Morphophonemic Variation among Kinamayo Dialects: A Case Study

Abstract

This study analyzes the morphophonemic variations among Kinamayo dialects. Purposeful sampling, in-depth interviews, sorting and classifying of words according to phonological and morphological structures in data analysis were used. Results revealed that the phonemic inventory of the Kinamayo dialects consisted of twenty segmental phonemes, fifteen consonants: /n/, /g/, /d/, /s/, /l/, /w/, /r/, /p/, /m/, /k/, /t/, /y/, /h/, /b/, /ŋ/; five basic vowels: /a/,/,/i/, /ɪ/, /u, /ʊ/; vowel lengthening: /a:/, /u:/ and three diphthongs: /aʊ/, /aɪ/, /ᴐɪ/. Consonant clusters are mostly borrowed words and occur in the onset of the syllables. The analysis of Kinamayo phonology and morphology will serve as the basis for designing a functional orthography and lexicon of the language. Classification based on morphological structure revealed that the morphological processes common to Kinamayo are affixation, reduplication, deletion and derivation of one-word class from another. Affixation is the most productive morphological process in Kinamayo. Variation among the dialects was observed to involve phonological and morphological processes, voicing or phonation, and in terms of prefix for the markers in the past tense. Peculiarities in the phonological and morphological processes of dialects, as well as their areas of differences were observed to be associated primarily on geographical distribution. Keywords - Linguistics, morphophonemic variation among Kinamayo dialects, case study, Surigao del Sur, Philippines