Reduplication and Iteration in Kåthemnɛ

Abstract

In Kȧthemnɛ, one cannot discuss Reduplication without mentioning Iteration. The rate at which the Themnɛ lexicon grows is alarming. As majority of native Themnɛ speakers are illiterate in their language, they are ignorant of the fact that there are various morphological processes that are responsible for the increase in the lexicon of the language. The purpose of this work, therefore, is to explore the two morphological processes out of the many which help to broaden the lexicon of the language. These two processes are Reduplication and Iteration. Writing a paper on English morphology, an area that has almost been exhausted by linguists produces nothing new. It will simply be a repetition in different words what other people have already said. This can interest little no one. One is convinced that linguists and students of linguistics in general, would be interested in knowing how the concepts of reduplication and iteration operate in the Themnɛ language whose writing system was standardised only in 1993. Furthermore, the topic has been selected because it is one of the key elements in the study of most languages, in the sense that it deals with the various ways in which words are formed, and how they are put together to produce meaningful utterances. Given that our Sierra Leonean languages are now taught in Secondary Schools and at tertiary levels, one is of the conviction that writing a piece in one of these languages (Kåthemnɛ) would help motivate others to follow suit. Hence, the researcher’s interest in the topic. Reduplication is a process by which new lexical items are formed by partial or complete repetition of an element or elements. There is, almost always, an interesting phonology-morphology interaction in reduplication. The new lexical item formed is usually semantically different from, though in most cases, conceptually related to its base form, while Iteration is the repetition of an element or elements involving neither phonological, nor word class change; and there is usually no radical semantic shift. Kamarah, (2020:6).