PLURALIZATION STRATEGIES IN YORUBA

ABSTRACT
This study is the examination of all the strategies employed by the Yoruba language in the pluralization of words (nouns, pronouns, adjectives-Demonstratives).
The study aim at examining and analyzing the pluralization strategies in Yoruba.
The primary data of this work were gathered from competent native speakers as well as the secondary data from published and unpublished materials on pluralization. The theoretical framework adopted for the study is basic linguistic theory which has it base in descriptive linguistics. The collected data was analyzed descriptively with the adopted theoretical framework.
During the examination of the pluralization strategies in Yoruba, the study observed that Yoruba employs seven strategies in the formation of plurals. The strategies observed are; the use of numbers the use of quantifiers; púpọ (plenty/many), díè (few/little), gbogbo (all), the addition of ‘àwọn’, the addition of ‘wọn’ to demonstratives, reduplication of modifiers, contextual plural interpretation and suppletion for pronouns.
The pluralization of Yoruba as observed in the collected data is syntactic in nature.