The phonology of Ọ́lọ̀mà
Description
This dissertation investigates the phonetics, phonology, phonology-grammar interfaces, morphology, syntax, and historical linguistics of Ọ́lọ̀mà. The analysis is based on eleven months of audio and video data collected from 21 language consultants, annotated using ELAN and PRAAT, and combined with informally collected data and participant observation. Various extensive linguistic studies have been conducted on many Edoid languages, but the Ọ́lọ̀mà language has been largely ignored. Although five studies (Elugbe and Schubert 1976; Elugbe 1973, 1989; and Schaefer and Egbokhare 2020, 2021) that looked at noun class and concord exist on Ọ́lọ̀mà, this dissertation is the first attempt to thoroughly investigate linguistic aspects that exist in the language. Merging extensive linguistic fieldwork, descriptive and theoretical linguistic insights, this present work explores issues such as lenis and non-lenis sounds, nasalization, glide formation, tones and grammar, intonation, vowel harmony, numerals, post-nominal pronouns, noun class and concord, and historical linguistics. Combining these insights with the principles of acoustic phonetics, this dissertation further investigates, among other things, behaviors of tones and their relationship with the grammar of Ọ́lọ̀mà, that intonational patterns for Ọ́lọ̀mà questions are different from many African languages, especially when compared with works of Rialland (2007, 2009) and Downing and Rialland (2017). It analyzes the status of vowel harmony and its influence on the grammar of Ọ́lọ̀mà, and proposes a revision of declension set prefixes with corresponding agreement form class in the noun class system. The dissertation concludes by discussing the historical linguistics of Ọ́lọ̀mà and Ọ̀kpẹ̀ proposing that they are two different languages. In sum, this dissertation serves as an introduction to our understanding of the linguistics of an Edoid language that has been neglected by linguistic research.