A study of noun plural formation in bor dialect of dinka

Abstract

This is a descriptive study of the noun plural formation in Bor dialect of Dinka spoken in South Sudan. The study was conducted within the framework of the theory of the Lexical Phonology and the theory of Auto-segmental Phonology. Therefore, the study adopted an eclectic approach with Lexical Phonology as the main theory and Autosegmental Phonology as the minor theory. It aimed at investigating and describing, in detail, various processes of noun plural formation in Bor dialect. The study sets out to investigate and examine the vowel and consonant processes as well as tonal changes in forming plurals in Bor dialect. It also examines the part of the noun plural where affixation occurs. In order to investigate the objectives adequately, data was obtained by recording the voices of different informants, using Digital Voice Recorder VN-712PC Olympus brand. Data was then transcribed phonemically. Tone was also marked on the words in both the singular and plural forms. The researcher was able to identify different morphological and phonological processes emerging from the plurals formed. The researcher established that there was vowel lengthening, vowel alternation, vowel shortening, and vowel insertion, suppletion of consonants, consonant alternation consonant insertion and changes in the tone in the noun plural formation process in Bor dialect. It was also observed that it is the stem that is usually modified in noun plural formation in this dialect. The findings confirmed that Bor dialect has an irregular morphology and therefore it is flectional.