A MORPHO-PHONOLOGICAL ANALYSIS OF MINIMAL PAIRS IN HAUSA AND ENGLISH LANGUAGES

The research aims at doing a morpho-phonological analysis of minimal pairs in Hausa and English Languages to bring to bear the problems Hausa speakers of English have in pronouncing English minimal pairs using contrastive analysis. The study is motivated into this investigation by some observed speech features of some ■ Hausa speakers of English as they communicate in English. This is observable when, for instcmce, a typical Hausa native seems to give some English minimal pairs similar pronunciations irrespective of the sound contrast distinguishing them. Thus, one hears a Hausa speaker of English pronouncing the following pairs of words: cope, cop and cup; fame and firm; pen and pain; mother and murder; Jun and phone; foam and form etc as if they were the same in spelling, pronunciation and meaning. The research established the basic factor affecting the Hausa pronunciation of English minimal pairs. The contrastive Analysis Hypothesis developed by Robert Lado (1957) was used as a theory for analysis. Data were ■ collected through audio-tape recording. A Sensonic (Sony Recorder) was used as an instrument in the recording. The population was drawn from three states in Northern Nigeria. The analysis revealed that most English and Hausa minimal pairs initial and final are consonantal, while medial are vowel based. Tone played a prominent role in distinguishing two or more lexical items in the Hausa language. The research recommended that the Hausa speakers of English (especially those in the study area) should make a stringent effort to become fully aware of their innate tendencies to commit the pronunciation errors identified in this research work so that they will be able to identify areas of similarity as well as the difference between ■ English and Hausa