The Morphological Patterns of Derivation in Onicha-Mbaise Variety of the Igbo Language

Some varieties of the Igbo language stand out as they have richer linguistic features and the Onicha- Mbaise Igbo is a typical example of such. The variety is classified as East Central Group of Dialect under Nwaozuzu [1] classification. This paper is on the derivational morphology of Onicha-Mbaise variety of the Igbo language looking at the strategies for identifying the prefixational, infinitival, participle, agentive, gerundive, noun instrument and qualifier markers. The study seeks to determine the various ways in which this variety derive new words. This present study has its roots from the works of scholars that have done their best in working on the different aspect of language as regards to Mbaise variety. Some of which are antonymy in Mbaise variety of Igbo by Onyeocha [2], aspiration and nasalization in Mbaise variety of Igbo by Osuji (2021). Primary and secondary data were used for this research as some natives of the town were interviewed and some books were used too, to gather the data needed for the research. It is discovered that the most prolific way peculiar to this dialect is the use of an obligative participle 'n' which is attached to verbs to show future obligation. The study concludes that to derive these new words through prefixation, Onicha-Mbaise variety makes use of infinitival marker 'i-/i-', participle marker 'e-/a-', obligative participle 'n-', agentive 'o-/o' ,noun Instrument 'n-/m-', qualifiers 'n-/o-/u-'.