A Study on the Morphological Process of Reduplication in English and Ùkwuàni Languages

This research is a contrastive analysis of the morphological processes of reduplication in English and Ùkwuàni languages. Its purpose is to establish points of divergence while noting convergence in the formation of reduplicants in a bid to predict learning difficulty which an Ùkwuàni L1 learner of reduplicant words may encounter. The theoretical frame for this research is on Marantz and Selkirk’s theories. The primary and secondary source of data was utilized. Data analysis reveals that some reduplicants have no phonological effects on the base to which they are attached. Other reduplicants in English change phonologically whereas they do not in Ùkwuàni. This study has, therefore, helped in identifying the difficulty associated with phonological changes encountered by the Ùkwuàni L1 learner of English during the learning process. It recommended that in language pedagogy, English L2 and Ùkwuàni L1 teachers particularly in the Niger Delta region should utilize effectively the ordering of difficulties in learning.