Nasality in Dagbani prosody

Abstract

This paper presents a detailed analysis of nasality in Dagbani, a Gur language of Ghana, and the role it plays in Dagbani prosody. It demonstrates that the nasal is at the center of defining the range of what is possible in Dagbani prosodic patterns. Nasals provide the basis for determining the full range of syllable types and the tone-bearing unit of Dagbani; nasals are the only coda con sonants that license vowel lengthening; and nasals provide the only cases of phonological non-vocalic geminates. The overall effect of the influence of nasality is the emergence of complex prosodic structures. Contrary to the cross-linguistically acclaimed marked position of the coda, the CVN syllable is the default, unmarked syllable in Dagbani.