Ghana Journal of Linguistics

Front Matter

Obed Broohm — 2025-01-09

Front Matter

Distinguishing Compounds from Phrases in Kusaal

Hasiyatu Abubakari — 2024-12-25

This study examines how compounds can be distinguished from phrases in Kusaal, a Mabia language spoken in the Upper East region of Ghana as well as two neighbouring countries: Burkina Faso and Togo. Both compounds and phrases involve the combination of lexemes. It is, therefore, important to establish clear-cut criteria for distinguishing between them. However, due to individual language uniqueness, there are no universally acceptable criteria that work for all languages, necessitating the identification of language-specific features. An outstanding matter which complicates the issue of the demarcation between compounds and phrases in Kusaal emanates from the orthography where a modifying adjective is written together with its head noun as a single word, much like noun+adjective compounds which are also written together as single units. Using primary data collected through semi-structured interviews and secondary data gathered from Kusaal dictionaries, the study finds displacement, coordination, and inflection as criteria for distinguishing phrases from compounds. In contrast, orthography, stress and compositionality are less reliable for distinguishing compounds from phrases in the language. This descriptive study contributes to our understanding of word formation, one of the grey areas in the study of the grammar of Kusaal.

A Quantitative Study of Phonological and Morphological Variants in the Evolving Spoken Standard Igbo Variety

Kenneth Ekezie Obiorah — 2024-12-25

The evolution of Spoken Standard Igbo used by the Igbo people in public space in Nigeria, has undergone significant developments. However, this occurrence has received limited empirical attention. This paper examines five phonological and two morphological variables in the evolving spoken Standard Igbo variety. This study aims to establish the variants with the highest rate of occurrence. Data was extracted from the available corpus of Igbo language news from seven purposively sampled radio stations in South-Western and South-Eastern Nigeria, covering the period of 2021-2022. The data was analyzed using frequency count and simple percentage values of variants. The findings from the analysis of data established a higher frequency of occurrence of the variants: ‘r’ over ‘l’, ‘r’ over ‘y’, ‘h’ over ‘f’, ‘h’ over ‘r’, ‘l’ over ‘n’, the negative morphemes ‘ghi’ over ‘ro’, ‘hu’ and ‘gi’, and the aspectual morphemes ‘la’ over ‘na’, ‘le’, and ‘go’. This study recommends that the variants with a wider spread and higher frequency of occurrence should be prioritized for Spoken Standard Igbo. The adoption of this recommendation would minimize pronunciation variation in Spoken Standard Igbo.

Visiting A Neglected Lexical Category: An Overview of Dagbani Adverbials

Musah Sugri Issahaku — 2024-12-25

This paper provides a descriptive overview of adverbials in Dagbani, a Mabia (Gur) language spoken in northern Ghana, focusing on their distributional characteristics and the possibilities of adverbial sequencing. We show that Dagbani adverbials occur in clause-initial, postverbal, and clause-final positions but are banned in the preverbal position. We also demonstrate that focalization and topicalization are instrumental in the occurrent of Dagbani adverbials in the sentential initial position. We further show that the default distributional property of Dagbani adverbials is the postverbal position, with the exception of the epistemic adverbials and the grammatical aspectual adverbials, which are disallowed in this position. Whereas the former category of adverbials occur only clause initially, the latter occur in the position immediately before the verb. Finally, we demonstrate that whereas certain adverbial combinations present a flexible linear ordering, some combinations occur in a fixed linear order, hence, do not give room for reordering. The descriptive approach employed in this paper enables us to provide an exhaustive analysis of the data presented without binding it to any formal syntactic theory, which may limit the discussions to its principles. The data used in this study are drawn from primary sources. Whereas some of the data are obtained from fieldwork, others are constructed based on the native intuitions of the authors.

The Pragmatic Functions of Dagbani Diminutives

Fusheini Hudu — 2024-12-24

This study examines how compounds can be distinguished from phrases in Kusaal, a Mabia language spoken in the Upper East region of Ghana as well as two neighbouring countries: Burkina Faso and Togo. Both compounds and phrases involve the combination of lexemes. It is, therefore, important to establish clear-cut criteria for distinguishing between them. However, due to individual language uniqueness, there are no universally acceptable criteria that work for all languages, necessitating the identification of language-specific features. An outstanding matter which complicates the issue of the demarcation between compounds and phrases in Kusaal emanates from the orthography where a modifying adjective in a phrase is written together with its head noun as a single word, much like noun+adjective compounds which are also written together as single units. Using primary data collected through semi-structured interviews and secondary data gathered from Kusaal dictionaries, the study finds displacement, coordination, and inflection as criteria for distinguishing phrases from compounds. In contrast, orthography, stress and compositionality are less reliable for distinguishing compounds from phrases in the language. This descriptive study contributes to our understanding of word formation, one of the grey areas in the study of the grammar of Kusaal.

Backmatter

Obed Broohm — 2025-01-09

Backmatter