Prefixation as a Derivational Process in Mada

This paper is a preliminary report on an ongoing research on Mada. a minority indigenous Nigerian language spoken in Nasarawa, Kaduna and Plateau states of Nigeria. This present work undertakes a study of prefixation as an aspect of the morphology of Mada by examining the role of prefixes in the derivation of new words in the language. The motivation for this study stems from the fact that Mada has a reduced morphology with scanty literatures available for data-driven analysis in the language, thus a study of prefixation is geared towards documenting this aspect of the morphology of the language through descriptive analysis. However, our focus in this study is to establish the extent of prefixation in creating new words, especially in the formation of agentive (occupational nouns) and plural nouns cushioned on two perspectival premises: derivation and inflection. Ample data were elicited from competent native speakers of Mada for this study. Introspection and the linguistic training of the researchers were employed to collect, collate and analyse available data. It is shown in this study that, the prefix mo-,together with its variants bo- and n-prefix,is used to mark countable nouns whereas the prefixes wan- and ban-, and fo-/vo-acting as pseudo prefixes are used as alternation for persons in the formation of agentive or act as diminutives. The major finding of this study, however, shows that prefixation is the only variety associated with the derivational morphology of Mada and the most widespread.