AN INVESTIGATION OF DIMINUTIVES IN ENGLISH AND HAUSA LANGUAGES: A COMPARATIVE STUDY APPROACH

Abstract

This study examined the form and pattern of universal linguistic
phenomenon of two genetically unrelated languages (i.e English and
Hausa Languages) at the level of prosodic morphology in relation to
diminutives of names. The study investigated how diminutives are
formed, categorised based on their morphological structures, the
morphological processes they undergo, the parts of speech they
incorporate and consequently some points of similarities and
differences using prosodic morphology theory of McCarthy and
Prince (1995, 1998). Purposive sampling technique was used for the
selection of these diminutive names. The study considered 20 names
from both languages which could go with diminutive from selected
documents. The data was sourced from The Online Dictionary of First
Names (2006) and English Japanese Name Truncation (Avaram 2010) for
English names. Also, Onomastic Treasure of the Central Intelligence
Agency 1965 and Sunayen Hausawa na Gargajiya da Ire-Iren Abincin
Hausawa (Yahaya 1979) were consulted. The study found that the two
languages share similar diminutive formation processes and differ in
some aspects where both languages use syllables in their diminutive
formation.