Morphophonological Processes in Fulfulde as Spoken in Taraba State

This study investigates morphophonological processes in Fulfulde as spoken in Taraba State, Nigeria, with particular attention to the interaction between morphological structure and phonological realization. The study aims to analyse the morphophonology of Taraba Fulfulde and, specifically, to describe its morphological processes and examine the phonological alternations triggered by affixation. The study is theoretically anchored on Morphophonological Theory propounded by Spencer (1991), with Optimality Theory (OT) Prince & Smolensky (1993) which provide the analytical framework for explaining how competing markedness and faithfulness constraints account for surface phonological forms. A descriptive research design was adopted. Data were collected from 30 native Fulfulde speakers selected purposively from Sardauna, Jalingo, and Gassol Local Government Areas through structured elicitation interviews, word lists, recorded natural speech, and native-speaker judgments. The data were analysed descriptively through identification, classification, tabulation, and interpretation of morphological and phonological patterns. Findings reveal that suffixation, noun-class formation, reduplication, and compounding are major morphological processes in Taraba Fulfulde. The study further identifies phonological alternations associated with affixation, including vowel epenthesis, consonant assimilation, consonant alternation, deletion, and vowel lengthening. These processes demonstrate that morphological operations systematically influence phonological realization and are constrained by the language’s phonotactic and prosodic requirements. The study concludes that Taraba Fulfulde possesses a productive and systematic morphophonological system that can be effectively accounted for through morphological and phonological interaction. It contributes to the documentation of Fulfulde and provides a foundation for further investigation of regional variations.