Analysing the Use of some Morphological and Semantic Particles in the Krio Language in Kailahun District, Sierra Leone

The study dealt with comprehensive documentation of the language features of locative particles in the Krio Language in Kailahun District, a dominant non-native Krio area. The study examined specific language usage in space, synonymous with deictic features with respect to the speaker. The study used fluent and literate speakers of Krio, though few are non-native krio speakers. Based on the topic, the researcher considered personal experience in doing the research, including designing instruments such as desk-top research, use of the tape recorder, and corpus-based research. The findings revealed that locative nouns, locative particles, and locativized nouns exist in the Krio language and that such morphological and semantic features enhance comprehension, competence, and performance.


Introduction
The Sierra Leone Krio has unique morphological features, like the English Language. For example, talk, talks, talking, talker, talked, all have "Talk" and other smaller units: -s, -er, -ing, -er, -ed. These are described as morphemes, which are defined as minimal pairs known as grammatical functions in the English Language. The grammatical description of words allows the traditional division of most languages into minimal units, morphological elements, syntactic structures or sentences, and units of meaning known as semantics. It is important to note that morphemes are free morphemes when they stand on their own, derivational morphemes when they are formed from other morphemes, and inflectional when they begin or end other morphemes as root words.
The Sierra Leone Krio, like the English Language, has unique morphological aspects. For this study, they are considered to be locative structures in the Krio Language. Locatives are structures in language that denote the location or position of objects in relation to where the speaker is and the addressee. Three types of locatives are known, including locative nouns, locativized nouns, and locative particle groups. In his view, Crystal (1996) mentions that the use of particles can be in the form of foreign words, which are usually mispronounced, thus referring to them metaphorically as "loan" words which draw a natural picture of "borrowing" in the language. Crystal (1996) also sees sentences as a composition of words while morphology is a decomposition of words, and words are associated with meaning to refer to objects, actions, ideas, and qualities in the world of experience, even outside language. In the same respect, Owen T. (1990) recognizes the existence of morphological and semantic features as transformational grammar and that languages are generally made up of individual words classified as parts of speech; suggesting that not all parts of speech are complete words as in the case of bound morphemes compared to free morphemes: bound morphemes include nouns, verbs, adverbs, and adjectives while free morphemes include auxiliary verbs, prepositions, and conjunctions. Crystal (1996) also states that Inflectional Morphology and Derivational Morphology are two main fields of morphology, but distinctively, the former studies the way in which words inflect or vary to express grammatical contrast in sentences, while Derivational Morphology studies the principle governing the construction of words without reference to the specific grammatical role that a word plays in a sentence. In this way, Derivational Morphology exceeds Inflectional Morphology in providing much more insight into morphological processes in language generally, such as in the case of the Sierra Leone Krio. Hence, there are inflectional affixes and suffixes performing grammatical functions: Suffixation includes nouns, third-person singular, present tense of the verb, past tenses of verbs, present participles of verbs, past participles of verbs, comparative and superlative degrees of adjectives.
In addition, Crystal (2000) asserts that morphological processes of a language, affixation, compounding, and conversion, and that "Reduplication," for example, goody-goody, wish-washy, is most prolific in the Krio language of Sierra Leone. Crystal goes on to say that in the case of "Borrowing" as a morphological process, the two most obvious factors in semantic change are the arrival of new words and the loss of old ones. He thus mentions that language is as dynamic as a human being and that this fact brings to mind the concept of "Language Change". Roberts (2009), "unpublished," highlights that customarily a distinction can be made between locative structures, including the Sierra Leone Krio and that this fact demands some morphological and semantic clarifications. He points out the fact that locative nouns, locativized nouns, and locative particle groups constitute categories of locative nouns as structures employed in a language, denoting the position of an object with respect to a particular location of the speaker.

Statement of Problem
Comprehensive documentation of the language feature of locative particles in the Krio language had not been as vast as in the English Language. This study was to improve on the scarce documents or orthography in the Sierra Leone Krio Language.
At the same time, the phenomenon studied in this research might have appeared a bit vague in relation to the morphological and semantic composition of linguistic elements. This vague condition might have been a compelling problem that posed itself to the learners of Krio. Contrarily, other people may have considered the use of locative structures in the Krio language as a more impediment to meaningful comprehension; and that it had been a potential barrier to communication. The controversy might have been a linguistic dilemma that might have had much bearing on the teaching and learning of the Krio language. The study was therefore intended to investigate, analyze and resolve the inherent conflict.

Aim and Objectives
The general aim of the study was to undertake an analysis of the use of Sierra Leone Krio particles, whereas the objectives of the study were to: ➢ Identify and classify the various groups of locative particles in the Sierra Leone Krio Language. ➢ Give a morphological description of each main and sub-categories of locative particles identified in the Krio Language. ➢ Give a semantic description of each of the main and sub-categories of locative particles identified in Krio. ➢ Give the semantic similarities and differences between some locative particles. ➢ Give the educational value of locative particles in the Krio Language as a teaching subject. ➢ Give some suggestions and recommendations that might reflect the conclusions of the findings.

Scope of the Study
The study explored aspects of the Krio Language locative particles along with some identifiable forms, their morphological features, and their semantic values.

Hypothesis
The hypothesis of the study was to find out whether locative forms in the Krio Language were important in meaningful communication.

Justification of the Study
The study was important because the investigation is an important literature on the Krio Language useful to lecturers, teachers, and students of linguistics, as well as researchers of a similar study.

Limitation and Delimitation to the Study
The study was limited to financial constraints to cover the cost of stationery, transportation for computing and binding the completed report, and other forms of expenses. Materials for the literature review were hardly accessed. Therefore, the researcher had to go the extra mile to search for relevant texts, as there were no orthographies on particles.

Methodology
The study was purely a descriptive approach due to the nature of the topic. However, the researcher verified the data very thoroughly through discussions using the following:

Study Area
The study was a sociolinguistic study which is another branch of linguistics.

Sample Population Size
The study targeted twenty-five participants, including twenty non-native speakers and five native Krio speakers. There were more non-native speakers because it was difficult to identify the native speakers of Krio in the study area.

Study Instruments
In order to gather accurate information for the study, the following sources were utilized:

➢ Personal Experience
Being a fluent and literate user of Krio, the researcher accessed a lot of information on the use of locative structures in the language

➢ Desk Top Research
The researcher investigated the few native and non-native users of the language and textbooks which documented particles in language. This extensive review of available sources resulted in meaningful input.

➢ Use Of Tape Recorder
The researcher used a tape recorder during informal discussions to obtain the data on the subject to ease the conduct of the study. Transcription of the data was then done in Krio, verified, and utilized for the study ➢ Use of Corpus A purely descriptive approach was used to analyze the data by; -

Results and Discussion
Like other Sierra Leonean languages, the Krio language uses words or structures that can customarily be distinguished from other kinds of words. Locative nouns, locativized nouns, and locative particles, all of which are studied in the Krio language, demand morphological and semantic clarification. The study, therefore, dealt with such clarifications and analyzed the findings as follows:

Locative Nouns
Locative are structures in a language that denotes the position or location of an object meant to be described within the confines of an area in relation to the speaker and the addressee.
Locative nouns are categorized in Krio as shown in these examples: These are sets of locative nouns and are functional morphemes, typically prepositions. Nonetheless, they are inherently and semantically locative since the feature (+ locative) is seen in each element without a derivational process, as in prefixation and suffixation in other languages. Case two has other locative nouns. Morphologically, the elements in each set constitute a free functional morpheme which is followed by a noun described as a free lexical morpheme. Semantically, the elements are inherently locatives, consisting of free functional morphemes that are followed by nouns described as lexical morphemes. The particles are also followed by pronoun elements with In all these, there are free functional morphemes with a noun (+ Human) or pronoun that follows it. Semantically, they are inherently locatives, containing the features (+ locative). The above are semantically and inherently locatives having (+ locative) features

Case Four (IV): Locatives -Reduplication lo-lo-lo low-low-low (literally very low)
biεn-biεn-biεn way behind bifo-bifo-bifo right in front/ before Ͻp-Ͻp-Ͻp way/right up In the above case, the set of locatives is morphologically reduplicated. Reduplication is characterized by a change in pronunciation. The items are free functional prepositions or words. They are also inherently locative.

Locativized Nouns
The second category of locatives is locativized nouns. Like locatives, they participate in compounding: adjectives and nouns combine to form new locative structures: The above forms are derivational forms that exhibit semantic features from a locative denoting a specific location.

Locative Particle Groups
In the Sierra Leone Krio, locative particles occur in word groups which begin with "to", "na" "oba", "pan", as in i. Particle "to" to εdmasta to the headmaster to Patrik to Patrick to Ͻnkul to uncle to sisi to elderly sister (an elderly woman)

ii.
Particle "to" + pronoun to mi to me to unu (plural) to you (plural) to dεm to them to yu to you (singular) In the above group, the particle "to" plus pronoun marks a noun separately, indicating that each item, in this case, exhibits a feature (+ Human). Morphologically, the particle "to" precedes a noun as well as a pronoun, described as a functional morpheme. "To" in English is known as an infinitive. However, the article does not mark noun objects or abstract nouns as in Particle "na" corresponds with "on" in English. The nouns which the particle marks are either (+ object) or (+ Human).
Morphologically, "na" is a free functional morpheme (preposition). In these items, the particles express locality in connection with abstract mental concepts. They lack physical or imaginary boundaries. Particle "na" is a free functional morpheme realized as "in" in Krio. The semantic value of the features is (+ locative) in the noun complements. They are inherently locative.
iv. Particle "na" "at" (Realized as) na ba at the bar na bich at the beach na sinima at the cinema na steshϽn at the station na mitiŋ at the meeting Particle "na" which is realized as or functions as "at" is an adverbial feature denoting (a place).
Particle "pan" "on" (Function as) pan am on him/her/it pan yu on you pan dεn/dεm on them pan dis on this pan dat on that Particle "pan" also has restricted usage and can be interchangeably used with the particle "na' to denote "on" in the English language. Morphologically, particle "pan" is a free functional morpheme, and it has pronoun complements that are personal and demonstrative pronouns, while the feature (+ locative) is embedded in the pronoun complement.
Particle "pan" which functions as "on" also performs other functions, including the following: "pan" "on" pan tebul on the table pan pepa on the paper pan bϽdi on the skin pan domϽt on the door pan mata on the mat Here 'pan' marks nouns and thus has the feature (+ object). "pan" is a free functional morpheme and refers to locatives in different ways.

Summary
The study investigated and analyzed Sierra Leone Krio particles and, categorized the particles, gave morphological and semantic descriptions of the particles with their differences and similarities or educational values. It was clear that locatives are specialized structures identifying locations in space and time used to aid communication and comprehension.

Conclusion
The study showed that locative nouns, locativized nouns, and locative particles form the three main categories of locatives. It stated that while locative nouns express universal locative relationships, locativized nouns express locative relations involving other objects apart from the speaker, but locative particles, on the other hand, probably emerged as an alternative locativized strategy in the Sierra Leonean Krio language used by both literate and non-literate learners of the language.

Recommendations
The study recommended that: 1. The curriculum planners and the Ministry of Basic Education should: ➢ support the teaching of Sierra Leonean languages in school, especially Krio. ➢ Include locative particles in the curriculum of study in school. ➢ Encourage teachers to study Sierra Leonean Languages and specialize in Krio. ➢ Encourage students and teachers to be educated on the values in the learning of Sierra Leonean Languages, including Krio.
2. The school administrators, teachers, and lecturers should: ➢ emphasize the use of the appropriate methodologies, including role play, drama, discussion, and explanations in the teaching of Krio. ➢ Ensure that Krio is learned by both literate and non-literate learners, emphasizing particles of Krio words for fluency in the Krio language.