Inflection in Eggon

This study describes the inflectional processes of some Eggon traditional word classes that show inflection. Il aims at providing documentation on Eggon inflection for the purpose of pedagogy and language revitalization. Previous studies on Eggdn inflection were limited to plurality, hence the need for the present study to fill the research gap by exposing other aspects of inflection such as sentence plurality, reflexives, possession and tonal inflection in the language. Data were sourced from NasarawaEggon and Kcffi Local Government Areas of Nasarawa State through participant observation, documented sources from Eggdn dictionary draft. Ibadan 400 wordlist and researcher's introspection. The collated data were written down using field notes and analysed using descriptive method. Findings show that Eggon has three word classes that show inflection: nouns, verbs and pronouns. Nouns show plurality and possession through affixes (prefixation). reduplication, phoneme alternation, tone placement and zero morphemes. Only one verb 1/ 'go' shows inflection as in are 'went'. Reflexive and reciprocal pronouns in Eggon are formed by prefixing u- to the possessive pronoun. Other verbs show tense by adding morphemes before or after the verbs. The study reveals that inflection in Eggon is used to show number, possession, tense and reflexive pronouns: change meanings of words and differentiate word classes. The paper adds to the study and documentation of small group indigenous languages in Nigeria, and serves as a useful reference material for pedagogy and further research in linguistics on other small group languages