Morphological Processes. a study of English and Hausa Languages

ABSTRACT

This work aims at investigating the relationships that exist between the English and the Hausa languages at the level of their morphological processes; and the implication this relationship will have on the teaching and learning situation. The study adopted a contrastive analysis theory cum contrastive analysis hypothesis which is an area of linguistic studies that deals with the scientific study of two or more languages so as to make critical, howbeit, pedagogical comments on their areas of divergence or convergence. The study discusses and compares some morphological processes such as back-formation, blending alternation, affixation, compounding, clipping, coinage, reduplication, acronym, and borrowing in both languages using the descriptive analysis method. The analyses were based on Kano dialect of Hausa language which is the standard Hausa dialect. From the analyses, it was discovered that, morphology which is the study of grammatical rules of word structures in any language operates in both languages with significant areas of differences and similarities; that English and Hausa use some processes to create some words; that affixation is one of the processes found in both English and Hausa; that some of the processes discussed in this study could be found in one and not in other language; that Hausa language interferes significantly on the teaching and learning of English as a second language. This research work can be used as a source of information or rather reference material to subsequent studies in English and Hausa languages in various components of linguistic structures. It would also provide a premise for the study and analysis of morphological processes in English and Hausa. Recommendations on how to overcome the pedagogical problems which were offered and conclusion drawn.