A morphosemantic analysis of Ruhaya personal names

The study sought to analyse Ruhaya personal names morphologically and semantically. Specifically, the study sought to classify the morphological patterns of Ruhaya personal names within the noun class system and to examine whether the morphosemantic factors play a role in sociolinguistic reasons behind name-giving among Bahaya people. The study focused on the Kihamba dialect in the Ruhaya speech community. The sample consisted of twenty respondents which included ten men and ten women. Instruments used for the study included documentary reviews, interviews, questionnaires and focused group discussion. Data collected from the field were subjected to content analysis. The study was guided by the theory developed by Van Langendonck Willy with modification which proposes the special status of proper names to be captured in a unified semantic, pragmatic and syntactic perspective in the naming system. The study revealed that naming is not an up hazard phenomenon, but it is culturally meaningful as an indicator of real life experiences of people. Moreover, it was revealed that proper names are systematically indexed by the verb prefix of class 1 due to their semantics, and the morphological patterns of a name play a significant role to its semantic interpretation together with pragmatic conditions.