Eggon Language Counting System and Derivational Processes
Keywords:
Eggon language, numerals, derivationAbstract
The paper presents Eggon numerals in their order of occurrence, explaining the computation and derivation processes involved using descriptive method. The writer’s intuitive knowledge of the language and a review of previous works on Eggon numerals constitute a major source of data for this paper. The study reveals four types of numerals- cardinals, ordinals, distributives and adverbials (times). The cardinal numerals are classified into basic and derived. The basic numerals which are àkyèn ‘1’, àhà ‘2’,àtrà ‘3’, ènyῖ ‘4’, à tnò ‘5’, efì ‘6’, à fohà ‘7’,à fotè‘8’, à tronyè ‘9’, èk’pò‘10’, ènd’gà ‘100’, and èzbì ‘1000’ are used to derive the secondary numerals using the arithmetic principles of addition and multiplication, on the one hand, and the linguistic phonological, morphological, and syntactic processes of vowel elision, tone change, compounding, sentential expressions on the other. The ordinals are derived using the prefix ba before the respective cardinal number except ̀ori ̀ ‘first’ which has a distinct word. Similarly, the adverbials are also derived using the prefix engyi, while the distributives are produced by partial reduplication in a triplicate form. It can be said that Eggon is a decimal language that is it counts in multiples of ten.
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