A comparative study of Ekegusii and Kikuria morphosyntactic features

Abstract

This study is a comparative analysis of the morphosyntactic features of Ekegusii and Kikuria. It specifically focuses on the concord keyed to the noun class in both languages. It falls within the context of comparative linguistics: an area that deals with relationships between languages.

Ekegusii and Kikuria belong to the Bantu sub-family. Bantu languages have been found to have a well developed noun class and concordial patterns. Hence this is one area of testing the degree of relatedness between Ekegusii and Kikuria. Therefore, this study takes a comparative approach.

To compare the morphosyntactic features of the two languages the interview method was used to collect data. A list of words, noun phrases and sentences was made using the lexicostatistics approach upon which respondents gave Ekegusii and Kikuria equivalents. Segmentation method was used to analyze the data obtained.

Upon examination and analysis of the collected data from the target languages, we observed that ''most nouns belongs to the corresponding noun classes and operate a corresponding concordial systems, except for few cases pointed out. This high correspondence cannot be attributed to chance but shows a close relatedness of Ekegusii and Kikuria in the morphosynactic area.''