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Browsing Book Chapters by Subject "Akan"

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    Akan Complements On The Implicational Complementation Hierarchy
    (2021-09-23) Pajančič, Caroline
    The implicational complementation hierarchy (ICH) formulated by Wurmbrand & Lohninger (2020) distinguishes three complement types: Proposition, Situation and Event, which are ordered by independence, transparency, integration and complexity. The ICH outlines the correlation between the semantic functions of the complement types, and the syntactic operations that run directionally along it. The complements are in a coherent containment relation and have minimal requirements for the domain they project: a theta domain for Events, a TMA domain for Situations, and an operator domain for Propositions. If one type of complement can be finite, all complements to its left on the ICH can be too (finiteness universal, Wurmbrand et al. 2020). This chapter discusses the distribution of complements in Akan, a Kwa language spoken in Ghana, Ivory Coast and Benin, which have traditionally been analysed as finite and requiring a mandatory complementiser. However, new data indicates that the clause introducer sɛ in Twi (dɛ in Fante) can be dropped and non-finite complements are possible in Event structures. I thus argue that Proposition, Situation and Event complements in Akan display the same properties predicted by the ICH and finiteness universal and that finiteness in the language can occur in every domain.
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    Serial Verb Nominalization In Akan: The Question Of Intervening Elements
    (2019-08-13) Kambon, Ọbádélé Bakari; Duah, Reginald Akuoko; Appah, Clement Kwamina Insaidoo
    In this paper, we hope to disambiguate the nature of look-alike intervening elements that appear between verbs in Serial Verb Constructions (SVCs) and Serial Verb Construction Nominalizations (SVCNs). To do so, we will first show that these intervening elements share the same phonological form. We will then show that although the intervening elements look the same on the surface, they can be differentiated by appealing to semantics and the construction from which the SVCN is derived. In doing so, we find that some of the intervening elements should, indeed, be regarded as tamp markers, while others are nominalizers (nmlz). In conclusion, we identify abstract schemata/templates that account for, and predict the positioning of, intervening elements found in Akan SVCNs.
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    Tense And Aspect In Akan Serial Verb Constructions
    (2022-03-29) Owusu, Augustina
    In Akan, tense and aspect in serial verb constructions have different distributions. Tense is repeated on all the verbs; aspect only appears on the first verb, the following verbs have the à marker. In this paper, I argue that this difference in distribution is a consequence of being evaluated by different syntactic mechanisms. Evaluation of unvalued features is licensed by two syntactic mechanisms, Agree and Selection/Sel(ect)-Merge. In Akan, tense is evaluated by Agree and aspect by Selection. The -à morpheme that appears on the non-initial verbs in these clauses is the phonological realization of the morphosyntactic feature bundle [−prog, −fut]. Tense morphology depicts T-v Agree. The same tense inflection on all the verbs appears on verbs because one T-head parallel-Agrees with all of them. Since a single T-head cannot have different interpretations, it results in the matching restriction.