Nasality and Nasalisation in the East Central Igbo Dialects

This study explored nasality and nasalisation in the East Central Igbo dialects, a dialect group of Igbo comprising all the speech communities in Imo state and some nearby speech communities in Abia and Rivers States of Nigeria. As a result of the observed gaps, which have revealed that previous phonological studies in East Central Igbo dialect have not given adequate attention to the issue of nasality and nasalisation. This study, therefore, aimed to investigate the peculiarity of nasality and nasalisation in the East Central Igbo dialects emanating from the inconsistency in the process of nasalisation. The objectives were to: (i) describe the phenomenon of nasality and nasalisation as phonological features and process, respectively; (ii) demonstrate the peculiarity of nasality and nasalisation in the East Central Igbo dialects employing the autosegmental phonology framework. A framework propounded by Goldsmith in (1976) for the representation of segments in separate tiers or lines as against the binary feature arrangement of Chomsky & Halle (1968).  (iii) Provide evidence from nasal segments and nasalised segments in the East Central Igbo dialects. The study adopted a descriptive research method. The findings of the study were that: (i) East Central Igbo dialect attests only two (2) syllabic nasals /n/, and /m/.(ii)That the two syllabic nasals identified are opaque in nature, hence, they do not transfer their nasality to the adjacent consonant. (iii) That East Central Igbo dialect attest peculiar oral vowels in the sense that a vowel sound can be oral vowel in an environment that is exactly the same with where it is nasal vowel, as seen in words like /ɔ́rʊ́/ ‘deformity’ and /ɔ˜r˜ʊ˜/ ‘work’.