CONTRASTIVE ANALYSIS OF THE SEGMENTAL PHONEMES AND PHONOTACTICS OF IGBO AND YORUBA

This study is a contrastive analysis of segmental phonemes and phonotactics of Igbo and Yoruba. Contrastive analysis is an important tool which applied linguistics uses to find out the similarities and differences between the L1 ¬and TL and to predict areas of difficulty that the learner will encounter learning the alternate language. The study was carried out by identifying the segmental phonemes and phonotactics in both languages. Descriptive method was adopted, relevant data on the phonology of the two languages were gathered and thereafter analyzed within the framework of contrastive analysis before making predictions and conclusions. Findings show several areas that may constitute learning problems for the Igbo learner of Yoruba and Yoruba learner of Igbo. The absence of these Igbo consonantal phonemes /p, kw, gw, , , w, t, v, z, / in Yoruba will pose learning problems to the Yoruba learner of Igbo. Therefore, since the Igbo language has a greater number of consonants than Yoruba, the Igbo learner will have less difficulty in the study of the consonants. The nasalized vowels of Yoruba and some aspects of the Yoruba phonotactics will constitute areas of difficulty for the Igbo learner of Yoruba. The absence of these nasalized vowels of Yoruba // in Igbo will pose a great learning problem for the Igbo learner of Yoruba. After the descriptions and comparisons, predictions were made. These will help the curriculum planners, text book writers and teachers to solve some of the language learning problems.This study is a contrastive analysis of segmental phonemes and phonotactics of Igbo and Yoruba. Contrastive analysis is an important tool which applied linguistics uses to find out the similarities and differences between the L1 ¬and TL and to predict areas of difficulty that the learner will encounter learning the alternate language. The study was carried out by identifying the segmental phonemes and phonotactics in both languages. Descriptive method was adopted, relevant data on the phonology of the two languages were gathered and thereafter analyzed within the framework of contrastive analysis before making predictions and conclusions. Findings show several areas that may constitute learning problems for the Igbo learner of Yoruba and Yoruba learner of Igbo. The absence of these Igbo consonantal phonemes /p, kw, gw, , , w, t, v, z, / in Yoruba will pose learning problems to the Yoruba learner of Igbo. Therefore, since the Igbo language has a greater number of consonants than Yoruba, the Igbo learner will have less difficulty in the study of the consonants. The nasalized vowels of Yoruba and some aspects of the Yoruba phonotactics will constitute areas of difficulty for the Igbo learner of Yoruba. The absence of these nasalized vowels of Yoruba // in Igbo will pose a great learning problem for the Igbo learner of Yoruba. After the descriptions and comparisons, predictions were made. These will help the curriculum planners, text book writers and teachers to solve some of the language learning problems.