Stress and Word-Class Shifts in Nigerian English: A Phonology-Morphological Interface Analysis
Keywords:
Nigerian English, Stress Misplacement, Phonology-Morphology Interface, Metrical PhonologyAbstract
This study examines the interaction between lexical stress placement and morphological category interpretation in Nigerian English, with particular attention to how prosodic restructuring affects noun-verb contrasts, compound cohesion, and lexical parsing. While previous studies have documented stress variation in Nigerian English, less attention has been paid to how such variation operates at the phonology-morphology interface and how listeners interpret stress as a morphological cue. Drawing on 320 stress-sensitive lexical tokens from recorded speech, broadcast media, academic presentations, and social media, alongside a perception-based task involving 80 respondents, the study analyses patterns of stress realisation and interpretation across lexical domains. Using Metrical Phonology as an explanatory framework, the analysis shows that stress variation in Nigerian English is systematic but non-uniform, reflecting L1-influenced prosodic templates, pragmatic prominence, and reinterpretation of morphological boundaries. The findings identify a continuum of outcomes ranging from maintained stress contrasts, through reduced contrast and variable alternation, to category neutralisation in a subset of stress-dependent noun-verb pairs. Rather than indicating communicative failure, these patterns reveal a reweighting of stress from a stable morphological signal to a more general marker of prominence. The study contributes by demonstrating how stress variation reshapes morphological signalling in Nigerian English and by integrating production and perception evidence to clarify its interpretive consequences.
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