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ISSN 2063-5346
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WARAY VISAYAN DIALECTAL VARIATION IN LEYTE

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Maria Morena E. dela Peña, PhD
» doi: 10.48047/ecb/2023.12.10.483

Abstract

This paper argues that morphologic variations are revealed in the content words of Waray Visayan as spoken in Leyte Province from the original. This scholarly argument is anchored on the Social Theory of Language Change proposed by William Labov (1966), which advocates that a small part of a population begins to pronounce certain words that have, for example, the same vowel, differently from the rest of the population. This occurs naturally since humans cannot all reproduce exactly the same sounds. This linguistic investigation utilizes linguistic research focusing on the linguistic analysis of the morphological structure of the content words such as Nouns, Verbs, and Adjectives in Leyte Province. The affixations vary from the original which makes them variant, while some words were substituted. In the analysis of nouns, four words were substituted, one suffix was changed, the same prefix was used, one infix was changed, an infix was omitted, and another infix was added. In the analysis of verbs, only two words were substituted, two prefixes were omitted, two infixes were changed, a prefix was changed, a suffix was added, and two suffixes were changed to prefixes. In the analysis of adjectives, three words were substituted, three suffixes were changed, one suffix was inserted, one suffix was omitted, one prefix was omitted while an infix was changed, and one root word was changed. Hence, morphologic variations are revealed in the content words of Waray Visayan as spoken in Leyte Province from the original. It is hereby recommended that knowledge of the morphologic structure and morphologic change from the dialectal to the original as well as the mother tongue in both speech communities should be sought. Speakers of the same language need to learn the variations in other localities to avoid misunderstanding and confusion.

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