A structural analysis of personal names in Kusaal
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Date
2024
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Language Sciences
Abstract
New names are created on daily bases but old names never change in form. Thus, names
offer a window where the archaic linguistics structure of a language can be traced. This
study explores the grammatical structure of personal names in Kusaal by focusing on their
phonology, morphonology and syntax. Phonologically, the paper explores the phonotactics
of personal names; morphologically, it discusses the various morphemes that constitute
this category of names, and syntactically, it analyses the rules that underlie the con struction of personal names that are phrases, clauses and sentences. The meaning of
personal names in Kusaal have been discussed extensively in previous studies for which
reason minimal attention is dedicated to it in the current work. The findings show that
personal names in Kusaal conform to almost all the structural rules of the language. They
occupy specific positions in the noun phrase and in the sentence; they are neutral to
syntactic features such as definiteness and plurality. Personal names also take prefixes and
affixes and can be compound words. There are instances where insertions and deletions
are observed in the compound formation of personal names in the language. The study
uses the Basic Linguistics Theory for its descriptive analysis of personal names. Both pri mary and secondary data are used in this study
Description
Research Article
Keywords
Personal names, Grammar of names, Syntax of names