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Aspects Of Bura Phonology
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1.5 SCOPE AND ORGANIZATION
This long essay is divided into five
chapters. The first chapter is the introductory chapter which will
contain the general introduction of the research, the historical
background of the speakers, sociolinguistic profile of Bura people,
genetic classification of the language, collection and analysis of the
data and the theoretical framework employed.
Chapter two deals with
basic phonological concepts such as the sound inventory, tonal
inventory, syllable inventory and sound distribution. The chapter ends
with a distinctive feature classification of distinctive sounds of the
language.
Finally, chapter five summarizes and concludes the work.
1.6 THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK
This
project is theoretically modelled according to ‘generative’ grammar, a
theory propounded by Chomsky in the 1950s. A generative grammar consists
of a set of formal statements which delimit all and only all possible
structures that are part of the language in question. The basic aim of a
generative of linguistics to present in a formal way the tacit
knowledge native speakers have of their language.
1.7 DATA COLLECTION
The
data used for this project was collected from native speakers of the
language. The data was collected through the use of the Ibadan word of
400 basic items.
Below are pieces of information about the informants.
NAME: Simon Shelia
SEX: Male
AGE: 39
OCCUPATION: Lecturing
NUMBER OF YEARS SPENT IN BURA: 26 years
OTHER LANGUAGES SPOKEN: English, Hausa, Chibok
NAME: Ishaku Bitrus Ndah
SEX: Male
AGE: 37
OCCUPATION: An Evangelist
NUMBER OF YEARS SPENT IN BURA: Occasionally during holidays
OTHER LANGUAGES SPOKEN: English, Hausa, Fufulde
1.8 DATA ANALYSIS
On
collection of the data, the researcher listens to the recorded tape and
writes the words in a chosen orthography and transcribes the words
phonetically.
By doing this, the researcher was able to observe the
behaviour of segments in the language. The principle of minimal pair (a
principle of identifying contrastive sounds) was used as a technique for
identifying contrastive segments. Through this, the researcher accounts
for the sound inventory and the syllable inventory of the language. The
minimal pair principle was also used in accounting for the tonal
inventory of the language. Words that are homographic but differ in
pitch (tone) are treated as distinct words. Such contrast is analyzed as
the language attesting distinct tonemes, hence, the language being
tonal.
Sounds are also examined in terms of their distribution. That
is, the structural positions in which a sound can occur or occurs and
the class of sounds that can pattern together in a given structural
position. This triggers an ‘if-then’ condition that warrants the use of
distinctive features and the postulation of phonological rules and rule
formalization.
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