A Linguistic Analys is of Bade Personal Names: Structure and Meaning

Abstract

This paper undertakes a linguistic analysis of Bade personal names, spoken in Yobe
State, Nigeria, examining their structure and meaning. The paper is anchored on
Morphosemantic Theory and complemented by the Referential Theory of Meaning.
It investigates fifty-one (51) Bade personal names, collected through oral
interviews with eighteen respondents across six villages in Bade and Jakusko Local
Government Areas. The names are analysed at two levels. Structurally, the analysis
identifies the morphological processes involved in their formation: prefixation,
suffixation, compounding, reduplication, and borrowing. Semantically, it classifies
the socio-cultural motivations the names encode. Findings show that thirty-one
names (60.8%) are morphologically transparent, exhibiting recurrent prefixes {a-
, da-, ma-, ga-}, a nominalising suffix {-be}, and a gender-marking suffix pair (-
an/-ən}, while twenty names (39.2%) are morphologically opaque and function as
pure referential labels. Semantically, the names fall into twelve categories, the
largest being circumstances surrounding birth (21.6%) and twin status (15.7%).
Cross-tabulating structure and meaning reveals a clear pattern. Descriptive, eventmotivated names remain overwhelmingly transparent, while classificatory names,
especially those marking twin status, are overwhelmingly opaque. This suggests
that Bade twin-naming constitutes a closed, traditionally memorised sub-lexicon
rather than a productive naming process. The paper concludes that Bade personal
names function simultaneously as linguistic and cultural texts, and recommends the
continued documentation of Bade naming practices as a means of preserving the
community's linguistic heritage.