Gbagyi Syllable and Phonotactics

This paper investigates the phonological phenomenon in Gbagyi, where a unit of sounds is made up of a central peak of loudness in a word; and certain sounds (either consonants or vowels) are not permissible to occur in certain positions or contexts. Descriptive method was employed to analyse the data which were elicited from primary source obtained from randomly selected native speakers of Gbagyi residents in Bwari Area Council of Federal Capital Territory, Abuja. Secondary data were also used in this study, especially data on Gbagyi phonemes from Dalhatu (2017). Major findings from this study show that the typology of Gbagyi syllable structure is characterised by V, CV, N, CGV, CNV and CNYV/CNWV. The phonotactics of Gbagyi, on the other hand, disallow the occurrence of coda, long vowels, and diphthongs in the language. In the same vein, it is observed that only the vowels Id and Id occur word-initially in Gbagyi. Consequently, this paper proposes that a vestigial noun class system attests in Gbagyi, where these two vowels occur to mark this system, thus reaffirming Blench’s (2013) report that some Nupoid languages exhibit traces of remnant noun class system.