Author(s)

Toyin Bamisaye, George Adekunle Ojo

Department of English and Literary Studies, Ekiti State University, Ado-Ekiti, Nigeria.

This paper examines the phonotactic processes in Yoruba adaptation of English syllable structures. It investigates the nativization of English consonant structure in the word-initial and word-final positions by Yoruba-English bilinguals. From the contact and influence of the English language and Yoruba language in an ESL environment, the fundamental thrust of linguistics would be to explicate the influence that one language would have on another. In this case, the focus is on the effects the English has on Yoruba. When these effects are viewed, it is discovered that structural rules are affected. Our findings reveal that vowel epenthesis is not constantly the repair device. Analysis of data shows that consonants are either preserved or deleted which justifies the earlier position of scholars of foreign syllable modifications.

Phonotactics, Adaptation, Phoneme, Epenthesis, Nativization

Bamisaye, T. and Ojo, G. (2015) Phonotactic Adjustments in Yoruba Adaptation of English Syllable Structures. Open Journal of Modern Linguistics, 5, 379-388. doi: 10.4236/ojml.2015.54034.