

Nasal m n ɲ ŋ

Fricatives f v s z ʃ ɣ h wh

Affricate tf ʧ ʤ

Laterals l approximants j w

Roll r

4.1.1 The Concept of Variation 35

Linguistic variation according to Agbedo (2001) refers to the variable use of certain linguistic items as observed in the speech pattern of language users. He further states that in variation studies, the primary preoccupation is quantitative analysis of the observed language behaviors. That is in a specific term, the general aim is to discern the principles of language variation and the relative significance of social factors such as gender, age, social class, region and contact in accounting for the language behaviors through the variety of language spoken by some group of persons at a certain place or time. A variable is a linguistic item that is used interchangeably while variability occurs when individual speakers have different forms to express the same meaning (Labov, 1992: 115). The alternate form that appears in the environment of a variable are called variants.

‘Linguistic variable’ is a linguistic item that has various forms of different realization but whose meaning remains the same. The linguistic variable can be at the phonological, lexical, and morphological levels. It is usually enclosed with a colon, e.g. [a].

According to Hudson (1980: 157) in Akaan (2006: 5), “linguistic variables include those whose meanings are constant while the structural forms change”. Lehan (1976: 280) also consider a linguistic variable as “any character of a language which is represented in different patterns in the speech of a particular speaker or a social group”. Wardhaugh (1986: 137) observes that a linguistic variable is an issue in a language feature, it is an issue which has an optional realization in a way that an informant produces it in one pattern while another in a different pattern or it may be the same informant that may be realized in different ways in different situations. According to Dittmar (1976: 198), he pointed out four criteria which a linguistic variable may possess. It may

(a) Have a high frequency.

(b) Be as immune as possible to conscious suppression.

(d) Be an integrated compound of a larger structure.

Perhaps, it is in recognition of this social fact that Labov (1970b: 13) asserts, “One of the fundamental sociolinguistic principles is that there are no single style speakers”. The implication of Labov’s assertion, according to Wolfram and Fasold (1974: 24) is that “every speaker will show some variation in phonological and grammatical rules according to the immediate context he is speaking”.

Therefore, we can easily take a look from these two dialects to examine her consonant and vowel variation to elucidate their similarities and differences.

4.1.2 The Consonantal Variation in Aku and Ukehe Dialects

The primary focus of this work is identifying the phonological variations between

Aku and Ukehe dialects of Igbo and to show how both are related to the standard Igbo language. The importance of this study is underscored by the fact that language variation is a universal phenomenon. According to Sapir (1921) in Wolfram (n.d) opined, “Everyone knows that language is variable.” In other words, every language exhibits considerable internal variations and speakers, who are aware of their social significance, make use of the many possibilities offered to them. Variability is everywhere in language, from the unique details in each production of a sound or sign to the auditory or visual processing of the linguistic signal. In fact, one of the amazing facts about human communication is the demonstrated ability to normalize the inherent variation within every spoken or signed message in processing the linguistic signal. Henceforth, we studied Aku and Ukehe speech sound to identify their variations as thus:

Aku Ukehe

Voiced labialized alveolar affricate /dv/ Voiced labio dental fricative /v/

Voiceless palato alveolar fricative /ʃ/ Voiceless alveolar fricative /s/

Voiced palato alveolar fricative /ʒ/ Voiced alveolar fricative /z/ 37

Voiced alveolar roll /r/ Voiced alveolar lateral /l/

Voiced bilabial nasal /m/ Voiced alveolar nasal /n/

The work focus on the ‘Ten phonological variables’ of /dv/, /v/, /ʃ/, /s/, /ʒ/, /z/, /r/, /l/,

/m/ and /n/ to account for the linguistic variable realizations and frequency of occurrence in the speech pattern of the Aku and Ukehe dialects.

Aku Ukehe Standard Igbo Glose chị́dị́ḿmá chị́dị́ńmá chị́dị́ńmá God is good ʧɪdɪmma ʧɪdɪnma

ọ́ dvụ̀ ọ́ vụ̀ ọ́ zụ̀ tail /ɔdvʊ/ /ɔvʊ/

ọ́ dvụ́ ọ́ vụ́ ọ́ zụ́ piston / ɔdvʊ/ / ɔvʊ/

ị́dvụ̀ ị́vụ̀ ị́zụ̀ native week /ɪdvʊ/ /ɪvʊ/

ị̀dvụ̀ ị̀vụ̀ ị̀zụ̀ meeting /ɪdvʊ/ /ɪvʊ/

ẹ́ shẹ́ ẹ́ sẹ́ ẹ́ sẹ́ inquiry /ɛʃɛ/ /ɛsɛ/ shẹ̀ẹ́ sẹ̀ẹ́ sẹ̀ẹ́ draw /ʃɛ/ /sɛ/

óshíshí ósísí ósísí tree /oʃiʃi/ /osisi/ íshí ísí ísí head /iʃi/ /isi/

ụ́ bọ̀shì ụ́ bọ̀sì ụ́ bọ̀chì day /ʊbɔʃi/ /ʊbɔsi/

ị́wụ́ shì ị́wụ́ sì ị́wụ́ sì to pour /ɪwʊʃi/ /ɪwʊsi/

ńgóshí ńgósí ńgósí showing /ŋgoʃi/ / ŋgosi/ 38

ẹ́ zshígbó ẹ́ zígbó ẹ́ zígbó good /ɛʒigbo/ /ɛzigbo/

ẹ́ zshígbódó ẹ́ zígbódó ẹ́ zígbódó genuine /ɛʒigbodo/ /ɛzigbodo/

ọ́ rụ́ ọ́ lụ́ ọ́ lụ́ work /ɔrʊ/ /ɔlʊ/

ị́rẹ́ ị́lẹ́ ị́lẹ́ tongue /ɪrɛ/ /ɪlɛ/

ńrọ́ ńlọ́ ńlọ́ dream nrɔ nlɔ

ńrị́ ńlị́ ńlị́ food nrɪ nlɪ

ị́rụ́ ị́lụ́ ị́rụ́ face ɪrʊ ɪrʊ

Figure V: consonants variables in Aku and Ukehe dialects

From the examples above, there are variations in the speech sound of Aku and Ukehe respectively. Most of the variations occur at the word median position. As a native speaker of

Aku, i observed that there are some phonemes which are peculiar to both dialects especially with the speakers of Aku speech community. Though, speakers from Ukehe dialect speak more of the central dialects than the speaker from Aku.

Phonemes such as voiced labializsed alveolar affricate /dv/, voiceless palato alveolar fricative /ʃ/, voiced palato alveolar fricative /ʒ/, voiced alveolar roll /r/ and voiced bilabial nasal /m/ are realized from Aku dialect. Ukehe on the other side have their phonemes as thus; voiced labio dental fricative /v/, voiceless alveolar fricative /s/, voiced alveolar fricative /z/, voiced alveolar lateral /l/ and voiced alveolar nasal /n/ are consonant variables found among the two dialects. The variants mostly do not occur in word initial or word final position.

From the figure: we observe that consonantal variation occurs mostly in both dialects with fricatives and affricates. During the production of sounds such as, voiced labialized 39

alveolar affricate /dv/ in the environment of words such as (ọ́ dvụ̀ and ị̀dvụ̀) the front of the tongue articulates with the palato alveolar region. The articulation is drastic and radical as in plosive. However, when the articulation is to be released, it is released slowly as in fricative, while in the production of its counterpart like voiced labio dental fricative /v/, the lower lip articulates with the upper row of the teeth during the production of sound like (ọ́ vụ́ ) found in

Ukehe dialect. We also have some other phonemes like the voiceless palato alveolar fricative

/sh/ for the production of sounds like (óshíshí & ósísí). Then the voiced alveolar roll /r/, voiced bilabial nasal /m/, voiced alveolar lateral /l/ and voiced alveolar nasal /n/ are realized when producing sounds like; (ị́rẹ́, chị́dị́ḿmá, ńlọ́, and chị́dị́ńmá). To produce the voiced alveolar roll /r/ and voiced alveolar lateral /l/ in Aku/ Ukehe dialect, we take into cognizance the phonetic and phonological variability of ordinary speech. Aku speakers, virtually do not use the phoneme /l/ for the production of such words from the examples in figure V: above rather they make use of the phoneme /r/, for instance ʽńrị́ʼ is spelt /ńrị́/ instead of /ńlị́/, as for the Ukehe native speakers does.

4.1.3 Consonants similarities between Aku and Ukehe speech communities

Aku Ukehe transcription gloss Ákwákwáhá ákwákwáhá /akwakwaha/ stop crying átfụ́ tfụ́ átfụ́ tfụ́ /atfʊtfʊ/ language

átfụ́ átfụ́ /atfʊ/ buffalo

ẹ̀tfụ́ ẹ̀tfụ́ /ɛtfʊ/ chewing stick

ẹ́ tfụ́ tfùẹ́ ẹ́ tfụ́ tfùẹ́ /ɛtfʊtfuɛ/ boil

ẹ́ whùọ́ grí ẹ́ whùọ́ grí /ɛhᵚɔgri/ chaff

ẹ̀whùẹ́ ẹ̀whùẹ́ /ehᵚɛ/ lazy

ẹ̀whụ̀ ẹ̀whụ̀ /ehᵚʊ/ cloud

ẹ́ whụ́ whá ẹ́ whụ́ whá /ɛhᵚʊhᵚa/ grass 40

ị́whụ́ ị́whụ́ /ɪhᵚʊ/ to see íwhùé íwhùé /íhᵚuɛ/ story kẹ̀chẹ́ kẹ̀chẹ́ /kɛʧɛ/ get out of the road

ọ́ whụ́ ọ́ whụ́ /ɔhᵚʊ/ lie

ụ́ whárá ụ́ whárá /ʊhᵚara/ shift wáyí wáyí /wai/ run fast

Figure VI: consonants similarities in Aku and Ukehe

Owing to our research, we observes that there are some words found from both dialects which are not originally from the Igbo standard orthography but were commonly used among the Aku and Ukehe speech community. That is, the voiceless labialized glottal fricative /wh/ and voiceless labialized alveolar affricate /tf/. They are used for the production such words like: (átfụ́ tfụ́ , ụ́ whárá) in the figure VI: above.

4.2 Vowel Chart Front Back Close i u

ɪ ʊ Half close e o

ә Half open ɛ ɔ

Open

Figure VII: vowel chart of Aku and Ukehe dialects

The above diagram represents Aku/Ukehe vowel chart. From our research, we were able to found that variation is mostly occurred with consonants in Aku/Ukehe dialects during their speech than with vowel. Therefore we decided to use one chart for both dialects since it’s only the [a] and [e] phonemes are the variables. 41

4.2.1 The Concept of Vowel Variation

Vowels are the speech sound during whose production the articulators do not come very close such that the airstream flow out very freely without any significant friction.

Linguist defines vowel in auditory terms: in terms of the tongue height, backness, or frontness of the tongue and the position of the lip. According to Mbah B.M. & Mbah E.E.

(2010), they can be produced when we consider the positions of the tongue and lip in producing them. In producing /i/, the root of the tongue retracts towards the pharyngeal wall to produce an acoustically different front high vowel. In the production of /ɪ/, the root or the tongue retracts towards the pharyngeal wall. Still in the position for the production of /i/, the jaw could be slightly lowered thereby spreading the lip. This position produces the third cardinal vowel /e/. Retracting the root of the tongue further produces the fourth cardinal vowel /ɛ/. When the jaw is furthest drawn down and air is produced, they result in /a/. In producing these vowels, the lips are not rounded. It is therefore, described as a front low unrounded vowel. According to Mbah (2010) we also have the front and back position of the phonemes in vowels. Front refers to the front part of the tongue involved in its production of speech sound with the rounded and unrounded shape of the lips; unrounded refers to the position of the lips while close, half close, half open and open refer to the space created in the mouth occasioned by the downward movement of the jaw.

Furthermore, when the jaw has moved furthest down and produced /a/, the lips can then be modulated to produce perceptibly different vowel. If the jaw is held in the same position as it was during the production of /a/ and the lips are slightly rounded, the result will be the sixth cardinal vowel /q/. If the jaw is drawn upwards a bit and the lips are further rounded, the seventh vowel /o/ result. If the lips are further rounded and the root of the 42 tongue further retracts towards the pharyngeal wall, the result will be the vowel /ʊ/. If the retraction of the root of the tongue is withdrawn, still maintaining the previous position, the high back vowel /u/ will result. These latter vowels actively involving the jaw are said to be back rounded because the back of the tongue as well as lip rounding is involved in their production. The /i a u / is language universal. /i/ and /u/ are perceptually high while /a/ is perceptually low. And also these are the first three vowels every child acquired.

4.2.2 Vowel variation in Aku and Ukehe dialects

Aku Ukehe Standard Igbo Gloss

àkpà ẹ̀kpà àkpà bag /akpa/ /ɛkpa/

ákwá ẹ́ kwá ákwá cry /akʷa/ /ɛkʷa/

ákwà ẹ́ kwà ákwà cloth /akʷa/ /ɛkʷa/

ákwụ́ ẹ́ kwú ákwụ́ palm fruit /akʷʊ/ /ɛkʷʊ/ làádá làádẹ́ làwá go home /la ͬda/ /la ͬdɛ/

ányá ẹ́ nyá ẹ́ nyá eye /aɲa/ /ɛɲa/

ázá ẹ́ zá ẹ́ zá forgetfulness /aza/ /ɛza/

ágbọ́ ẹ́ gbọ́ ẹ́ gbọ́ vomit /agbɔ/ /ɛgbɔ/

áchárá ẹ́ chárá ẹ́ chárá chaff /aʧara/ /ɛʧara/

àgwà ẹ̀gwà ẹ̀gwà bean /agʷa/ /ɛgʷa /

ákwụ́ kwọ́ ẹ́ kwụ́ kwọ́ ẹ́ kwụ́ kwó book /akʷʊkʷɔ / /ɛkʷʊkʷɔ/ 43

ájá ẹ́ já ájá sand /adʒa/ /ɛdʒa/

àjà ẹ̀jà àjà sacrifice /adʒa/ /ɛdʒa/

àfẹ̀ ẹ̀fẹ̀ àfẹ̀ shirt /afɛ/ /ɛfɛ/

àgbà ẹ̀gbà àgbà appointment /agba/ /ɛgba/

àdá ẹ̀dá àdá fall /ada/ /ɛda/

álá ẹ́ lá álá shoot /ala/ /ɛla/

Figure VIII: Vowel Variation in Aku and Ukehe Speech Sound

The studies in figure VIII: above shows that there are just few vowel variables in

Aku and Ukehe dialects. Variation is most commonly with consonants than vowel. We observe from both dialects, that variation occurs in vowel either at the prefix or the suffix position. From the first word, the phoneme /a/ in Aku dialect is realized as /e/ when pronouncing the same word in Ukehe dialect. Therefore /a/ phoneme in Aku is realized as /e/ in Ukehe dialect. During the pronunciation of the phoneme /a/ in a word such as (ákpá and

ákwá) from the dialect, the jaw is furthest drawn down such that the air passes out the mouth to produce a sound. And also the jaw could be slightly lowered thereby spreading the lips to produce the vowel /e/.

4.3 Tone in Aku and Ukehe Dialects

The tone of a voice is the result of a manipulation of the pitch of voice. According to

Ladefoged (1975), the pitch of voice can be affected by some factors. One of the determiners of pitch is the tension of the vocal cords. When the vocal cords are stretched, the pitch is raised and this produces a high pitch. Secondly, if the outflow of the air from the lungs is increased, it also affects the height of the pitch. Thus, the pitch of voice could be low as is in 44 normal speech or high as in some speeches with some linguistic, emotional or psychological undertones (Mbah .B.M & Mbah E.E. 2010).

Consequently, the modulation of the pitch of voice can serve as a conveyer of information. The information may range from the natural characteristics of speakers e.g. male or female, emotional state of the speaker such as sad, joy to other ways of providing information. The underlying tone that overlays one’s speech is called intonation. Every language uses intonation but at varying degrees.

The languages that make use of pitch to distinguish meaning over syntactic units are called intonational languages. Some of these characteristics of intonational language are called language universal. It is observable that every speaker, no matter the language, has a falling pitch at the end of indicative sentences while there is a rising pitch at the end of syntactic junctures; this indicates that some additional information is coming. Apart from intonational languages, other languages make use of pitch in a different way. Such language apply pitch on a word by varying the pitch forms on syllables, so that different meaning could be got from words that have the same phonemic composition. These languages making use of tone in this form are called tone languages. Having said that every language uses intonation, it means that intonation is a suprasegmental feature that is superimposed on tone, in tone language.

Among tone language, there are languages that make use of a lot of glides overlaying words to derive different meaning. These languages are called contour tone languages. On the other hand, there are tone languages that are more discrete, in which case tones fall on syllables. Such languages are called register tone. Igbo is an example of a register tone language.

4.3.1 Tone variation in Aku and Ukehe dialects

Aku Ukehe Standard Igbo Glose 45

áká ẹ́ ká áká hand /aka/ /ɛka/

ákà ẹ́ kà ákà bangle /aka/ /ɛka/

ákwá ẹ́ kwá ákwá cry /akʷa/ /ɛkʷa/

ákwà ẹ́ kwà ákwà cloth /akʷa/ /ɛkʷa/

àkwá ẹ̀kwá àkwá egg /akʷa/ /ɛkʷa/

àkwà ẹ̀kwà àkwà bed /akʷa/ /ɛkʷa/

ákwá ẹ́ kwá ákwá cry /akʷa/ /ɛkʷa/

ájá ẹ́ já ájá sand /aʤa/ /ɛʤa/

àjà ẹ̀jà àjà sacrifice /aʤa/ /ɛʤa/ íshí ísí ísí head /iʃi/ /isi/ íshì ísì ísì smelling /iʃi/ /isi/ ìshì ìsì ìsì blindness /iʃi/ /isi/ ìshí ìsí ìsí to cook /iʃi/ /isi/

ị́dvụ̀ ị́zụ̀ ị́zụ̀ native week /ɪdvʊ/ /ɪzʊ/

ị̀dvụ̀ ị̀zụ̀ ị̀zụ̀ meeting /ɪdvʊ/ /ɪzʊ/

ńdvụ́ tẹ́ ńzụ́ tẹ́ ńzụ́ tẹ́ to meet /ndvʊtɛ/ /nzʊtɛ/ 46

ńshí ńsí ńsí poison /nʃi/ /nsi/

ọ́ gbọ́ dvụ́ ọ́ gbọ́ zụ́ ọ́ gbọ́ zụ́ novis /ɔgbɔdvʊ/ /ɔgbɔzʊ/

ọ́ dvụ̀ ọ́ zụ̀ ọ́ zụ̀ tail /ɔdvʊ/ /ɔzʊ/

ọ́ dvụ́ ọ́ zụ́ ọ́ zụ́ piston /ɔdvʊ/ /ɔzʊ/

ụ́ dvụ̀ ụ́ zụ̀ ụ́ zụ̀ dust /ʊdvʊ/ /ʊzʊ/

ụ̀dvụ̀ ụ̀zụ̀ ụ̀zụ̀ drum /ʊdvʊ/ /ʊzʊ/ shíshì sísì sísì penny /ʃiʃi/ /sisi/

Figure I×: Tone Variation in Aku and Ukehe Speech Communities

Igbo languages of which Aku and Ukehe is a variant, is a register tone language. Igbo language expresses two tonal system, they are a high [/] and a Low [\]. Down step tone [-] is grammatical. Aku/Ukehe has two tones like the Igbo language and a down step tone.

4.3.2 High Tone in Aku and Ukehe dialects

A high tone is a tone characterized by a high pitch. The examples below illustrate the uses of a high tone in Aku and Ukehe

Aku Ukehe Standard Igbo Gloss

áká ẹ́ ká áká hand /aka/ /ɛka/

ákwá ẹ́ kwá ákwá cry /akʷa/ /ɛkʷa/

ájá éjá ájá sand /aʤa/ /ɛʤa/

ávú ẹ́ vú ávú pus /avu/ /ɛvu/ íshí ísí ísí ‘head’ 47

/iʃi/ /isi/

4.3.3 Low Tone in Aku and Ukehe dialects A low tone is characterized by a low pitch. In Aku and Ukehe for instance we have as thus:

Aku Ukehe Standard Igbo Glose àkwà èkwà àkwà bed /akʷa/ /ɛkʷa/

àjà èjà àjà sacrifice /aʤa/ /ɛʤa/ ìshì ìsì ìsì blindness /iʃi/ /isi/

ị̀dvù ị̀zù ị̀zù meeting /ɪdvʊ/ /ɪzʊ/ ụ̀dvụ̀ ụ̀zụ̀ ụ̀zụ̀ drum /ʊdvʊ/ /ʊzʊ/ In Aku and Ukehe, a low tone begins a word just like a high tone; it can appear at the word initial, or word final position.

4.3.4 Down Step Tone in Aku and Ukehe dialects

Aku Ukehe Standard Igbo Glose

íshíọ̅푘ụ́ 푘ọ̀ ísíọ̅푘ụ́ 푘ọ̀ íshíọ̅푘ụ́ 푘ọ̀ head of a chicken /iʃiɔkʊkɔ/ /isiɔkʊkɔ/ íshiẹ́ ́ 푤ụ̅ ísiẹ́ ́ 푤ụ̅ ísiẹ́ ́ 푤ụ̅ head of a goat /iʃiɛwʊ/ /isiɛwʊ/

óchẹ́ ánō óchẹ́ẹ́ nō óchẹ́ ánō four chairs /oʧɛanɔ/ /oʧɛanɔ/

ákáātó ékáātó ákáātō three hands /akaātɔ/ /ekaātɔ/

Just as I have mentioned, down step tones are grammatical in both dialects.

Whenever it is used in a sentence, it always found in the mid or word final position but can never start a word. 48

CHAPTER FIVE

5.1 Summary and conclusion

The area of our study is the phonological variation in Aku and Ukehe dialects of Igbo language. This thesis work has analyzed the phonological variation in these dialects. It clearly shows how suprasegmental feature operate in the dialects and also shows the similarities and differences among them.

For the data collected, a minimum of eight respondents for each dialect were interviewed and the analysis of the data reveals the following:

(i) The two dialects namely, Aku and Ukehe have thirty one and twenty nine

consonants respectively with ten vowels for both.

(ii) At the segmental level of consonant and vowel, there are similarities and

differences seen in the use of /dv/ vs /v/, /ʃ/ vs /s/, /ʒ/ vs /r/, /s/ vs /l/, /n/ vs /m/ and

/a/ vs /e/ respectively in both dialects.

(iii) We also found that there are phoneme that are used solely by the two dialects but

are not in the standard Igbo orthography e.g. /tf/.

(iv) Another interesting linguistic phenomenon that reveals variations in this research

is the use of tone and intonation in the dialects such as; / ọ́ dvù, ọ́ dvụ́ / and /ọ́ vù,

ọ́ vụ́ /.

We concluded by stating that most of the set objectives of this study have been achieved. Phonological variation constitutes a linguistic phenomenon. It is established that there is a high level of mutual intelligibility in these dialects. In many cases, the most remarkable differences lie in accent/pronunciation and not the lexical item.

Finally, one noticed in the course of the research that most native speaker have not understood the natural phenomenon as a positive concept. They still perceive the existence of 50 dialects within the language wrongly thereby seeing it as a dividing line rather than an interesting manifestation of unity in diversity.

5.2 Recommendations

This study has investigated the phonological variations in Aku/Ukehe dialects. We conclude that the set objectives of this study have been achieved. This work will therefore not only add to the existing literature on phonology of the Northern Igbo dialects but also contribute to the field of phonology at large.

It finally designs orthography for writing Aku/Ukehe dialect. The orthography is coined, using the help from the old Onwu orthography (1961) and the New Standard

Orthography (NSO). There are some areas that are also important which need to be investigated in the speech sound of both dialects. Our choice of phonological aspect of linguistic variations is as a result of its primacy and centrality. Other aspects that need attention are lexical, morphological and syntactic variation. We wish to state that despite all our effort to get the best out of the areas we have studied, we do not claim that we have done all that should be done in Aku/Ukehe dialect. We therefore encourage other linguist and interested researcher to embark on the study of variations in the speech sounds of Aku/Ukehe dialect

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