Affixes in Idemili and ?nicha

Abstract

This article studies the morphological variations between Idemili and ?n?cha dialects of the Igbo language. The dialects are classified as the East Niger Group of Dialects (ENGD), Nwaozuzu (2008). The article identifies the morphological variations of affixes in Idemili and ?n?cha dialects under perfective, past tense, present participle, present progressive and negative constructions. As the authors are indigenous speakers of Igbo, the method of participatory observation and audio recording of data from different age groups of the native speakers of the Idemili and ?n?cha varieties were used for data collection; while descriptive analysis was applied for data analysis. From the findings, Idemili uses the affix ‘-na’ to indicate perfective marker, while ?n?cha uses ‘-go’. In indicating past tense, Idemili and ?n?cha use the same past tense marker ‘-l?’ or ‘-li’ as the case may be. Moreover, Idemili uses ‘-h?’ to indicate negation while ?n?cha uses ‘-r?’ for negation. Idemili and ?n?cha use ‘-ba’ to indicate present progressive construction. It is also observed that both dialects also use 'e-' and 'a-' respectively in portraying present participle. The article has established that notwithstanding that Idemili and ?n?cha dialects belong to one group of dialects, they have some differences in their morphological processes.