Reduplication in the Ibibio Language

Abstract

This study investigates the morphological processes of reduplication in the Ibibio language. Its objectives are to ascertain if construction morphology can account for reduplication in the Ibibio language, what word class can be reduplicated and how reduplication occurs. This study adopts construction morphology as the theoretical framework and the data for the analysis were generated by introspection since the researcher is a native speaker of Ibibio and the standard Ibibio language was adopted. This study reveals that construction morphology can account for reduplication in the Ibibio language as data were analysed using construction morphology. It also reveals that in the Ibibio language, nouns, adjectives, adverbs and numerals are reduplicated completely while verbs and some adjectives reduplicate partially taking the consonant verb (CV) format as prefix (dá, dé, bó, kà, bé etc).