A comparative analysis of morphological mutations-clippings and blends/portmanteaux in English and Urhobo languages

Abstract

Language, the major means of human communication, grows and changes in form as nations garner new experiences and engage in new technologies. The creation of new words to capture the new experiences and technologies becomes inevitable. This work researches into neologisms in the forms of clippings – shortening of words; and blends – combination of parts of two or more source words in both the English and the Urhobo languages. The exploratory, descriptive, quantitative and comparative research methods were used, while data collection was done  through library search, interviews and extensive internet search. From the result of the analysis of accessed data, English has back clips (52%) and  fore-clips (19%) as its two most frequently occurring types of clips; the Urhobo has the most frequenting occurring as the median clips (44%) and  fore-clip (38%) as the next most frequent. Again, while the English language has the most blend as the (BE) (41%), followed by (WE) (19.1% and  ((BW) at (13.7%), the Urhobo blend patterns are more varied with (BW) as highest (25.5%); followed by (MW) (15.7%) and (WE=O) (11.8%)  respectively. This shows that there are word mutations appearing in clips and blends, and, therefore, recommend that these are studied and  included in our daily use, especially in informal settings.