Aspects of Kaakye Grammar
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Date
2018-07
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University Of Ghana
Abstract
This thesis examines some aspects of Kaakye grammar within the functionaltypological
framework. These aspects primarily concern noun class system and
animacy distinctions, relativization, complementation and serialization. Kaakye
is one of the least studied Guan (Kwa, Niger Congo) languages, spoken in the
northern part of the Volta Region of Ghana. The data collected for the study
was mainly based on natural discourse from native speakers in the Kaakye
speaking community. The corpus included spontaneous spoken text of various
genres, elicitation and data from written sources.
Adopting a singular-plural pairing notion, Kaakye nouns were
classified into six classes. The classification revealed a clearer semantic basis
for at least three of the noun classes. It also showed that the language is
sensitive to human/non human distinction on one hand and animate/inanimate
distinction on the other hand. Nouns agree with numerals and a few adjectives
with some restrictions within the noun phrase. The synchronic data analysed
for the study showed that Kaakye has maintained the Proto-Guan noun classes
(Snider 1988) in the development of its noun class system. Nonetheless, there
are two emerging noun class pairings and the loss of singular and plural
prefixes. Evidence is also provided to show that the noun class system is
undergoing decay.
Regarding relative clauses (RCs), it was shown that Kaakye RCs are
strictly post-nominal. Both the head noun and its referent within the RC are
obligatorily expressed. Unlike some Kwa languages, the head nouns
obligatorily take a definite determiner. Kaakye uses both the pronoun retention
and the gap strategy to indicate the canonical positions the head noun occupies in the RC. The study also demonstrates that all the NP positions are accessible
to relativization in Kaakye. Kaakye, however, contradicts two constraints of
the Noun Phrase Accessibility Hierarchy. Kaakye employs a relative marker kɛ́
to mark the beginning of the relative clause. Evidence is provided to suggest
that the relative marker is diachronically derived from the manner
demonstrative adverb kɛ́
nɩ̀ŋ̀
‘like this/that’ through a grammaticalization
process.
On complementation, it was revealed that Kaakye employs five distinct
complementizers and two complementation strategies: nominalized strategy
and relativized strategy, all of which serve as the object complements of
complement taking verbs (CTVs). The choice of these complementizers and
complementation strategies is, to a large extent, determined by the semantics of
the CTVs and to some extent by the tense, aspect, mood and negation effects of
the CTVs reflected in the matrix clause. The study identifies four semantic
types of CTVs in Kaakye: perception-cognitive-utterance (P-C-U) verbs,
manipulation verbs, modality verbs and evaluation verbs. Examining the coreferential
relation, tense, aspect, mood and negation between the CTVs and
the complement clauses, it is observed that Kaakye generally conforms to
Givón’s (2000) notion of event integration. A diachronic account of the source
of the complementizers shows that unlike most Kwa languages of West Africa,
none of its complementizers is derived from the verb ‘say’.
Finally, the discussion on Serial Verb Constructions (SVC) in Kaakye
showed that Kaakye SVC can have the same syntactic subject which may be
expressed once on the initial verbs or on every verb. The verbs in series may
either share the same object or each may have their own objects. The verbs may have different aspectual and transitivity values. The verbs in most cases
share the same tense, aspect and mood which are marked once on the initial
verb. Negation is marked only once on the initial verb. Kaakye, like its closelyrelated
and non-related neighbouring Kwa languages, shows a pathway to
grammaticalization through serial verb construction
Description
PhD.
Keywords
Kaakye Grammar