A Morphological Study of Infixes and Infixation Processes in the Iguta Language

This article is published in AL-QALAM Journal of Languages and Literary Studies, Vol. 1, Issue 1, December 2025 (A Publication of the Department of English and Literature, Federal University Gusau, Zamfara State, Nigeria)

A MORPHOLOGICAL STUDY OF INFIXES AND INFIXATION PROCESSES IN THE IGUTA LANGUAGE

By

Mohammed, Ahmed Ado

Department of English and Literary Studies, Sa’adu Zungur University, Bauchi State, Nigeria

Author’s email and Phone No.:ado.mohammedahmed@gmail.com, ado.ahmedmohammed@sazu.edu.ng

Abstract

 The paper explores the infixation processes in the morphology of Iguta, a minority language of northern Nigeria. In contrast to global concern on lexicalising endangered languages for documentation, there is a little attention on documenting minority languages of Nigeria. The consistent arguments against the existence of infixes and infixation processes in the morphology of Indo-European languages (e.g., English) and in some Nigerian languages motivate this paper. Thus, Ado’s (2017) 455 Iguta wordlists was used as secondary data. With the aid of a hand analysis strategy and thematic analytical procedure, the paper reveals that infixes can be used to inflect or derive nouns and verbs. The -ma-, -ti-, -ir-, -z-, -d- and –tuta- are inflectional affixes that can be used as infixes to either inflect nouns or verbs in Iguta. In this sense, the –ma- and –ir- infixes are used to inflect verbs while the –ti-, -tuta- and –z- infixes are used to inflect nouns. For the derivational aspect, the paper discovers that –ma- infix is used to derive noun from verb and the –de- infix is used to derive another noun class from an existing noun. This implies that both inflectional and derivational affixes are commonly used in building nouns and verbs in the Iguta language. Hence, the paper demonstrates that infixes and infixation processes exist in some Nigerian languages, particularly the Iguta language.

Keywords: Language Documentation, Infixation Processes, Inflectional Morphology,

 Derivational Morphology, Iguta Language

Introduction

 As a branch of linguistics, morphology studies the important aspect of language without which the analyses of words and their internal structures will remain difficult (Akmajian, 1995). There is a credible and consistent concern on analyses and lexicalisation for documentation of endangered languages globally, however, the situation is not same in the African context. African linguists are more into expanding the existing literatures on language endangerment and or mere documentation of endangered languages in the continent. This is evidently reflected in Wurm’s (1996) efforts on mapping the endangered West African languages and Benzinger’s (1998) finding in the African literary materials on endangered languages. Connell (1998) and Kastenholz (1998) rendered similar approach to threatened and moribund West African languages.

 Moreover, most linguists in Africa do not pay much attention to minority languages instead they focus on regional and dominant ones (Sands, 2009). Blench (1998) summarizes the status of languages of the Middle Belt of Nigeria as moribund. This point is vital and relevant to the current paper as Iguta is one of the minority languages of the Middle Belt of Nigeria (Blench, 2007). It is obvious that most African languages will become endangered unless a serious attempt is made to document them. This argument becomes more obvious observing that the Benue-Congo language family lacks available published materials on morphology. Currently, the Benue-Congo Comparative Wordlist (BCCW) remains the sole published data on Bauchi and Plateau languages. In fact, the Nigerian government files is the main source of wordlists that provides an orthographic list.

Iguta is one of the minority languages of Bauchi and Plateau states. It belongs to the Benue-Congo family tree. It is a language that is given a little scholarly attention, making the language vulnerable (Ado, & Bidin, 2017). Hence, it is considered among the endangered minority languages of northern Nigeria. NBTT (2006), claimed that within the shortest minimal period, many minorities Nigerian languages such as Iguta, Jar, Gere and Ibuze may disappear if they are not given attention. Therefore, the paper focuses on the morphological analyses of Iguta language, by investigating the existence of infixation process in the language. The aim is to strengthen the lexical development of the language against the threat of extinction. It is hoped that the paper will contribute towards obtaining materials for documentation on the infixation of Iguta language.

 The paper adapts Bauer’s (1988) Model of Affixation with the aid of Ado (2017) 455 Iguta wordlists as the instrument for data collection and a guide for data analyses. Ado (2017) Iguta wordlists is a bank of vocabularies or stable set of lexicons useful for morphological analyses.

Literature Review                                                 

 Several scholars argue against the existence of infixes and infixation processes in the morphology of some languages. For example, Mattews (1974), and Newman (2000) established the non-existence of infixes in the morphology of most Indo-European languages such as English. Other scholars such as Al-Hassan (2011) have equally shared a similar view on the morphology of Nigerian languages, particularly the minority ones. To establish his argument, Al-Hassan (2011) subjects the findings of scholars like Abubakar (2000) and Newman (2000) to intense scrutiny and provides an alternative explanation. He claims that the mere citation of infixes in most northern Nigeria, particularly Hausa language is erroneous or misplacement of an alternative terminology. He further claimed that the possibilities for mistaken assertion of infixation in Hausa could be due to lack of occurrence of tonal phenomena in Hausa the language which is common in Afro-asiatic languages.

 This paper aims at demonstrating that infixes and infixation processes exist in the morphology of Iguta language

Why the Iguta Language?

 Greenberg (1963, 1970) and Grimes (2000) classify African languages into four major phyla; Niger-Congo, Nilo-Saharan, Afro-asiatic, and Khoisan, using the comparative method. A procedure used in selection of lexical items from languages with similar features and equivalent contextual meanings. They are placed in slots of a table to assess similarity or otherwise to trace their origin. Greenberg (1963) highlights that majority of African languages are genetically tonal, Hausa and Iguta inclusive although they differ in phylum. Hausa language belongs to the Afro-Asiatic language family (i.e., Semitic languages), while Iguta belongs to Benue-Congo under the Niger-Kordofanian family language phylum (Ames, 1934).

Figure 2.1: The Genetic Tree of the Iguta Language

 Iguta native speakers (i.e., Anaguta) live side-by-side with the Hausa and Fulani speaking people. Most of the three tribes are multilingual in Iguta, Hausa and Fulbe languages due to proximity. Similar to many Benue-Congo languages, the Iguta language borrows many lexical items from its neighbours, especially the non-standard dialect, (i.e., Andisama dialect).

 Greenberg (1963) classifies Niger-Kordofanian into two branches i.e. Niger-Congo and the Kordofanian. The Niger-Congo is further divided into six branches as shown in figure 2.1.

 

 Thus, West Atlantic consists of Northern and Southern groups of African languages. The branches under the Niger-Congo are: West Atlantic, Mande, Gur, Kwa, Benue-Congo and Adamawa Eastern groups. The Benue-Congo consists of seven (7) sub-groups of African language families. Each sub-group consists of various languages. For example, the sub-group 1 where Iguta belongs, has the following languages: Piti, Janji, Kurama, Chawai, Buji, Amap, Gure, Kahugu, Ribina, Butuwa, Kudawa and Iguta (Greenberg, 1963).

 Of the large number of language groups that made up Nigeria, Bauchi and Plateau languages are virtually the composite and magnitude in nature; constituting about 50-120 languages (Blench, 2000a). These languages are moribund or potentially endangered, limited within small number of villages due to Hausanization or urbanization (Blench, 1998). The central part of Nigeria is dominated by Plateau languages. They are widely spread from the axis of Lake Kainji and cover the region in the south of Bauchi, with an estimated number of 1 million speakers, Kainji and Jukunoid exclusive. Lexical and morphological evidence provide actual boundary between Bauchi, Plateau and Jukunoid (Williamson & Blench, 2000).

Geographical Location of Anaguta People

 Iguta is a language spoken in Rimin Zayan of Toro LGA in Bauchi state and in Jos North LGA of Plateau state, Nigeria (Blench, 1998). The native speakers called themselves ‘Iguta’ while others called them ‘Anaguta’. Polemically Hausa people called them ‘Nârkùtá’ or Nárágûtà, which is also the name of a settlement in Jos North L.G.A. (Gwom, 1983). Iguta were sparsely populated and increased their population through inter-marriages with neighbouring tribes. The Anaguta have four clans and these are: Andùwóng, Andírígízà, Anágòhóm and Annábór (Anàmbí). The language has five dialects, namely Andírgízà, Annábór (Anágòhóm), Andóhó, Andìgóng and Andísâmá. Andírgízà is the standard dialect (Diamond,1993) which is concern of the current paper.

 The Anaguta land covers the areas surrounding Babale down to the stream which marks the boundary between Plateau and Bauchi states. The Anaguta land extends from somewhere around Rafin-Jaki where it shares a boundary with Tilden Fulani to somewhere along Hwoll-Aza. It shares a boundary with the Rukuba West. To the North-East, it shares a boundary with Buji. To the South, Anaguta land shares a boundary with Berom and Jarawa (Afizere). To the North-West, it shares a boundary with Berom where both lands are demarcated by the Bukuru River. The area is mostly rocky and mountainous with hills scattered around. In addition, the rock formation is interspersed by wide valleys and plains which are used for agricultural purposes.

 Review of Empirical Literature

 The Bauer’s approach (1988, p.19) states that “morphology is used for sequence of rules that are postulated by linguists to account for the changes in the shapes of words”. The scholar also establishes that affixes are the most common way of creating words in the languages of the world. Bauer (1988) also identifies many forms of affixation processes in the world’s languages. However, the central concern of this paper is the infixation process. Therefore, Bauer (ibid) argues that infixes are morphs inserted after the initial consonant of the base. The following examples are derived from Chrau, a language of Vietnam and from Tagalog, a language of the Philippines:

(10)                       Chrau: Vōh “know” V-an-ōh “wise”

 Cāh “remember” C-an-āh “left-over”

(11)                       Tagalog: Sulat “wrote” S-um-ulat “write” S-in-ulat “was written”

 In the Nigerian context, there are studies conducted on morphology and affixation in particular. This paper focuses on affixation processes that exist in most of the languages of northern Nigeria, particularly the ones in Bauchi and Plateau states. Some of studies include Felicia (2012), Blench and Dendo (2006), Yakubu (2009), Muazu (2009) and Giwa (2011). Others include Rufa’i (1979), Al-Hassan (2011) and Fomwul (2011). Most of these studies adopt Matthews’ (1974) approaches. Moreover, it is also observed that very little has been done on the linguistics of the Iguta language. The few identified are morphological description of noun formation process through suffixation and prefixation in the Iguta language (Ado & Bidin, 2017).

 On Hausa morphology, Rufa’i (1979) studies certain processes that exist in the language within the framework and the theory of morphology. He explains the principal processes that account for word formation in Hausa, where he examines six morphological processes namely: compounding, affixation, reduplication, zero derivation, borrowing and manufacturing. Although Rufa’i’s work provides a detailed morphological analysis of Hausa, the short coming of the study is the lack of formulated rules to guide the study. In fact, there are some items which are explicitly not part of the core morphology like “manufacturing” and some others that are unclear. While certain items like vowel length are analysed, tone and inflection are not mentioned at all.

 In same vein, Yakubu (2009) conducts a study on the morphological processes of Tarok personal names to provide an effective and practical contribution to the body of knowledge by developing the language and its teaching material in Nigeria and with the aim of preventing the extinction of the language. The study uses oral interview and tape-recording to collect data from the participants who are competent native speakers of the language. Textual materials written by both native speakers and the foreign researchers were served as the secondary source of data for the study. The study found three morphological processes that are involved in the derivation of personal nouns. These are affixation, compounding and reduplication. The affixations used to form personal names include the suffix ‘cit’ and ‘kat’, the compound names formation processes in Tarok involved noun + noun, verb + verb, noun + verb, verb + noun, adjective and verb + adverb, and adjective + noun. There are also monosyllabic names, variant names, circumstantial names, feminine and masculine names in the language.

 Muazu (2009) conducts a study on the Kilba language to investigate its morphological processes. The study follows both Matthew (1974) and Abubakar’s (2000) models related to three basic processes: reduplication, affixation and modification. Affixation is thus identified to be the commonest in the Kilba language. Ma’azu observes four prefixes in the language which includes “ndər-, njir-, mbor-, with vi-” and five suffixes which are: “–kur” as abstract noun suffix, “-da, -nga, -nyə, -kə’yə, -kənda” as possessive suffixes, while “-na and –nda” as marking both demonstrative and emphatic suffixes while “ari” suffix marks emphasis in the Kilba language. The study also identifies other suffixes in the language like “-ánì, -tì, -yà, -bìyà, -nà, -nyà with rì. The study does not indicate the number of participants and their age category. The instrument used for the data collection too is not mentioned.

 Similarly, Giwa (2011) conducted a study on morphological processes of Alago (a case study of Doma dialect) of Eastern South-Central Niger Congo. The data was retrieved from ten native speakers of the language as informants using Matthew’s (1974) model. The study identifies affixation, reduplication and modification.

 On a similar note, a study on the introductory morphology of Jakattoe, a branch of Angas-Goemai from West Chadic languages of Nigeria was conducted, with the view to identifying the morphological concept and other relevant discourses in morphology of the language. The primary data was obtained through unstructured interviews with six native speakers within the age of 40 to 70. The study was conducted using Yule’s (2007) model. It was discovered that Jakattoe is a tonal language with affixes mostly serving as quantifiers. The results also show that affixes also distinguish gender and they can be used in word derivation. The ‘mūep’ suffix on the other hand, is seen as a plural marker in the language. Furthermore, reduplication is also used to place emphasis and also functions as an adverbial in the Jakattoe language (Fomwul, 2011).

 In the same vein, Nkanga (2012) provides a detail analysis of the morphological and internal structure of Ibibio nouns by focusing on their types and morphological make-up. The methods employed in the process of gathering information were interviews and written materials from books and journals about the language. The study adopts Essien’s (1990) and Urua’s (2000) models to examine the effect of tones in Ibibio and how nouns are formed. The study reveals that Ibibio has base formed nous, compound and blended nouns. The study also shows that nouns in Ibibio begin with vowels or syllabic nasal sounds which sometimes involve the process of elision. This process refers to how some sounds of a word are dropped or deleted in order to form compound names. The results also highlight that when the sound plummeted, its tone marking remains as in the case of blending. In other cases, compound words are reduced to a shorter form as in the case of clipping.

 Durueke (2012) studies reduplication in the Tiv language of central Nigeria. The study was conducted to provide pedagogical materials for teaching and learning for teachers and students of linguistics. Data was collected through interviews and the study reveals that adjectives and nouns are reduplicated to become adverbs. However, not every noun can be reduplicated in the Tiv language. This indicates that there are very few ‘true’ adverbs and adjectives in the Tiv language.

 Al-Hassan (2011) conducts a study entitled “Does Hausa Really Have Infixation? The study indicated the existence of prefixes and suffixes but argues against the occurrence of infixes in the language. According to him, infixes could be a mere erroneous perception as scholars might have been viewing suffixes with obscured phonological or removal morphemes as infixation. Other views shared by Al-Hassan (2011) on infixation could be due to a simple case of wrongful utilisation of terminology as a result of superficially extraneous premise. He therefore, regards infixation in the Nigerian languages as questionable or non-existent.

 In another study, Umar (2008, 2020) focuses on infixes and infixation processes in Hausa. The study brings closely the data-driven outputs of Hausa infixes and empirically observes their nature and behaviour being processed. Through the use of descriptive approach, the study reviews the general outlook of Hausa infixation processes and highlights certain points debated over the realization of infixes by some Hausaists. The findings indicate the manifestation of a reasonable percentage of functional infixal morphemes that are both derivational and inflectional in nature. Umar ((2020) further subcategorises the infixes into vocalic, consonantal and syllabic in accordance with Semitic or Berber language of the Afro-Asiatic phylum. He also discovers other infixal morphemes used in the Hausa language.

 The reviewed studies clearly highlight certain morphological processes and how they exist in related languages of northern Nigeria. This paper focuses on infixes and infixation processes in the Iguta, a minority language in northern Nigeria.

Methodology

 This paper utilised a qualitative approach to explore infixes and infixation process in Iguta language. Merriam (1998) demonstrates three qualities of using qualitative approach in the study of this nature. Thus, qualitative design is particularistic, descriptive and heuristic as it enables in-depth analyses for rich and detailed findings. In addition, being particularistic simply implies that a researcher has clear understanding of the exact phenomenon on focus. Hence, the current paper centres on identifying and establishing the existence of infixes and infixation processes in the Iguta Language. Therefore, through this approach, the researcher is able to provide a detailed description of the secondary data used.

 The data used for this paper is secondary. The content of Ado’s (2017) 455 Iguta wordlists was used as data. The data was primarily based on Andirgiza, the standard dialect spoken by Iguta natives residing in both Toro and Jos North LGAs of Bauchi and Plateau States of Nigeria. Ado’s (2017) 455 Iguta wordlists was initially generated through qualitative means in the native speakers’ residences via Swadesh (1955) 400 wordlist. Objectively, Ado’s (2017) Iguta wordlist is considered as a stable set of Iguta lexicons that can be used as instrument and guide (i.e., bank of vocabularies or lexicons) for any morphological analyses of the language (Ado & Bidin, 2017).

Data Analysis

 To obtain results on infixes and infixation processes in the Iguta language, the paper uses a hand analysis strategy and a thematic method. The strategies enable the researcher develop insights from the Ado’s (2017) 455 Iguta wordlist during the analysis. In the process, the data was systematically sorted via mind mapping to identify the various infixes in accordance with the theme of the paper. In the preparation process, every bit of the data was studied to determine familiarity. Upon completion, the researcher subsequently searches and studies every lexicon to relate meanings of the roots, stems, and morphemes peculiar to the language. In fact, this is the foundation of generating codes and themes during thematic analyses process as recommended by Braun and Clark (2006). This is because thematic mapping is best applied at the initial stage of data analyses to sort out the correlations of themes at different levels (i.e., main and sub-topics within them). Afterwards, the paper reviews the themes to obtain a coherent pattern based on its objective. Subsequently, the researcher develops a reasonable idea of the kind of themes required for the paper. Hence, the themes were defined, refined and determined based on the aspect of the data each theme captures. This was made possible through the arrangement of the individual analysis into a coherent manner and the subsequent derivation of sub-topics within the topics of the designed models. At the final stage, the results of the thematic analysis are written up based on Bauer's (1988) word-building processes using affixation: infixation and affixation processes.

Results and Discussions

Affixation in Iguta

 It was observed that the most common way of building new words in Iguta is through affixation. Both inflectional and derivational affixes exist in the language. An Inflectional affix does not change the syntactic category of its base morpheme, while a derivational affix sometimes changes the grammatical category of a word. This means that a derivational affix may have a semantic shift, while an inflectional affix may not. An inflectional affix indicates certain grammatical functions of a word (Bauer, 1988). In order to describe the noun formation in the Iguta language, the data were studied based on different types of affixations, particularly infixation. In this paper, the result suggests that both inflectional and derivational affixes are commonly used in building new words in the Iguta language. To form nouns, ‘-ma-, -ti-, -ir-, -z-, -d- and –tuta- morphs are used as infixes to inflect or derive nouns.

Infixation

 This is a situation where an affix or a bound morpheme is inserted within a word. Iguta language has the following morphemes as infixes, namely: -ma-, -ti-, -ir-, -z-, -d- and –tuta-. This is illustrated below:

Infixes as inflections

 In Iguta language, infixes can be used as inflectional affixes of either nouns or verbs.

Example: (1)

 BASE GLOSS = RESULT GLOSS

 ùwá dry = tùmàwá dries

 àpíhú oven = pítíhú ovens

 kúndà hear = ùkúndíràh hears

 ùwángárá roast = ùwángárzá roasts

 ùgwàgyà wife = ùgwàtútágyà wives

Infixes as Derivations

 The Iguta also uses infixes to derive nouns from verbs and nouns from another nouns class.

Example: (2)

Verb - Noun

BASE GLOSS = RESULT GLOSS

ùshàhrà pollute = ùmàùshàhrà pollution

 Nevertheless, based on the data collected, this is the only example found to exist in the language.

Example: (3)

Noun –Noun

BASE GLOSS = RESULT GLOSS

ìshànè white ants = rìshéndé fetish

 Based on the above analysis, it is observed that in Iguta, the infixes are used both derivationally and inflectionally. The –ma- and –ir- infixes are used to inflect verbs while the –ti-, -tuta- and –z- infixes are used to inflect nouns. In the derivational aspect, the –ma- infix is used to derive noun from verb, while the –de- infix is used to derive another noun class from an existing noun. They can also co-occur in the word form with prefixes and suffixes.

 The results of the current study correspond with other studies on affixation processes that are used to form nouns (see Rufa’i, 1979; Bauer, 1988; Abubakar, 2000; Kamal, 2005; Blench & Dendo, 2006; Yakubu, 2009; Muazu, 2009 & Giwa, 2011). According to Bauer (1988) the most common way of building new words in the languages of the world is by using affixes. Bauer (1988) examines the affixation processes of many languages; such as the Basque, Finnish, Thai, English and Quechua languages.

 However, apart from the results from Bauer (1988), the findings of the other studies mentioned above are limited to prefixation, suffixation and infixation. This is because they adopted Matthew’s (1974), which categorises affixation into three: prefixation, suffixation and infixation. This is evidently shown in the findings of Blench et al. (2006) where they report that prefix, infix and suffix, alternating with zero or similar affixes are the noun-class/nominal class affixes commonly displayed in plateau languages. The findings of the study on affixation are also inconsistence with that of Shina’an (2011) who establishes that suffixes, infixes and interfixes do not exist in noun formation of Goemai language, an African language. According to her findings, affixes (prefixes) are attached to the initial position of the root only and could result in lexical change in the grammatical meaning of Goemai nouns. Similar to Shina’an (2011), Al-Hassan (2011) establishes that infixation does not exist in the Hausa language. Al-Hassan (2011) results show that infixes in the Hausa language are plural markers. Therefore, the mere citation of examples of infixes in most northern Nigerian languages is a misplacement of alternative terminology.

Conclusion

 Contrary to the claims made by some scholars, this paper has found and established the existence of infixes and infixation processes in the Iguta language. The paper has established that infixes can be used to inflect both nouns and verbs, and they can also be used to derive both nouns and verbs. This implies that both inflectional and derivational affixes are commonly used in building nouns and verbs in the Iguta language. The -ma-, -ti-, -ir-, -z-, -d-, and –tuta- are inflectional affixes that can be use as infixes to either inflect nouns or verbs in Iguta. In this instance, the –ma- and –ir- infixes are used to inflect verbs, while the –ti-, -tuta-, and –z- infixes are used to inflect nouns. For the derivational aspect, the paper has also found that the –ma- infix is used to derive nouns from verbs and the –de- infix is used to derive another noun class from an existing noun. Therefore, the paper recommends further studies on affixation processes in Iguta and other minority languages of Nigeria. The paper equally concludes that the results of this study can be utilised as reference points in linguistics.

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