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An analysis of Timothy Wangusa’s Poem Africanology using Morphology as a linguistic structural approach Morphology is first attributed to German novelist, poet Johan Wofgang in the 19th century in the biological context. i.e. the study of the internal structure of organisms. Linguistically, Morphology is the study of the internal structure of words and how they are formed. It provides clues on how words should be written and pronounced. Words are composed of morphemes for instance un-kindly. Un and kindly are morphemes. So the order of the morphemes matters. Therefore a morpheme is the minimal unit of meaning. In order to understand morphology, one needs to understand suffix, prefix, affix, inflection, derivation, etc. Below is a poem by Timothy Wangusa called “Africanology” and how it can be used to understand word formation, morphemes for instance bound morphemes, free morphemes root words and parts of speech e.g. nouns, verbs, adjectives, etc in relation to syntactic position in the poem. -Africanology- Consequent upon the Extraordinary Colloquim Of All-Africa Think Tank of Academic Associations Concluded this historic day in the city of Abuja Its hereby recommended and forthwith resolved That strategic organs of the Think Tank be set up, Equitably spread across the African Continent And situated on all principal university campuses To research and promote the ethos of Africanology The Amphitheatre of Anti-Governmentology in Algeria The Bureau of Bankruptciology in Burkina Faso The Centre of Senselessology in Sierra Leone The College of Corruptionology in Kenya The Ethnic-house of Extremisimology in Ethiopia The Institute of Insolventology in Eritrea The Library of Liquidationology in Libya The Mission-Mansion of Misinformationology in Malawi The Naira-nest of Nepotismology in Nigeria The Polytechinic of Povertology in Pemba The School of Sectarianology in Somaliland The Senior Seminary of Swindology in Senegal The Synagogue of Scarcitiology in Southern Sudan The Temporal Temple of Terrorismology in Togo The University of Ubiquitoniquitology in Uganda – The Zonal Zoo of Zerologicology in Zimbabwe The director of each designated research organ Shall be a pre-eminently published intellectual, Prize-winning analyst and proven ideologist Of permanent Western World Predatoriology And Perennial Third World Strangulationology When using morphology as a linguistic structural approach we must be able to identify the morphemes, what they are and the different types. A morpheme is the smallest unit of meaning we have. It is the smallest piece of a word that contributes meaning to a word. From the poem there word senselessology in the eleventh line which has 3 morphemes, namely “sense” “less” and “ology.” To break a word into morphemes, one must start at the beginning of the word and see how far into the word you need to go to find a sub-part of the word that has some meaning. Once you’ve found the first morpheme, ask yourself whether there’s another meaningful sub- part of the word after that first morpheme. For instance from the poem Africanology which was meant to address African problems, “The Bureau of Bankruptciology of Burkina Faso”. The word “Bankruptciology” has three morphemes. “Bank” is independent which is a noun, “rupt” is also independent meaning derived from latin meaning break. Therefore Timothy was trying to express the grief that Africans suffer as a result of poverty. All morphemes are either free or bound. A free morpheme is one that can stand on its own – that is, it’s an entire word. From the poem Africanology the word “The” that is used to start most lines and most nouns are entire words for instance “house, temple” as used in the poem. Free morphemes may appear with other bound morphemes attached to them; crucially, though, they don’t need to have other morphemes on them. For instance in the poem Africanology, there is a line, “ the strategic organs..” the word “organ” is added on to “s” to make it plural. A bound morpheme cannot stand on its own, but rather must be attached to a free morpheme whenever you say it. From the poem we have “shall be a pre-eminently..” “ly” in this case is a is a bound morpheme which can’t be said alone. Some morphemes are roots while others are affixes. Root : The primary piece of meaning in a word, to which affixes can be added. In English, a root is often a word itself. These mostly include nouns and adjectives. Affix: A morpheme which attaches to roots (or stems), changing their meaning in regular ways. Examples re-, un-, -est, -er, ing, -s Affixes are generally either prefixes or suffixes. Prefix: An affix that goes before a root. From our poem we have “to research and promote...” research has “re” which is a prefix therefore it changes the meaning discovering and investigating the ethos of Africanology. Suffix: An affix that goes after a root. From the poem we have words like “ ...published intellectual..”. The word published has an “ed” which changes the tense meaning that publishing was done some time ago. All these participate towards the meaning of a word hence enhancing understanding of every word. The affixes discussed above are distinctive in more than one way. They act in a particular way when attached to the base. They either give grammatical information such as tenses, pronouns, adverbs, plurals and adjectives or create new words. In these ways affixes can be gropued into inflection and derivation. Infliction is the process by which affixes combine with roots to indicate basic grammatical categories such as in the poem ‘’Africanology” the author uses tense and plurality. Of All-Africa Think Tank of Academic Associations Concluded this historic day in the city of Abuja Its hereby recommended and forthwith resolved That strategic organs of the Think Tank be set up........ .......And situated on all principal university campuses As we can see various affixes have been attached to the roots of words giving them tense and plurality contributing to our comprehension of the work before us, so that we can clearly understand taht Timothy Wangusa the writer of the poem is advocating for the set up of these academic associations. Derivation on the other hand is the process by which affixes combine with roots to create new words. Shall be a pre-eminently published intellectual, By adding the affixes “pre” and “ly” on the root eminent the author is exaggerating the status of the directors with the intent of implying ridicule and sarcasm. Of permanent Western World Predatoriology And Perennial Third World Strangulationology Derivation is also used to mock the nature of the western world as well as that of the third world in the sense of the office given to the directors of each of the research organs. In the case of the western world the author adds ology to predetor, implying the predator like nature of the western world towards Africa’s raw materials and this is complimented in the descriptive derivation given to the third world of Strangulationology, in here we see author implying that the predator like nature of the western world that is strangling the third world but not literally but in terms of resources that have contributed to the third worlds under development. Compound words are different they are formed by combining two or more simple or complex words to form a new word. Like the title of the poem we have the word “African” and “ology,” African being Of All-Africa Think Tank of Academic Associations All-Africa we understand that he is satirically generalising the situation on the African continent although no all of them suffer the same third world problems. That strategic organs of the Think Tank be set up, Think tank is a western idea where The Amphitheatre of Anti-Governmentology in Algeria The author uses the combination of words Anti-Governmentology to take a jab at the lack of patriotism or internal political in some African countries even today. The Mission-Mansion of Misinformationology in Malawi anything from or pertaining to Africa and ology is a subject of study. This gives us the understanding that the poem may have to do something with the a study on the African way of life and with further reading, it is clarified and we discover the social, political and economic issues as well as the role of the western world in a satirical manner. More compound words can be identified in the poem with the presence of a hyphen. an organization that performs research and advocacy concerning various topics. Implying that western ideas always work and are full proof. The author combines mission and mansion to hint at the religious claims colonialists made before exploitations. Mission being association with a Catholic Mission and Mansion the riches exploited during colonialisms. This idea is healthily complimented with the facility associated with it of misinformationology, as the colonialists did misinform when they claimed to come and spread religion that was actually a ruse to pave way for colonialisation. The Naira-nest of Nepotismology in Nigeria Just like mission mansion alliteration is applied to add appeal as it is a poem after all and should be enjoyed as one. In a literary analysis morphology can be used to help us define the nature of a word used and in turn its intention, this meaning is derived from the active morphemes in it as well as the structural position of the word and other words in a sentence. (Oiry, M. 2009) For example in the cases of nouns and verbs The placement of these morphemes can tell us if we are talking about the action or the active tense of the verb “govern.” In the case of the poem when Timothy Wangusa talks about “The Amphitheatre of Anti Governmentology in Algeria” and we can break down the word “Governmentology” into “govern” that is a verb, “-ment” the affix that has changed the nature of the verb to a noun and the “-ology” that creates a new word through derivation. With focus on the “-ment” we see that the nature of the word is no longer a verb but he is using it as a noun. These morphemes also transcend to the determination of adverbs and adjectives as shown below. The affixes help us identify whether the word qualifies to be an adjective or adverb. From the poem the statement: Equitably spread across the African Continent We can see that Timothy Wangusa has used the affix “-ably” to describe the verb “spread” that can also be affiliate with the noun “spread” in regards to food or a buffet. But because of Noun V erb Government Governing Affix – ment Affix - ing Adjective Adverb Equitable Equitably Affix –able Affix -ably the affix the presence of an adverb is known and we understand that he is describing a verb and not a noun. The syntactic position can also help to define the nature of the words used by the author. This comes from the placement of certain words before or after the subject in the sentence. These words that are involved in the mechanics of the syntactic position can be categorised (Oiry, M. 2009) as follows: Determiners: words that are placed before or after a noun, such as the, a, my, your, his, her, its, our, their, this, that, those, some, all, every, one, two, Three. e.t.c These determiners give sense and bring about the realisation that the word is a noun. In Timothy Wangusa’s poem we see he uses the determiner “The” to make it clear that these are titles, institutions or places. The Amphitheatre of Anti-Governmentology in Algeria The Bureau of Bankruptciology in Burkina Faso The Centre of Senselessology in Sierra Leone The College of Corruptionology in Kenya Auxiliaries: these work the same as determiners but instead apply to verbs, such as be (is/am/are/were/being...), have (has/had/having...), can, could, may, might, will, would, shall, should, must e.t.c In his poem Timothy Wangusa recommends certain actions (verbs) that should be taken by the African continent these can be identified thanks to the presence of auxiliaries. ....That strategic organs of the Think Tank be set up..... .....Shall be a pre-eminently published intellectual.... Pronouns are also included in this categorisation, they simply occupy the place of nouns in these forms: I, me, mine, we, us, ours, you, yours he, him, his, she, her, hers, it, its, they, them, theirs, one( person not number) e.t.c Prepositions: these put a location to the subject in a sentence. This location can be geographical or time related. E.g of, about, above, across, after, against, among, around, ago, as, at, before, behind, below, beside, between, but, by, despite, down, during, for, from, in, inside, into, off, on, out, over, past, since, than, through, to, toward, under, until, up, with, without e.t.c Prepositions are very active in Timothy Wangusa’s poem, he uses them to associate the various developmental issues Africa has with selected African countries. Reference list The Senior Seminary of Swindology in Senegal The Synagogue of Scarcitiology in Southern Sudan The Temporal Temple of Terrorismology in Togo The University of Ubiquitoniquitology in Uganda Prepositions: Locators in Time and Place. (n.d.). Retrieved November 12, 2015, from http://grammar.ccc.commnet.edu/grammar/prepositions.htm Oiry, M. (2009). Morphology. Linguistics 201. Retrieved October 28, 2015, from http://people.umass.edu/moiry/morphology.pdf Aronoff, M., & Fudeman, K. (2004). What is Morphology. Retrieved November 19, 2015, from http://www.ucd.ie/artspgs/introling/Aronoffmorphology.pdf