Abstract

The occurrence of Urhobo vowels in sequence often leads to one of the vowels either deleting or becoming a glide (Aziza, 2007:465). However, the demands of syntax appear to trigger the occurrence of vowels in sequence in order to produce constructions that are grammatically acceptable in the language. This paper aims at identifying and describing such syntactic triggers that bring about this phenomenon. Data for the study was gathered from oral sources drawn from eleven (11) Urhobo proverbs.It was observed that the syntactic need to express tense, aspect, state, passivity, degree and negation in sentences brings about a reduplication of vowels. These vowelreduplicantscarry specific grammatical functions and meanings as expressed in the grammatical features they exhibit in sentences examined. The outcome of the study, therefore, highlights the role syntax plays in connecting sound to form, grammatical meaning and function of words in a natural language. It also draws attention to two other types of overt syllable structure in Urhobo (VV, CVV) as well as different types of phrases and sentences the phenomenon produces in Urhobo language.

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