LAXING AND STRENGTHING IN ẸDO AND ESAN

ABSTRACT

The aim of the study is to compare and identify the weak and strong speech sounds in Edo and Esan languages. The data was collected from three native speakers of each languages and it was conducted by an oral interview. The Esan native speakers interview were all from Esan North Esan local government area of Edo state (Uromi dialect). The concept of distinctive features was used as the theoretical frame work and it first formalized by N.S Trubetzkoy (1939) and further developed by Roman Jakobson, C.Gunnar, M.Fant and Morris Halle(1952) and Noam Chomsky and Morris Halle(1968). In the data analysis it was revealed that the lax consonants in Edo are [ɱ,ɹ,h], Esan does not have any lax consonants.