THE DESCRIPTIVE ASPECTS OF OSOSO PHONOLOGY

ABSTRACT

There has been little or no work done on Ososo phonology. This in a way has placed the sounds system of the language in an endangered situation. This work sets out to describe the sound system of the language in order to explore their dynamics in word formation. It also sets out to document the language. Using the 204 basic word list from SIL Comparative African Word list (SILCAWL), data for the study was elicited from native speakers. These data were translated into their Ososo equivalents and transcribed phonetically for analysis. The analysis revealed that Ososo has 22 consonants and 11 vowels. Of the 11 vowels, 7 are oral, while 4 are nasalized. Also revealed are the syllable structures of the language, the functional tones which are the high [ˊ] and the [ˋ] tones, the phonemes of the language and some phonological processes evident in the language. This work contributes to the study and documentation of the language.