2026/03/11 by Osaigbovo Obed Evbuomwan · 1 voice
Arts and Humanities · Psychology · Social Sciences · #Language, Discourse, Communication Strategies #Linguistic Variation and Morphology #Phonetics and Phonology Research
paper · pdf · doi:10.37708/ezs.swu.bg.v24i1.3
openalex publication_date 2026/03/11 · openalex created_date 2026/03/16 · openalex updated_date 2026/05/21
Previous assumptions suggest that there is no regressive vowel nasalisation in Ẹ do, a language spoken in southern Nigeria. It is also generally believed that the process of glide formation applies automatically in the Ẹ do syllable patterning whenever the condition is met (that is, if a high(er) vowel immediately occurs before another vowel). Prevailing evidence from synchronic data, including 85 cases in which glide formation was expected to have occurred, suggests a different understanding of nasalisation and glide formation, as well as their effects on the Ẹ do syllable structure. The aim of this study is to investigate the conditions under which glide formation fails to occur when vowels co-occur in a given context. The data for the study are sourced from Ẹ do speakers in several speech contexts. The data were organized, analyzed with both perceptual and acoustic methods and observed carefully with the aim of achieving the set goal. The study reveals that regressive nasalisation is manifested in the language, and its interaction with glide formation questions the presumed automatic nature of vowel gliding in Ẹ do syllable. The paper also goes further to suggest an alternative account of glide formation: that its rule does not always apply, but is suspended in certain context by a ‘glide formation suspension rule’. It is maintained, herein, that Ẹ do manifests the CVV syllable structure, in addition to the V and CV. KEYWORDS: Ẹ do, phonology, syllable, glide formation, regressive nasalisation