Nominal Plurality in Agwagune: A Descriptive Analysis

Abstract

This paper attempts to examine nominal plurality in the Agwagune Language of Cross River Sate, Nigeria. The Language belongs to the Niger-Congo phylum. In a descriptive analysis, focus is on the structure and functions of nominal plurality in Agwagune nominals. Data for this study was based on the lexicon preserved by the researcher in a previous study which was in turn collated by naturally occurring speech of the native speakers of Agwagune. Agwagune can be pluralized through a process of stem change, prefixation and through nominal modifiers, such as numerical adjectives, determiners and demonstratives. It has also been discovered that nominal plurality in Agwagune through stem-change is human- specific only. Non-specific nominals are only overtly marked for plurality when they are accompanied by a modifying demonstrative.

Key words: Agwagune, modifiers, nominals, stem-change, vowel alternation