Abstract:
Place names are vital language forms as they are entrenched with data about their ethnic origins.
They are crucial linguistic, historical, geographical, and socio-cultural data sources. A growing body of evidence
suggests that place names have been studied mainly from a semantic standpoint. Studies focusing on the
morphological analysis of place names are limited. This denies onomasticians access to knowledge regarding the
structures and processes forming place names in many languages. This paper examines the morphological aspects
of Sukuma place names, mainly names of primary schools in Shinyanga Rural District, Shinyanga Region,
Tanzania, to uncover their underlying structural patterns and the word-formation processes. The data for this study
were 125 names of primary schools found in the Shinyanga Rural District, collected through the documentary
review method. The collected names were subjected to morphological analysis by decomposing them into
constituent morphemes to establish their structures and word formation processes. The findings indicate that
Sukuma place names minimally consist of a noun or verb stem, though most are composed of a prefix and a noun
or verb stem. The study further establishes that Sukuma speakers use inflection, derivation, and compounding
strategies to form place names. The results of this study support the view that names, like other words in a
language, have elaborate linguistic structures that can be analysed morphologically. It is concluded that the
structure of place names is as significant as the motivational factors for place naming in determining or
contributing to the meaning of a place name.
