Word compounding as a morphological process in Efik language

Abstract

This study was carried out to examine Word Compounding as a morphological process in Efik Language. Compounding is a word formation process based on the combination of lexical elements. Words can be considered as a complex part in language since it has many different forms. Compound words are words formed through one of the word formation processes by combining one lexical item with another and thus produces a new word with a new meaning. This research work investigates to know how compound words are formed in Efik language. This work describes the forms of compound words, the meaning of words in their individual lexical categories as well as the meaning of words in their compounded state. It was discovered that some compound words in Efik could be literally realized or figuratively realized when undergoing the word formation process of compounding. It was also discovered that lexical categories resulting from the process of compounding are noun compound, verb compound, adjective compound and reduplication in the case of adverb. Most of the times, coined Efik counterparts of words are formed mostly by compounding and analogy. The use of English equivalents for compound words by the Efik-English bilinguals in their code-mixing utterance counts as an appropriate statement or reply. Sometimes, just as word compounding is in English, so it is Efik