Ghana Journal of Linguistics

Inside Front Cover

Obed Nii Broohm — 2023-12-31

Inside Front Cover

The guild system as an ethnolinguistic marker of identity in Ẹdo

William Ighasere Aigbedo — 2023-12-31

Over the last four decades, several studies have originated on the premise of social identity, ideology and discourse structure. Based on the pioneering efforts of Tajfel (1974, 1975), Giles et. al. (1977), Tajfel and Turner (1986), (Gumperz (1982), the different dimensions of situated talks and social constraint on language use have been explored. The present paper demonstrates some aspects of these linguistic situations in the Ẹdo society through the social institution of established crafts (trade professions) which we refer to as the ‘guild system’ in this study. The paper employed primarily the qualitative method of data collection and analysis due to the nature of the objects of investigation. The method of content analysis was used to analyze the data obtained through interviews (with a view to portraying the linguistic identity and ideology characteristic of the guilds) while the performative translaton methods were employed to analyze the data obtained through the non-participant observation. The study revealed that the guild system as practiced in the Ẹdo society constitutes a viable social group with its own variety of the Ẹdo language employed in the course of group interaction/discourse.

Noun-noun compounding in Esahie

Obed Nii Broohm — 2023-12-31

Noun-noun (N-N) compounds have been argued to constitute the commonest and most productive category of compounds cross-linguistically (cf. Downing 1977; Clark et al. 1985; Bauer 2017; Gagné & Spalding 2010; Guevara & Scalise 2009) and this fact is well-established in Kwa languages as well (cf. Akan: Appah (2013), Lɛtɛ: Akrofi Ansah (2012), Ewe: Agbadah (2017), and Dangme: Lawer (2017), Lawer & Appah (2020)). However, the subject remains to be explored as far as Esahie, which also belongs to the Kwa group of languages, is concerned. This paper, therefore, examines the form and function of N-N compounds in Esahie, from a Construction Morphology (Booij 2010) perspective. Among other things, the study reveals that subordinate compounds are predominantly right-headed, while attributive compounds are predominantly left-headed, and that the former is the most productive compounding type. Our findings on Esahie noun-noun compounds corroborate Booij’s (1992) observation that there is a strong correlation between recursion and productivity. Furthermore, we show that semantic headedness (rather formal headedness) provides the most reliable criterion for determining headedness in Esahie N-N compounds. Data is collected through documentary fieldworks conducted in Esahie-speaking communities of the Western North Region of Ghana.

Lexical borrowing: the influence of loanwords on the semantics of Kihehe

Fahamu Kasavaga — 2023-12-31

This paper investigates the influence of loanwords on the semantics of Kihehe as spoken in Iringa in the southern highlands of Tanzania. It provides evidence from 1,152 loanwords collected through spoken texts and focus group discussion in two villages of Nzihi and Ifunda wards, namely Mibikimitali and Kalenga in Iringa District where the central dialect of Kihehe is mainly spoken. The collection and analysis of the data were guided by the Cognitive Lexical Semantic Theory.The findings revealed that, in Kihehe, loanwords have origin in 11 languages which are Kibena, Kikinga, Kikimbu, Cigogo, Kiswahili, English; Arabic, Latin, French, Hindi, and Portuguese. These loanwords fall into five categories. The category which is borrowed most is nouns, while the category which is borrowed least is conjunctions. Nevertheless, the semantics of Kihehe is shown to have been affected whereby the influence is due to importation of loanwords.The influence of borrowing is manifested clearly on semantic broadening, narrowing, shifting, additive borrowing, and innovation. It is, therefore, clear that while the importation of loanwords enriches the language by filling the lexical gap caused by cultural and technological differences between Kihehe and the source languages, it also affects the semantics.

The syntax and collocations of Akan ideophonic words

Isaac Nyarko — 2023-12-31

This paper examines the syntactic behavior of Akan ideophonic words. Scholars such as Dolphyne (1987) and Saah (1995) have dilated on the morphological behaviors of the variant in Akan negation morphemes thus generating the syntactic behaviors underpinning the operation of Akan negation inflections. Though Giannakidou (2008) asserts that negative polarity items can be found in all natural languages, it is an aspect of negation in syntax having little studies. Following Ampofo (2015) enlistment of negative polarity items in Akan, we limit the discussion to ideophones and argue that negative polarity in Akan is a syntactic feature of ideophonic nominal and modifiers having both recessive and dominant sensitivity with respect to negated constructions. Therefore, this study discusses the syntactic behavior of ideophonic polarity to affirmative and negated constructions. Their syntactic sensitivity categorizes the ideophones into affirmative polarity items (API) with a dominance for positive verbals as a typology only collocating with affirmative verbals and the category of negative polarity items (NPI) having a dominance sensitivity for negative verbals as a typology collocating negated verbals. It considers the permissibility of ideophonic modifiers in tense aspects and its corresponding collocants. The syntax- semantics of downward entailment theory and binding theory of Ladusaw (1980) and Progovac (1988) are employed to account for the syntactic behavior of ideophonic modifiers and their resulting collocants.

Contributors to this issue

Obed Nii Broohm — 2023-12-31

Contributors to this issue

Guidelines for contributors

Obed Nii Broohm — 2023-12-31

Guidelines for contributors

Preferred format for references

Obed Nii Broohm — 2023-12-31

Preferred format for References