A Morpho-semantic Study of Anthroponymy- Turkana Personal Names

Abstract

This study aimed at analyzing the morphology, the semantic and pragmatics of selected personal names in the Turkana language. After exploring the morphology, semantic and pragmatics of these names, it is evident that socially and culturally these names are of great significance to the Turkana people as; they provide a wealth of information about the name bearer, the environment in which one was born, the circumstances during birth and the expectations of the entire society from the name bearer. The names are also a recording of history and further, they evoke different emotions to the society as shown by names associated with war and natural calamities. The study through qualitative research, data was described from the point of view of the interviewees who are competent speakers of the language. The morphology of the data was analysed by identifying, segmenting and describing morphemes that constitute each name. The meanings were semantically interpreted but a further interpretation was carried out. The identification of the phenomenon behind the names was discussed in details and the meaning given. Some data was present in tables where the first denotative and the second denotative meanings were given. It was established that names constitute addition of prefixes, infixes and suffixes added to roots which altered their meaning. However, some words were used in their bare forms as personal names and for the implied meaning to be derived, the process of lexical pragmatics theory which are; narrowing, metonymy, broadening that constitute metaphorical extension, categorical extension were applied. These processes brought different meaning of names according to context where a child was born. The meaning of the names given are hence, connotative and some denotative. The names were derived from different word classes such as verbs, other nouns, and adjectives and compounding of one- or two-word classes. The study concluded that all names are meaningful and context plays a major role in identifying their correct meaning. The social-cultural factors govern the pragmatic meaning of the names and convey messages. The knowledge gathered from the research can be used as study materials in linguistic classes and onomastic studies. The material can be a recording of those languages threatened with death and can be salvaged before they became extinct.