Inflection in the Ao dialect of Yoruba

Abstract

This paper examines inflection in the Ào dialect of Yorùbá, a language spoken in south west Nigeria. Previous studies in Yorùbá morphology have focused on derivational morphology rather than inflectional morphology. This work revealed that, in the Ào dialect, some functional categories have inflectional properties known as replasive morphemes. These funtional categories are the pronoun (both long and short), tense markers, aspect markers as well as focus and imperative markers. In this paper, we discussed the various forms of these words and the environments of their occurrence.