Abstract

This work “Phonological Processes in Lam’nso” set out to identify and account for the phonological processes present in Lam’nso. It should be noted that little or no work has been done concerning this study. To achieve the aim and objectives of this study, data was collected using the recorder, during an interview. The data collected was transcribed and analysed following of the SPE model. The investigation carried out shows that Lam’nso is rich in phonological processes. Some processes are peculiar to a word class, either nouns, phrases.

CHAPTER ONE

GENERAL INTRODUCTION

1.0 Introduction

The general idea of this research is to identify and account for phonological processes, present Lam’nso. The discussion of this chapter covers necessary information about the geographical location of the language, genealogical classification of the language, Research problem, aims and objectives, significance of the study, scope of the study, theoretical framework, and delimitations.

• Geographical location of Lam’nso.

Lam’nso is spoken in three of the five sub-divisions of Bui Division in the Northwest Region of Cameroon. These three sub-divisions are Kumbo, Jakiri, and Mbuan subdivision. Lam’nso is the language of the Nso tribe, spoken by the Nso people and even non-Nso people, like Oku people, and the family of late Karl Grebe of Canada, etc.

The people of Nso have migrated to large communities all over the world, such as, Nigeria, England, Germany.

Nso covers an area of about 23000 square kilometers. It was believed to be spoken by about 100,000 speakers back in 1976 and today it’s believed to be spoken by 250,000 or more people Lanti and Fanso (1997, p.43).

It’s bounded to the north by the Limbum language spoken in Donga Mantung to the East by Mbe and Tikari, spoken in Nwa subdivision, to the North West by Oku and Noni subdivision of the Bui Division. It is situated approximately 110km away from Bamenda high lands Ring road. Kumbo has a population of 80,212 according to the 2005 census.

Genealogical Classification of the language.

Greenberg (1966) bases the linguistic location of Lam’nso on the classification of African languages. He classified African languages into phyla, sub-families, branches based on a comparative study of vocabularies that grouped African languages into affinity groups.

Although Greenberg (1966) did mentioned Lam’nso in his classification, the creation ALCAM (1963) made it appears Lam’nso is numbered in ALCAM as 830 can be traced from the Benue Congo family, to the western grassfield ring group spoken in North West Cameroon in the   Bui Division, East of Bamenda around, Kumbo.

It is classified under Niger-Congo, Benue-Congo, Bantoid Southern, wide Grassfield, Narrow Grassfield, Ring, and East. It is coded ISO 639-3.

Niger kordofan phylum

 

Benue Congo family

 

The Bantoid subfamily

 

Grass field sub branch

 

Western Grass field

 

Ring group

 

East group

 

Lam’nso (no dialects)

Figure 1: linguistic classification adopted from ALCAM (pages 352, 360 , and 362).

1.3 Research problem

The problem of this research is that no study has been carried out on segmental processes in Lam’nso.

1.4 Aims and Objectives

1. The aim of this work is to analyze the segmental processes in Lam’so.
2. The objectives are to identify phonological processes in Lam’nso, and analyze them following the SPE model.

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