Typology of Headedness in Yorùbá Nominal Derivations

Abstract

This study examines headedness in different nominalisation processes in Yorùbá. This research aims to investigate possible unification of head analysis in Yorùbá nominalisation. Three major word formation strategies exist in Yorùbá, namely, affixation, reduplication and nounnoun compounding (N-N compounding henceforth). The morphosyntactic relationship among these three, in respect to a unifying analytical goal, has not been fairly considered. Operation merge, with other principles of the Minimalist Programme, is selected to validate my claim about the unified analysis of headedness in Yorùbá. This paper employs the qualitative method of data collection. Data were Bisoye Eleshin Researcher, Institute of African and Diaspora Studies, University of Lagos, Nigeria Email: bisoyeeleshin@gmail.com Received 5 February, 2021; Revised 5 March, 2021; Accepted 23 March, 2021 Copyright © 2021 Language Research Institute, Sejong University Journal of Universal Language is an Open Access Journal. All articles are distributed online under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/3.0) which permits unrestricted non-commercial use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. 92 Typology of Headedness in Yorùbá Nominal Derivations sourced from both primary and secondary means. I claim that there exists a parallel morphosyntactic structure for the three nominalisation processes in Yorùbá. I establish that the three nominalisation structures have the same syntactic representation as far as their headedness and their internal syntax is concerned. Findings in this study show that, firstly, prefixes, reduplicant and the first noun in an N-N compounding are the head. Secondly, they all occupy the same parallel positions in their varying structures.