Partial homophony and decoy lexicalisation in S’ncamtho and Ndebele slang

Abstract

: Sociolinguistic research has established that age is a factor in language variation and ultimately language change. Youthful manipulation of language creates vernacular which results in the phenomena of youth languages and registers. The youth languages are similar to slang creation and usage because they are both lexicalised through manipulating lexis from their matrix languages, and borrowings. S’ncamtho is a Ndebele-based youth language in Zimbabwe and it shares a lot of lexis with Ndebele slang and urban vernacular. One of the manipulation strategies in S’ncamtho that is also present in Ndebele slang is what is referred to in this article as partial homophony. In this manipulation, words that are partial homophones are used to create decoy lexis. The article deploys qualitative research to gather instances of partial homophony in context and uses content and morphological analysis of the rules and constraints in this hybrid morphological process. The article establishes that the process relies on phonological, morphological and quasi-semantic manipulations to create decoy lexis. It is a special type of blending which violates the main and conventional rules of blending. The word replacements are not based on semantic relations, but partial homophony, and the replacements are actually decoys not semantic extensions.