University of Ghana http://ugspace.ug.edu.gh THE MORPHO-SYNTAX OF THE NOUN PHRASE IN SƖSAALƖ BY NUURATU MUSTAPHA (10599953) THIS THESIS IS SUBMITTED TO THE UNIVERSITY OF GHANA, LEGON, IN PARTIAL FULFILMENT OF THE REQUIREMENTS FOR THE AWARD OF THE MPHIL DEGREE IN LINGUISTICS JULY 2018 University of Ghana http://ugspace.ug.edu.gh i DECLARATION I do hereby declare that, with the exception of references that have been duly acknowledged, this dissertation is the result of my own original research and it has not been presented either in whole or in part for another degree elsewhere. …………………………………. ……………………. NUURATU MUSTAPHA Date (Candidate) …………………………………. ……………………. DR. FUSHEINI HUDU Date (Supervisor) …………………………………. ……………………. DR. R. AKUOKO DUAH Date (Supervisor) University of Ghana http://ugspace.ug.edu.gh ii DEDICATION To My parents University of Ghana http://ugspace.ug.edu.gh iii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I would like to express my heartfelt gratitude to my supervisors Dr. Fusheini Hudu and Dr. Reginald Akuoko Duah for their assistance and guidance throughout the writing of my thesis. They were always there for me whenever l needed their help. Also, they were always willing and ready to share with me any material that they came across and found it to be relevant for the study. I would not have successfully completed this thesis without them. I would like to thank all the lecturers in the Linguistics Department, especially Prof. Kofi Saah, Prof. Kweku Osam, Dr. T. Agor and Dr. Yvonne Agbetsomedo for their support and encouragement. My profound gratitude also goes to my family, friends and Mrs. Patience Obeng. They have been my source of encouragement throughout my academic endeavor. They have always encouraged me, advised me and have been available whenever l needed their services. I am very grateful to Miss Hawawu Seidu, Mr. Jacob Bayaamogo Jambadu, Mr. Abdul Hamiid Basichellu, Mr. Moses Dramani Luri and Mr. Emmanuel Issah who helped me with the Sɩsaalɩ data and Ruth Mango for the Sɩsaalɩ Dictionary. I could not have successfully completed this thesis without their help. University of Ghana http://ugspace.ug.edu.gh iv ABSTRACT This study examines the morpho-syntactic properties of the noun phrase in Sɩsaalɩ, a Gur language spoken in Ghana, with emphasis on the internal components of the noun phrase and how these elements are distributed in the phrase. The study examines the elements of both the simple and complex noun phrases. It shows that the Sɩsaalɩ noun phrase has an obligatory head and optional modifiers that may occur as post-nominal or pre-nominal elements. The study also gives a detailed discussion on the Sɩsaalɩ relative clause as a modifier of the head noun. It shows how relative clauses are marked in Sɩsaalɩ and the various elements that are present in the Sɩsaalɩ relative clause. The grammatical positions that are accessible to relativization have been discussed. It also points out the position of the relativized noun in the embedded clause and the elements that can occur with the relativized noun. The study further shows the position of the relative clause when it occurs with other modifiers of the head noun. There are dialectal differences as far as the internal constituents of the noun phrase are concerned and this study points out dialectal variations that occur in Sɩsaalɩ with regard to the internal constitutes of the Sɩsaalɩ noun phrase. University of Ghana http://ugspace.ug.edu.gh v TABLE OF CONTENT DECLARATION ....................................................................................................... i DEDICATION .......................................................................................................... ii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS ..................................................................................... iii ABSTRACT ............................................................................................................. iv TABLE OF CONTENT ............................................................................................ v LIST OF FIGURES .................................................................................................. ix LIST OF TABLES .................................................................................................... x LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS .................................................................................. xi CHAPTER ONE ....................................................................................................... 1 INTRODUCTION ..................................................................................................... 1 1.1 Introduction ..................................................................................................... 1 1.2 The Sɩsaalɩ Language ...................................................................................... 2 1.2.1 The Sɩsaala People.................................................................................... 2 1.2.2 Dialects of Sɩsaalɩ ..................................................................................... 3 1.2.3 The Phonology of the Language .............................................................. 3 1.2.4 The Morphosyntax ................................................................................... 5 1.3 Statement of the Problem ................................................................................ 6 1.4 Research Objectives ........................................................................................ 6 1.5 Research Questions ......................................................................................... 7 1.6 Significance of the Study ................................................................................ 7 University of Ghana http://ugspace.ug.edu.gh vi 1.7 Methodology ................................................................................................... 7 1.8 Organization of Chapters................................................................................. 8 1.9 Chapter Summary ............................................................................................ 9 CHAPTER TWO ..................................................................................................... 10 LITERATURE REVIEW AND THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK ...................... 10 2.1 Introduction ................................................................................................... 10 2.2 Definitions of Nouns ..................................................................................... 10 2.3 Phrases and Clauses ...................................................................................... 13 2.4 The Head of the Noun Phrase ....................................................................... 14 2.5 Bare Nouns .................................................................................................... 16 2.6 Types of Noun Phrases .................................................................................. 18 2.7 Functions of the Noun Phrase ....................................................................... 19 2.8 Elements of the Noun Phrase ........................................................................ 20 2.9 Theoretical Framework ................................................................................. 31 2.9.1 Relevance of the Functional Approach .................................................. 32 2.10 Chapter Summary ........................................................................................ 32 CHAPTER THREE ................................................................................................. 33 THE NOUN PHRASE ............................................................................................ 33 3.1 Introduction ................................................................................................... 33 3.2 Nouns ............................................................................................................ 33 3.2.1 Syntactic Properties of Subtypes of Nouns. ........................................... 35 University of Ghana http://ugspace.ug.edu.gh vii 3.2.2 Morphological properties ....................................................................... 40 3.3 Bare Nouns .................................................................................................... 47 3.4 Pronouns ........................................................................................................ 49 3.5 Reflexives and Reciprocals ........................................................................... 53 3.5.1 Reflexives ............................................................................................... 53 3.5.2. Reciprocals ............................................................................................ 55 3.6 Elements in a Noun Phrase ............................................................................ 63 3.6.1 Determiners. ........................................................................................... 63 3.6.2 Demonstratives .................................................................................. 67 3.6.3 Adjectives .......................................................................................... 70 3.6.4. Numerals (Ordinals and Cardinals) ....................................................... 79 3.6.5 Quantifiers .............................................................................................. 86 3.7 Possessives .................................................................................................... 90 3.8 Chapter Summary .......................................................................................... 94 CHAPTER FOUR ................................................................................................... 95 THE RELATIVE CLAUSE .................................................................................... 95 4.1 Introduction ................................................................................................... 95 4.2. The Structure of the Clausal Modifier in Sɩsaalɩ .......................................... 95 4.3 The Relativized Noun and Other Elements ................................................... 97 4.4 Relative Clauses and Other Elements ......................................................... 103 University of Ghana http://ugspace.ug.edu.gh viii 4.4.1 Relative clauses and Numerals ............................................................. 104 4.4.2 Relative clauses and Adjectives ........................................................... 104 4.4.3 Relative Clauses and Quantifiers ......................................................... 105 4.4.4 Relative Clauses, Adjectives, Numerals and Quantifiers ..................... 105 4.4.5 Relative Clauses with Possessives, Determiners, Demonstratives, Adjectives, Quantifiers, and Numerals ....................................................... 106 4.5 Grammatical Positions That Are Accessible To Relativization. ................. 108 4.6 The Head Noun within the Embedded Clause ............................................ 111 4.7. Extra Posed Relative Clause ...................................................................... 113 4.8 Conclusion ................................................................................................... 114 CHAPTER FIVE ................................................................................................... 115 CONCLUSION ..................................................................................................... 115 5.1 Introduction ................................................................................................. 115 5.2 Summary of the Chapters ............................................................................ 115 5.3 Recommendations for Further Study .......................................................... 117 REFERENCES ...................................................................................................... 118 University of Ghana http://ugspace.ug.edu.gh ix LIST OF FIGURES Figure 3.1: Subtypes of Nouns ................................................................................ 34 University of Ghana http://ugspace.ug.edu.gh x LIST OF TABLES Table 2.1: Ordering of the Elements in the Noun Phrase ........................................ 24 Table 3.1: Noun class system .................................................................................. 41 Table 3.2: Kinship Nouns without Ma as a Plural Suffix ....................................... 43 Table 3.3: Personal pronouns .................................................................................. 50 Table 3.4: Reflexive ................................................................................................ 54 Table 3.5: Singular and Plural Adjectives ............................................................... 74 Table 3.6: Possessives ............................................................................................. 94 University of Ghana http://ugspace.ug.edu.gh xi LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS 1 first person 2 second person 3 third person COP copula DEF definite DEM demonstrative DET determiner FOC focus marker FUT future HAB habitual IMPERF imperfective INDEF indefinite LOC locative NOM nominalizer OBJ object PERF perfective PL plural PREP preposition PRES present PROG progressive PST past POST postposition University of Ghana http://ugspace.ug.edu.gh xii PST past REL relativiser SG singular SUBJ subject University of Ghana http://ugspace.ug.edu.gh 1 CHAPTER ONE INTRODUCTION 1.1 Introduction The structure of the noun phrase is one of the areas most studied by linguists cross- linguistically (Givon 2001, Boadi 2010; Issah 2013). Studies done on noun phrases have focused on the head noun in relation to its modifiers to identify the grammatical functions modifiers play in relation to the head noun. Some studies have examined what takes place when the elements in the phrase are combined in various ways. (Boadi 2010; Issah 2013). The noun phrase is basically viewed as a phrase that has a noun as its head. Downing and Locke (1992) posit that the main function of the head is generally to specify the entity that the noun phrase refers to and it is responsible for the different syntactic relations that exist between all the other elements in the noun phrase. A single noun can appear as a noun phrase. In this situation, Aboh (2010) observes that this makes it possible for it to be focused, questioned, and relativized in most Kwa languages. Also, noun phrase may comprise a noun (head) and optional elements. These optional elements may include: adjectives, demonstratives, quantifiers, relative clauses, and numerals that provide additional information about the head of the noun phrase. The modifiers can be classified as pre-nominal or post-nominal elements and every language has its own distinct way of ordering the elements in the noun phrase. Some languages have strict ordering of the elements of the noun phrase while others ensure flexibility in their distribution. Creissels (2000) notes that the propensity for S-V-O languages to have the head noun as the final element in the University of Ghana http://ugspace.ug.edu.gh 2 noun phrase is quite rare in African languages. A similar observation was made by Heine (1976) that demonstratives, numerals and adjectival modifiers come after the head noun and this is more frequent in most African languages where the noun-initial order is very common. Therefore, this study aims to provide a functional analysis of the structure of the noun phrase and determine the elements that can modify the head noun in Sɩsaalɩ, how these elements are distributed in the noun phrase and the functions they perform. 1.2 The Sɩsaalɩ Language This section discusses the Sɩsaalɩ language and its people. It provides information about the dialects of the language, as well as some linguistic features of the morphology, syntax and phonology of the language. 1.2.1 The Sɩsaala People Sɩsaalɩ is a Gur language that falls under the Grusi language group (Naden 1988:16). Sɩsaalɩ is spoken in the Upper West Region of Ghana and in some parts of Burkina Faso and the speakers of the language are known as Sɩsaala. Sɩsaalɩ is spoken in towns such as Tumu, Ziŋi, Bosie, Fonsie, Gbeloo, Kajukperi, Korru and Peperimi. Most Sɩsaalɩ speakers are multilinguals who can also speak Dagaare and Wale. This is because Dagaare is employed as a medium of instruction in basic schools 1 to 3 and it is taught as a subject from Primary 4 to Junior High Schools in the Sɩsaala communities. The main occupation in the various Sɩsaala communities is agriculture. University of Ghana http://ugspace.ug.edu.gh 3 Luri (2009) notes that Sɩsaala speakers occupy 10,000square kilometers out of the 18,220 square kilometers land mass of the Upper West Region of Ghana. 1.2.2 Dialects of Sɩsaalɩ Researchers have varied views with regard to the dialects of the language. Blass (1975) indicates that Sɩsaalɩ is made up of nine major dialects. Naden (1988:17) also classified Sɩsaalɩ into three major dialects known as Tumuluŋ, Debi and Pasaalɩ. However, Luri (2009) points out that the Sɩsaalɩ language is made up of seven (7) dialects. He further divided the Debi and Pasaalɩ into different dialects. He argues that Debi basically means upper and it refers to all the Sɩsaalɩ spoken in the Western part of Tumu. He listed Bosillu, Bʋwaalɩ and Gbieni as the dialects that fall under Debi. Again, Pasaal which refers to Southern part of Tumu is also made up of three dialects; Gelbaglɩ, Pasaalɩ and Kpatolie. He identified the following as the dialects of the language: Bosillu (northwestern dialect), Bʋwaalɩ (western dialect), Gbieni (central dialect), Gelbaglɩ (southeastern dialect), Kpatolie (southwestern dialect), Pasaalɩ (southern dialect) and Tumuluŋ (eastern dialect) in Ghana with Buunii (northern dialect), a variety in Burkina Faso very closely related to Bosillu in terms of mutual intelligibility (98%). Toupin (1995) and Luri (2009) note that some of the dialects of Sɩsaalɩ are not mutually intelligible. 1.2.3 The Phonology of the Language This section provides information on the phonology of Sɩsaalɩ by focusing on the sound inventory of the language and its tonal system. University of Ghana http://ugspace.ug.edu.gh 4 Sɩsaalɩ has seven phonetic vowels [a, e, i, o, u, ɔ, ɛ] and nine phonemic vowels /a, e, i, o, u, ʋ, ɔ, ɩ, ɛ/ (Toupin 1995, Luri 2009). All the nine phonemic vowels can be distributed at the initial, medial and final positions of words. In addition to this, the language also displays ATR harmony where the vowels are grouped into +ATR (e, i, o, u) and –ATR (ʋ, ↄ, ɩ, ɛ, a). Sɩsaalɩ has twenty four (24) consonants [b, d, f, g, h, j, k, l, m, n, ŋ, p, r, s, t, v, w, y, z, gb, kp, ch, ny, ŋm]. However, Luri (2009) is of the view that the language has in addition a bilabial implosive /ɓ/. All the 24 consonants in their distribution can occur at the initial and medial positions of words, with the exception of [l, m, ŋ], which can only occur at the final position. Sɩsaalɩ is a tonal language and tone plays important roles in the grammar and lexical inventory of the language. In Sɩsaalɩ, tone performs lexical functions which makes a distinction between words that are identical in nature. Also, tone performs a crucial role by marking grammatical categories such as tense and aspects, making a distinction between pronouns and imperatives. The grammatical tone as illustrated in examples 1 and 2 helps to make a distinction between the present and past tense of the verbs. (1) a. N ↄ́so.̀ 1SG.SUBJ sacrifice ‘I sacrifice.’ University of Ghana http://ugspace.ug.edu.gh 5 b. N ↄ́so.́ 1SG.SUBJ sacrifice.PST ‘I sacrificed.’ (2) a. O fò niye. 3SG.SUBJ bath water ‘He bathes water.’ b. O fó niye. 3SG.SUBJ bath.PST water ‘He bathed water.’ (Moran 2006: 94) In (1a-b) and (2a-b), the verbs ↄso ‘sacrifice’ and fo ‘bath’ are differentiated by tones to show present and past. The present tense of the verbs is marked by a low tone, whereas past tense bear high tone on their final syllable. Researchers such as Rowland 1966, Blass 1975, and Moran 2006 note that low tones that show the present form of the verbs are usually unmarked in Sɩsaalɩ. 1.2.4 The Morphosyntax Sɩsaalɩ is an SVO language and the morphology is more related to the agglutinating type. Rowland (1966:23) explains that “the nouns in Sɩsaala may be assigned to groups on the basis of the suffixes for singular and plural”. Studies on the Sɩsaalɩ noun class system includes: Rowland (1966) who grouped the nouns into two (2) classes. Fembeti (2002) also identified five (5) noun classes in Sɩsaalɩ on his study University of Ghana http://ugspace.ug.edu.gh 6 on the Sɩsaala-Pasaale dialect. Moran (2006) who researched on Isaalo (Western dialect) established four (4) noun classes and Dumah (2017) who also worked on the Gbieni dialect also grouped Sɩsaalɩ nouns into five (5) classes. 1.3 Statement of the Problem The Sɩsaalɩ nominal phrase has been discussed by McGill et.al (1999), Moran (2006) and Dumah (2017). Although McGill et.al (1999) have studied the Sɩsaalɩ noun phrase, their study mainly focused on the simple noun phrase and only the possessive as a complex modifier. The relative clause as a complex modifier of the noun phrase was not discussed in their study. Moran (2006) also discussed the Sɩsaalɩ noun phrase and his work only centered on the simple noun phrase. Dumah (2017) on the other hand took a look at the simple and complex noun phrases. However, her work did not outline the sequence of the modifiers of the simple and complex noun phrases. In addition, Dumah (2017) did not provide a detailed discussion on the modifiers since it was a paper presentation. There are dialectal differences with regard to the components of the noun phrase and there has not been a complete description of the Sɩsaalɩ noun phrase. Thus, this study seeks to provide a detailed discussion on the noun phrase in the Kpatolie dialect of Sɩsaalɩ. 1.4 Research Objectives This study seeks to achieve these aims: 1. To examine the internal constituents of the Sɩsaalɩ noun phrase. University of Ghana http://ugspace.ug.edu.gh 7 2. To identify the sequential order of the elements in the noun phrase. 3. To explore the syntax of the relative clause in Sɩsaalɩ. 1.5 Research Questions This research seeks to answer the following questions 1. What are the internal constituents of the Sɩsaalɩ noun phrase? 2. How are the elements in the noun phrase ordered? 3. What are the syntactic properties of the relative clause in Sɩsaalɩ? 1.6 Significance of the Study 1. This study will be the first major work on understanding the morpho-syntax of the noun phrase in the Kpatolie dialect of Sɩsaalɩ. 2. The study contributes much needed data from different dialects which may lead to a more comprehensive analysis and understanding of the noun phrase in Sɩsaalɩ. 3. This study will add to existing literature in Sɩsaalɩ. 1.7 Methodology The data presented in this thesis are based on the Kpatolie dialect (southwestern dialect) which is spoken in Sisaala towns such as Kajuperi, Chala and Kinkele. Both primary and secondary sources of data were employed for the study. The data were elicited through informal interaction with native speakers and they were recorded and transcribed. I also used the Ibadan wordlist to help identify the singular University of Ghana http://ugspace.ug.edu.gh 8 and plural forms of nouns. Written literature on Sɩsaalɩ and the Sɩsaalɩ dictionary were consulted to ensure proper orthography. 1.8 Organization of Chapters The thesis is divided into five chapters. Chapter one is made up of the introduction, background of the study, background of the language, significance of the study, statement of the problem, research questions, and objectives of the study, methodology and the organization of chapters. Chapter two consists of relevant literature review and the theoretical framework for this study and the relevance of the theoretical framework. Chapter three focuses on the noun phrase. It centers on providing a morpho- syntactic properties of subtypes of nouns that function as the head of the noun phrase, it also provides a detailed discussion on bare nouns, the personal and possessive pronouns and show the differences between reflexives and reciprocal. It also gives insight into how elements in the noun phrase are distributed and the functions they perform. Chapter four examines the relative clause and shows the element that serves as the relativiser in the language as well as various grammatical positions that can be relativized. Chapter five provides the findings of the study, recommendations for further research and serves as the concluding part of the thesis. University of Ghana http://ugspace.ug.edu.gh 9 1.9 Chapter Summary This chapter serves as an introduction to the current study and it provided a discussion on the Sɩsaalɩ language. It has also shown the necessity for the researcher to research on this study. In addition, it has pointed out the research questions as well as the objectives of the study. Finally, it has introduced the various issues that will be discussed in the subsequent chapters. University of Ghana http://ugspace.ug.edu.gh 10 CHAPTER TWO LITERATURE REVIEW AND THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK 2.1 Introduction This chapter reviews literature on noun phrases and presents the theoretical framework of the study. 2.2 Definitions of Nouns Primarily, a noun may refer to place, people, things and name of persons. However, there are some nouns that do not refer to any of the aforementioned entities and they may refer to concepts, ideas, feeling or emotions. This includes; love, truth, etc. This shows that nouns may refer to other entities apart from the primary notion we all know about nouns. Also, Rijkhoff (2002) notes that there are languages that do not have nouns and nouns are not distinct from other lexical categories like adjectives and verbs. In this regard, it is quite difficult to define the concept of noun cross- linguistically. However, studies such as Payne (1997), Givon (2001) and Rijkhoff (2002) put forward some measures that help defined a noun. A word can be categorized as a noun depending on the morpho-syntactic and semantics characteristics of the word. Payne (1997) and Givon (2001) indicate that morphologically, a noun should mark number, gender or case and thus, with the syntactic properties, Payne (1997) shows that nouns can be defined on the basis of how words are distributed in phrases, clauses, and text. This is because nouns University of Ghana http://ugspace.ug.edu.gh 11 function as heads of noun phrases, nouns assume the grammatical position of subject or objects in clauses and serve as topics of text. Givon (2001) again argues that a noun can be defined by considering the syntactic role the word plays in the noun phrase. This has to do with the modifiers that can occur with the word. Usually, nouns may be modified by an adjective, an article, possessor, relative clause or even it can be modified by another noun as illustrated in (3b). The noun child is modified by a possessive while the noun house is modified by another noun. (3) a. Joe’s child b. A dog-house. (Givon 2001:60) With regard to the semantic characteristics, Givon (2001) indicates that nouns must exhibit the following features: Concreteness (code entities that exist in both space and time). Nouns may refer to concrete objects such as woman, book and house. Nouns may also show temporal stability. Nouns as a lexical category do not change their properties over a period of time. Givon (2001:51) asserts that “if it is a chair now, it is still likely to be a chair in five minutes, an hour, or a day”. Therefore, nouns do not undergo any changes in their characteristics irrespective of the context in which they are used. Another semantic criteria is compactness. This implies that the referents of a noun are not distributed over space. This criteria shows that nouns are countable. Givon (2001) listed countability as one of the semantic properties of University of Ghana http://ugspace.ug.edu.gh 12 a noun. Nouns are seen as individual items that are enumerated because the referent of the noun is seen as a single entity that can be counted. Givon (1993, 2001) posits that these semantic characteristics help define a prototypical noun. Consider the following sentences. (4) a. The situation was becoming chaotic. b. The weather there is unpredictable. c. The tall man then shot the deer. Givon (1993: 54) With reference to the above sentences, the noun phrases situation, chaotic and weather are non-prototypical nouns since these nouns are abstract and temporally unstable. However, man and deer are prototypical nouns because they are concrete, temporally stable and countable. Rijkhoff (2002) also notes that shape and homogeneity are the semantic properties of nouns as they make distinctions between count and non-count nouns, mass and collective nouns. Therefore, a word can be categorized as a noun when it bears all the morpho-syntactic and semantic characteristics pointed out by these researchers. Chapter 3 of this current study discusses the morpho-syntactic properties identified by Payne (1997) and Givon (2010) to see whether a similar case is observed in Sɩsaalɩ. University of Ghana http://ugspace.ug.edu.gh 13 2.3 Phrases and Clauses Dixon (2010:429) defines a phrase as “a constituent which can fill a slot in clause structure, noun phrase in an argument slot and verb phrase in predicate slot” and a clause as “the description of some activity, state or property. Consists of an obligatory predicate which requires certain core arguments and may also have peripheral argument” (Dixon 2010: 424). Therefore, a phrase is a group of words that form a single unit without a subject and a verb. A phrase can be a noun phrase, adjectival phrase, verb phrase, prepositional phrase or an adverbial phrase. Phrases are distinguished from clauses on the basis of subject-verb component. This is because phrases lack these elements while they are present in a clause. Both phrases and clauses consist of group of words; however, clauses are group of words that have a subject and a verb. Consider the following: (5) a. The big black chair. b. At the hospital c. When we arrived at the occasion d. Issah bought a car. Examples (5a and b) are phrases because they do not have the subject-verb component. However, (5c and d) are clauses since they have subjects ‘we’ and ‘Issah’ and verbs ‘arrive’ and ‘buy’. Therefore, a noun phrase may be defined as group of words that have a noun as their head. Dixon (2012: 106) states that “ a noun phrase University of Ghana http://ugspace.ug.edu.gh 14 can consist of just a noun, or have a noun as head, accompanied by number of modifiers” The noun phrase may consist of only one element which serves as the head of the phrase or two or more elements consisting of an obligatory head and optional modifiers. 2.4 The Head of the Noun Phrase The head of the noun phrase is regarded as the compulsory element in the phrase as it regulates the various grammatical functions that occur in the noun phrase. With respect to the head, Downing and Locke (1992) show that the head noun is an obligatory element and functions as the central element of the noun phrase. The head noun of the noun phrase tends to carry the core meaning which is implied by the whole phrase. Dakubu (2005: 49) notes that, “the head noun is the head of the construction, the only word that is indispensable if we are to have a nominal phrase at all.” This implies that for us to have a noun phrase, there should be a head that is present in the noun phrase. Consider the following examples: (6) a. The man who helped the children is here. b. The man is here. c. * The who helped the children is here. The lexical word ‘man’ is the head of the above noun phrases and when the man is omitted as shown in (6c), it yields ungrammatical structure. University of Ghana http://ugspace.ug.edu.gh 15 Usually, common nouns serve as heads of noun phrases. However, Dixon (2010) indicates that apart from the common nouns as heads of the noun phrase, proper noun, free pronoun, demonstrative and interrogatives are likely to be the head of the noun phrase. When these elements serve as the head, the set of structural possibilities of each of them might be restricted as compared to a common noun. These elements cannot occur with all the modifiers in the language and their distribution in the noun phrase is limited. Unlike common nouns as heads, they are able to occur with the fullest set of structural possibilities. Dixon (2010) indicates that common nouns are usually modified by one or more adjectives, a number or quantifier, demonstrative or article a relative clause and often a modifying time or place phrase. He adds that the proper noun as the head may occur with another common noun in the phrase that modifies it. Common nouns as modifiers may refer to sex (‘man child’), material (‘metal door’) or purpose (‘dog biscuits) and in most cases, they serve as modifiers under particular grammatical conditions. For instance, the noun must be in the genitive form. Dixon (2010) further mentions that, in some languages, adjectives may function as heads of noun phrases. This usually happens when the adjective forms a full noun phrase. However, he believes that such a noun phrase can be viewed as phrase whose head noun is omitted. This is because, when adjectives function as heads of the phrase, they do not receive any syntactic modification. Dryer (2004) views this form of a noun phrase as headless and argues that usually, when a noun phrase without a noun is used, the speaker might have talked about the noun and it is University of Ghana http://ugspace.ug.edu.gh 16 recoverable to the hearer or the noun simply expresses a general property of noun phrases. 2.5 Bare Nouns Alexandre and Hagemeijer (2007:37) define bare noun phrases as “noun phrases without overt determiners”. Bare nouns are not accompanied by determiners, demonstratives, adjectives, quantifiers, numerals and relative clauses. Bare nouns may have different interpretations depending on the context in which they occur. For instance, Chang (2006) notes that bare nouns in Mandarin can occur at the subject, object or predicate positions and they may have generic, predicative, or existential (indefinite or definite) interpretations as exemplified in (7) (7) a. Gou chi rou. dog eat meat ‘Dogs eat meat’/ ‘The dogs eat meat’/ ‘The dog eats meat’ (Chang 2006:799) As illustrated in (7a), the bare noun gou ‘dog’ in Mandarin can be interpreted as both generic and existential. Also, Mandarin nouns do not mark number therefore, a bare noun can either be interpreted as a bare plural, a definite singular or a definite plural as illustrated in the various translations respectively. Chang (2006) indicates that in English, mass and bare plural count nouns may be associated with generic interpretations when they occur with a characterizing statement as seen in (8 a and b). University of Ghana http://ugspace.ug.edu.gh 17 (8) a. Dogs eat meat. b. * Dog eat meat. (Chang 2006:798) In (8a), dogs is a bare plural count noun and it has generic interpretation which implies that all dogs exhibit this trait while in (8b), the sentence becomes ungrammatical which requires a plural marker to make it generic. Aboh (2010) notes that in Kwa languages, indefiniteness can be expressed by the use of bare nouns. He mentions that since these nouns do not take determiners, they tend to be generic. He further explains that they do not mark definiteness or number, so their interpretations are context-dependent. This situation is presented in the Gungbe example below: (9) a. ùn nyín wán ná àsé 1SG COP sentiment PREP cat ‘I love cat(s) in general (Aboh 2010: 13) Sulemana (2012) also mentions that bare nouns in Buli are interpreted as indefinite and they convey generic meaning. Sentence (10a) shows that in Buli, the bare noun bū:k ‘goat’ is seen as indefinite with generic interpretation. University of Ghana http://ugspace.ug.edu.gh 18 (10) a. bū:k à-ŋↄbī vá :tà goat.INDEF PRES-chew leaves ‘A goat chews leaves.’ (Sulemana 2012: 48) The discussions on bare nouns will help to examine the various interpreted that are associated with bare nouns in Sɩsaalɩ. 2.6 Types of Noun Phrases Dryer (2004) and Issah (2013) show that noun phrases can be grouped into subtypes depending on the elements that are found within the phrase. According to Dryer (2004) a noun phrase may be classified as headless when a noun is not found within the noun phrase. Issah (2013: 203) also mentions that a cross linguistic research on the structure of the noun phrase indicates that noun phrases can be divided into three different classes. (11) a. The simple noun phrase which consists of only a pronoun or comprises of a noun and simple modifiers such as articles, adjectives, demonstratives, or numerals. b. The complex noun phrase which contains complex modifiers such as the genitive or possessive modifiers and relative clauses. c. Noun phrases that lack a head noun. University of Ghana http://ugspace.ug.edu.gh 19 Dumah (2017) states that Sɩsaalɩ has simple and complex noun phrases. This study will explore on the elements of the simple and complex noun phrases. 2.7 Functions of the Noun Phrase The functions of the noun phrase can be determined depending on the structural position of the various arguments in the sentences. The position of the noun phrase in relation to the verb specifies the function the noun phrase plays. Broekhuis and Keizer (2012) discussed the syntactic functions of noun phrases and points out that the noun phrase can serve as the (nominative) subject of the clause, the (accusative) direct object, the (dative) indirect object and as well as the complement of a preposition as illustrated in the Dutch examples below. (12) a. Subject De man was afwezig. ‘The man was absent’ b. Direct object Hij genas de/een man. ‘he healed the/a man’ c. Indirect object Hij gaf de/een man nieuwe hoop. ‘He gave the/a man new hope.’ University of Ghana http://ugspace.ug.edu.gh 20 d. Complement of PP Hij gaf het boek aan de/een man. ‘he gave the book to the/a man.’ (Broekhuis and Keizer 2012: 1052) 2.8 Elements of the Noun Phrase The head of the noun phrase may occur with optional elements that post or pre- modify it. This section discusses literature on the elements of the noun phrase and their distributional properties. Bendor-Samuel (1971) proposes that noun phrases in Gur languages are very simple because they usually consist of a noun and a numeral that follows the noun or it could consist of a noun followed by a demonstrative. According to him, adjectives or string of adjectives that follow a noun are rare in Gur languages. However, studies by most Gur researchers show that this assertion does not hold in Gur languages (Dakubu 2005, Danti 2007, Issah 2013). Studies on the noun phrases in Gur languages reveal that a noun can be followed by an adjective or string of adjectives within a noun phrase and thus, noun phrases may have complex structures. Consider the following Kasem example in (13a) and Dagbani examples in (14a-b) respectively. (13) a. Ka- kamun-nazwon-dedↄrↄ tu ywo woman-big-black-tall came here ‘A big, tall, black woman came here.’ (Danti 2007:122) University of Ghana http://ugspace.ug.edu.gh 21 (14) a. Paɣ’ kur’ ʒe’ waɣin’ biε’ titali maa woman old fair tall ugly big DEF ‘The tall old fair big ugly woman’ b. Bi’ kur’ ʒe’ kpul’ ji’ viεl’ yoli maa child old fair portable short nice naughty DEF ‘The old fair portable short nice naughty child’ (Issah 2013: 205) Dakubu (2005), McGill et.al (1999), Issah (2013) and Hudu (2014) show that in Gur languages, adjectives and the head noun form a single constituents. Adjectives are attached to the head noun they modify. This may account for Bendor-Samuel’s assertion on adjectives in Gur languages. Bodomo (1997) shows that noun phrases in Dagaare may have complex structures. Thus, the head noun may be modified by several post and pre-modifiers as illustrated in (15a) where the head noun gan ‘book’ is modified by several elements. (15) a. A n bie nga sukuuli gan bil zi DEF my child this school book small red wog son-ne ata ama zaa paa poↄ long good-PL three these all intens among ‘Among all these three small red long good school books of this my child.’ (Bodomo 1997:48) University of Ghana http://ugspace.ug.edu.gh 22 The Sɩsaalɩ noun phrase has been studied by McGill et.al (1999), Moran (2006) and Dumah (2017). McGill et.al (1999), discussed the Sɩsaalɩ noun phrase in Pasaale dialect and note that adjectives, limiters, determiners (articles, demonstratives and quantifiers) are the modifiers of the head noun. They mention that, duŋ ‘alone’ is the most common limiter in Pasaalɩ and it occurs at the final slot of the noun phrase. The limiter can modify pronouns as exemplified below in (16b). (16) a. Badarɛ duŋ spider alone ‘Spider alone.’ b. I duŋ wigyun. You.sg alone wisdom ‘Wisdom of you alone.’ (McGill et.al 1999: 28) The Pasaalɩ dialect has the article hu and no. Moran (2006) indicates that the Western Sɩsaalɩ has the morphemes ɲa and ne as determiners and Dumah (2017) shows that Gbieni dialect has the determiners hu and ni. All dialects express the determiner as a post nominal element and the determiner is not sensitive to number. McGill et.al (1999) and Dumah (2017) point out that the Pasaalɩ and the Gbieni dialects have no ‘this/these’ and haŋ ‘that and those’ as demonstratives. Haŋ ‘that/those’ is a pre-nominal element which cannot occur on its own. It always appear with the determiner hu ‘the’. However, the demonstrative no ‘this/these’ is a post- nominal and it does not occur with the determiner hu ‘the’. University of Ghana http://ugspace.ug.edu.gh 23 (17) a. haaŋ no woman this ‘This woman’ b. haŋ haaŋ hu that woman the ‘That woman’ (McGill et.al 1999: 30) Adjectives as modifiers in Sɩsaalɩ also behave like adjectives in other Gur languages. McGill et.al (1999), Dumah (2017) indicates that adjectives do not occur on their own. They are attached to the root form of the nouns they modify as shown below. (18) a. Diya ‘House’ b. Dii-fiyaŋ-bal house-red-big ‘A big red house’ (McGill et.al 1999: 23) In (18b), the adjectives fiyaŋ ‘red’ and bal ‘big’ are attached to the root form of the head noun dii ‘house’. University of Ghana http://ugspace.ug.edu.gh 24 McGill et.al (1999) show that the elements in the Sɩsaalɩ noun phrase can be ordered and provided the following as the order of the elements in the noun phrase of the Pasaalɩ dialect. Table 2.1: Ordering of the Elements in the Noun Phrase +/Possr. +/- det + head +/-det +/-Num +/-Quant +/- limiter haŋ→ noun …. →hu any buloŋ duŋ pronoun no number badↄmↄŋ possessor numeral noun possd phrase← head ….. → (McGill 1999:32) Moran (2006) also shows that noun phrases in Sɩsaalɩ are ordered as the following in the Western dialect of Sɩsaalɩ. Noun (adj) (pl) (det) (quant) The above distributions clearly stipulate that the head noun is an obligatory element in the noun phrase while all the other elements are optional. Dumah (2017) further adds that apart from the simple noun phrase, Sɩsaalɩ has complex noun phrases made up of possessives and the relative clauses. Modifiers in Sɩsaalɩ can be post or pre-nominal elements. All the studies on the Sɩsaalɩ noun phrase did not University of Ghana http://ugspace.ug.edu.gh 25 provide detailed discussions on all the modifiers and failed to outline the sequential ordering of modifiers of both simple and complex noun phrases. Also, there are dialectal differences with regard to the constituents of the noun phrase. Therefore, this study seeks to provide a detailed discussion of the Sɩsaalɩ noun phrase in the Kpatolie dialect of Sɩsaalɩ to fill the gap created in the literature. Okrah (1999) revealed that in Nafaanra, apart from possessive constructions that occur as pre-nominal elements in the language, all the other elements are post modifiers. With regard to the distribution of the elements in the noun phrase, the possessive element occurs first and it is then followed by the head noun, the adjective and the determiners (demonstratives and articles). He posits that occasionally, when demonstratives and articles occur together in the same noun phrase, the demonstrative precedes the article. This phenomenon is illustrated below: (19) a. Kaan ke na ka stick the PST break ‘The stick broke’ b. Kaan nga- ke na ka stick this the PST break ‘That stick broke’ (Okrah 1999:42) Okrah (1999) again notes that in Nafaanra, adjectives, quantifiers and determiners show number concord with the head noun and adjectives make distinctions between animate and inanimate head nouns. University of Ghana http://ugspace.ug.edu.gh 26 (20) a. tinge finge tree white ‘A white tree’ b. Sanyuu fiun bird white ‘A white bird’ (Okrah 1999: 37) As illustrated in (20a and b), the modifiers finge and fiun ‘white’ make distinction between the inanimate tinge ‘tree’ and the animate sanyuu ‘bird’ respectively. Dakubu (2005) observes that in Dagaare, elements that are present in the noun phrase are ordered in a particular manner and the head noun is an obligatory element in the nominal phrase. The distribution of the elements is presented as follows: [Article Noun-Qualifier Head-Noun Adjective(s) Numeral Demonstrative Specifier Quantifier Intensifier] (Dakubu 2005:49) Also, the Dagaare noun phrase may show number and human-ness agreements. Numerals that are higher than “one” are inflected for plurality. They occur with the plural prefixes that show agreement with the plural suffix on the noun or adjectives. University of Ghana http://ugspace.ug.edu.gh 27 (21) a. Gama a-ta ‘Three books’ b. Gan-sun-ni a-ta ‘Three good books’ (Dakubu 2005:49) Boadi (2010) also discusses the Akan noun phrase from the morpho-syntax and semantics perspectives and states that modifiers are ordered in Akan as follows: the pre-determiner saa ‘as aforementioned’, the associative phrase, the participle, the adjective, the demonstrative, the relative clause and the quantifier. He shows that all the modifiers are post elements except the pre-determiner saa and the associative phrase. The pre-determiner saa ‘as aforementioned’, cannot occur on its own. It occurs with deictic demonstratives and anaphoric determiner and the relative clause but cannot occur with the non-definite bi or the zero determiner. Boadi (2010: 19) listed the following as demonstratives in Akan: no ‘that, the’ yi ‘this’ bi ‘some, a certain’ and the determiner-like morpheme ko ‘particular’ which is usually used to refer to unique entities. He further argues that the participle and the adjective should be viewed as separate modifiers because they have different syntactic properties. For instance, adjectives can occur with a comparative phrase while the particle cannot. (22) a. ↄ a-yɛ den sɛ ne wura she/he PERF-become hard like 3SG.AS master ‘She/he has become as hard as his/her master.’ University of Ghana http://ugspace.ug.edu.gh 28 b. * ɛ a-yɛ how-eɛ sɛ aburoo it PERF-become grill-particle like maize ‘It has become grill-particle like maize.’ (Boadi 2010: 58) However, Amfo et.al (2007) classify the participle under adjectives. They believe that they are adjectives derived from verbs. Sulemana (2012) also indicates that modifiers in Buli are post-nominal elements. Adjectives, numerals, quantifiers, relative clause and possessives are the modifiers that are found in Buli. The linear order of modifiers in Buli is presented as: Noun- Adjective- Numeral- {Determiner/Relative clause}-Quantifier. (23) a. núr màŋ-sà bà -nù mà dɛ ́ mé:ná man good-PLU CL-five DEF DEM all ‘All these four good people.’ (Sulemana 2012:105) Example (23a) presents a Buli noun phrase where all the constituents are present. He further states that Buli has a strict order in the distribution of the modifiers. Adjectives occur as the first post-nominal element followed by the numeral, then, the determiner or the relative clause and the quantifier. Sulemana (2012) further states that determiners in Buli are sensitive to number. Determiners can be marked morphologically to show definite singular and plural and indefinite singular and plural. University of Ghana http://ugspace.ug.edu.gh 29 Issah (2013) studied the nominal phrase in Dagbani and observed that modifiers have strict ordering in the noun phrase. He mentioned that the head noun is the initial element and it is followed by the adjective, numeral, article, quantifier, and the demonstrative determiner. He further shows that in Dagbani, definiteness is expressed morphologically while indefiniteness is coded by a bare noun as illustrated below: (24) a. bia la da-Ø nimdi la child DEF buy.PERF meat DEF ‘The child has bought the meat.’ b. bia da-Ø buku child buy.PERF book ‘A child has bought a book.’ (Issah 2013: 206) He again points out that cardinals can modify the head noun directly while ordinals are expressed as a relative clause. Example (25a) shows an ordinal that directly modify the head noun while (25b) illustrates an ordinal that has been expressed as a relative clause. (25) a. bi-hi anahi child.PL four ‘Four children’ University of Ghana http://ugspace.ug.edu.gh 30 b. bi-a ŋuni pahi-ri anahi child.SG REL add.IMPERF four ‘a fourth child’ (Issah 2013: 209) Ansah (2014) also discussed the simple noun phrase in Leteh. She emphasized that modifiers show number agreement with the head noun with the exception of the definite article. (26) a. A-yirebi ɔ-hɛ mɔ. SG-child SG-red DEM ‘This light-skinned child’. b. N-yirebi ɛ-hɛ mɔ-ɛnɛ. PL-child PL-red DEM-PL ‘These light-skinned children’. (Ansah 2014: 9) The adjective ↄhɛ ‘red’ and the demonstrative mↄɛnɛ agree in number with the head noun nyirebi ‘children’ in both (26a and b) The discussions so far show that modifiers can be post or pre-nominal elements and this is determined by the language in question. We have also seen that some of the modifiers in Gur languages exhibit similar characteristics. All these studies will contribute to the current study as they will serve as guide for the analysis. University of Ghana http://ugspace.ug.edu.gh 31 2.9 Theoretical Framework This study is purely descriptive but adopts the functional approach to grammar. The functional approach is championed by linguists such as Halliday 1994, Dik 1997, Givon 2001. This approach advocates that the human language serves as a tool for communication. According to Dik (1997: 3) the human language is “an instrument of social interaction among human beings, used with the intention of establishing communicative relationships” DeLancey (2000:4) also asserts that “human language is not simply a device for presenting and pointing to interesting objects and events in the world. It is a set of tools for communicating our experience, and its structure is fundamentally informed by the structure of our experience and our cultural models of experience.” Thus, functionalists view language as an instrument for communication and as a social interaction. The human language is perceived as the instrument that helps the individual to express and share his or her thoughts to meet the communicative goal. And for communication to be effective, context should be taken into consideration to ensure that the right meaning is conveyed. As indicated by Dixon (2010:22), the central function of language is “the communication of meaning”. This shows that the human language is not a set of rules but it should be appreciated based on its context to bring about meaning in order to achieve communicative goals. Within the functionalist approach, the structure of the human language is dependent on its functions. This implies that the form of the language must be examined in relation to the functions it performs. Therefore, we cannot analyze the structure of the human language without taking into consideration its functions. University of Ghana http://ugspace.ug.edu.gh 32 Moreover, the concept of diachrony is of much relevance to the functionalist. The human language is dynamic as it changes over time therefore, the structure and the function of language must be integrated to suit the changing needs of human. 2.9.1 Relevance of the Functional Approach I adopt this approach to provide a functional analysis of the noun phrase. This approach will help to examine the Sɩsaalɩ noun phrase by not focusing only on its structure but also take into consideration the functions that modifiers play in the noun phrase and the context in which modifiers are combined in various forms. 2.10 Chapter Summary This chapter has provided literature which are essential to the study of the noun phrase. Various issues that are mostly associated with the head of the noun phrase has been discussed. It has also drawn our attention to the interpretations that are associated with bare noun and again, identified some properties of the noun phrase that make the noun phrase distinct from other phrases. It has also discussed theoretical framework for the study. University of Ghana http://ugspace.ug.edu.gh 33 CHAPTER THREE THE NOUN PHRASE 3.1 Introduction This chapter presents a discussion of the aspects of the noun phrase in Sɩsaalɩ. The chapter begins by looking at subtypes of nouns and their distribution. I then identify the distribution and function of pronouns, reflexives and reciprocals. The chapter also examines the elements of the noun phrase and show their morpho-syntactic properties. It finally shows how possessive is marked and its distribution as well. 3.2 Nouns There has been an ongoing debate with regard to what constitutes a noun universally (Payne 1997; Givon 2001; Rijkhoff 2002). Rijkhoff (2002:12) points out that nouns can be defined universally when languages of the world are grouped into three categories. First, languages without a major word class of nouns; then, languages in which nouns cannot be distinguished from other word classes (verbs, adjectives) and languages with a distinct class of nouns. Sɩsaalɩ can be categorized under the third group because nouns in Sɩsaalɩ are distinguished from other lexical categories. Studies such as (Payne 1997; Givon 2001; Rijkhoff 2002) also show that, the concept of noun can be defined by considering the morpho-syntactic and semantics properties of a word. The morpho-syntactic and semantic properties help to define a prototypical noun. Therefore, this section looks at the morpho-syntactic properties of nouns by analyzing the structural composition of the nouns and their distributional properties. Nouns can be classified into the various subtypes: University of Ghana http://ugspace.ug.edu.gh 34 Figure 3.1: Subtypes of Nouns Nouns Proper Nouns Common Nouns Concrete Nouns Abstract Nouns Animate Nouns Inanimate Nouns Human Non-Human Natural Artefact Kinship Non-Kinship Figure 3.1 shows that a noun can be a proper noun or a common noun. Nouns are the grammatical categories that function as heads of the noun phrase and a noun phrase may function as subject or object in a sentence as illustrated in (27a-b). University of Ghana http://ugspace.ug.edu.gh 35 (27) a. A haan-a a-yɩɩ yɩla. DET woman-PL PROG-sing song ‘The women are singing.’ b. Fati faŋlɩ a bie. Fati slap.PST DET child ‘Fati slapped the child.’ The noun phrases a haana ‘the women’ and Fati are the subjects of the verbs yɩɩ ‘sing’ and faŋlɩ ‘slap’ respectively. In (27b), the NP a bie ‘the child’ acts as the object of the verb faŋlɩ ‘slap’. 3.2.1 Syntactic Properties of Subtypes of Nouns. This section discusses the syntactic distribution of subtypes of nouns in the noun phrase. It focuses on identifying the modifiers these subtypes of nouns can occur with. A. Proper Noun These are nouns that refer to particular entities such as personal names, name of place (towns), months, days of the week and festivals. (28) a. Example of proper nouns in Sɩsaalɩ are1: i. Zini ‘town’ 1 Examples of proper nouns were drawn from the Handbook of Sɩsaalɩ: Sɩsaalɩ Orthography Guide University of Ghana http://ugspace.ug.edu.gh 36 ii. Gwollu ‘town’ iii. Kajukperi ‘town’ iv. Wulumbele ‘February’ v. Zagɩnɩɩŋ ‘June’ vi. Talaata ‘Tuesday’ vii. Azuma ‘Friday’ A proper noun can occur as the head of the NP. These nouns express particular or specific entities that the speaker and the listener are aware and in most cases, they do not require a determiner. A determiner or demonstrative that occurs with the head noun provides a specific reference of the head noun. Since proper nouns may have unique reference, they do not require a determiner as shown in (29a-c). (29) a. Kajuperi rɛ yaa ŋ bee. Kajuperi FOC is 1SG town ‘Kajuperi is my hometown.’ b. Atanɩ yaa kyɛ-wiehii rɛ Monday is day-rest FOC ‘Monday is a holiday.’ c. Hamza yaa ŋ chana. Hamza is 1SG friend ‘Hamza is my friend.’ University of Ghana http://ugspace.ug.edu.gh 37 However, there are proper nouns that can occur with these modifiers. Consider the following examples. (30) a. A Hamza aa ko daha. DET Hamza REL come.PST here. ‘The Hamza that came here.’ b. Fati fa we daha maŋ nɛ Alahadi hʋ. Fati PST is here on FOC Sunday DEM ‘Fati was here on that Sunday. c. A bii-hi hi mʋ ba lʋlla lee re DET child-PL FUT go 3PL parent visit FOC Wulumbele nʋ maŋ. February DEM on ‘The children will visit their parents this February.’ d. * A bombii-hi juŋ Zini nʋ rɛ. DET boy-PL know Zini DEM FOC ‘The boys know this Zini ’ Examples (30a- c) show that the proper noun Hamza occurs with a determiner and Lahadi ‘Sunday’ and Wulumbele ‘February’ occur with the demonstrative while the head noun Zini which is a name of a town cannot occur with the demonstrative. It seems that, the proper noun Hamza, the days of the week and the month can occur with these elements since we can have several people who bear the name Hamza. University of Ghana http://ugspace.ug.edu.gh 38 Also, we can have Monday recurring in a month. Monday could be last week Monday, last two week’s Monday or next week Monday. Also, the month of February could be last year’s February, this year’s February among others. Because these proper nouns keep on occurring in every week or year, they are able to take a demonstrative and a determiner that make their references more specific. However, with the proper noun Zini, we have only one town bearing that name and there is no other Zini. Therefore, this noun does not occur with the demonstrative or the determiner since it has only one reference. Another observation about proper nouns is that, they can be modified by a possessor as shown below: (31) a. Issah chana yↄↄ lↄↄri rɛ. Issah friend buy.PST car FOC ‘Issah’s friend bought a car.’ (31a) shows that proper nouns can be modified by a possessor. However, proper nouns cannot occur with other modifiers such as numerals, adjectives and quantifiers. (32) a. * Jepʋa-bɛ́nɛ́ɛ́ bádↄ̀mↄ́ŋ bánàà August-old.PL some four ‘Some four old August’ b. * A Hamza-nɛ́rɛ́ɛ́ bádʋ búlòŋ DET Hamza-fat.PL six all ‘All the six fat Hamzas.’ University of Ghana http://ugspace.ug.edu.gh 39 c. * A Kajukperi-wélí hʋ́. DET Kajukperi-nice this ‘This nice Kajukperi.’ This indicates that apart from demonstrative, determiner and possessives that can occur with proper nouns, they cannot occur with other modifiers of the head noun. Therefore, proper nouns have limited distribution in the noun phrase. B. Common nouns Common nouns may include concrete and abstract nouns. Concrete nouns refer to visible things we can feel and touch. They include kpaha ‘chair’, galɩ ‘cloth’, bie ‘child’ vaha ‘dog’, daaŋ ‘tree’. On the other hand, abstract nouns are invisible and usually refer to concepts, ideas feelings or emotions. Examples of abstract nouns are wotii ‘truth’, chori ‘love’, barɩ ‘bravery’, wʋnyalɩ ‘lie’, nyaa ‘poverty’ Common nouns, unlike proper nouns do not have limited distribution. A common noun can occur with all the modifiers of the head noun in the noun phrase. Modifiers includes determiner, demonstrative, adjective, numeral and a quantifier as exemplified below. (33) a. Mary báhɩ́ hákìl-wól-é bádʋ̀. Mary say.PST idea-new.PL six ‘Mary raised six new ideas.’ University of Ghana http://ugspace.ug.edu.gh 40 b. Hamza chórì-tiítíí tíà ʋ́ náá. Hamza love-true for 3SG mother ‘Hamza’s true love for his mother.’ c. Kpàhɩ́-fɛ́l-ɛ́ bádↄ̀mↄŋ́ bánàà chair-new-PL some four ‘Some four new chairs.’ d. A bʋ́ʋ́-bálá bápɛ̀ búlòŋ DET goat-big.PL seven all ‘All the seven big goats.’ The syntactic properties of both proper nouns and common nouns show that common nouns do occur with all the modifiers of the head noun while proper nouns may only occur with determiner, demonstrative or possessives. 3.2.2 Morphological properties This section focuses on the morphological properties of proper nouns and common nouns by considering how these nouns are inflected for number. Sɩsaalɩ is a noun class language that makes distinction between plural and singular nouns. In Sɩsaalɩ, nouns are put into different classes depending on their plural suffixes. Studies such as Bodomo (1994) and Cahill (2000) show that Gur languages have noun class systems. The Sɩsaalɩ noun class system is presented in table 3.1 following Fembeti’s (2002) classification which groups the nouns into five classes on the basis of their number marking. University of Ghana http://ugspace.ug.edu.gh 41 Table 3.1: Noun class system Class Singular Plural Singular Plural Gloss marker marker noun noun 1 -+V/-∅ +Vowel gaal-ɩ gaal-a thief (+ATR)/ hↄ́l hↄl-ↄ charcoal -ATR) suwoŋ suwon-o bean nɛl nɛl-ɛ person 2 -+V/-∅ -hi/hɩ gbaɲ-a gbaɲ-hɩ calabash bↄgↄ bↄgↄ-hɩ farm bie bii-hi child kuori kuori-hi chief 3 -∅ -ni/nɩ kpaha kpahɩ-nɩ chair vaha vahɩ-nɩ dog nyu nyu-ni head fo fo-ni river 4 +consonant -lɩ kↄlaa kↄↄl-lɩ mouse (l) sↄmpↄlaa sↄmpↄↄl-lɩ toad hakila hakil-lɩ mind fↄkↄlↄ fↄkↄl-lɩ streams 5 -∅ -ma kuwo kuwo-ma father naa naa-ma mother yila yila-ma aunt hila hila-ma In-law The five classes identified are motivated by the morphological properties of the nouns. Morphologically, the nouns are grouped based on their plural suffixes. All the nouns in each class have the same plural markers. Apart from the morphology, the plural markers in classes A-C are phonologically conditioned. The nouns in each class select one of the plural markers based on the Advanced Tongue Root (ATR) harmony. Vowels in Sɩsaalɩ are grouped into +ATR (e, i, o, u) and –ATR (ʋ, ↄ, ɩ, ɛ, University of Ghana http://ugspace.ug.edu.gh 42 a). A plural suffix that is added to the noun depends on the final vowel in the stem of the noun. A final vowel in the stem of the noun that bears +ATR feature selects a plural suffix that is +ATR. Likewise, if the final vowel in the stem bears –ATR feature, the plural marker should also bear the same –ATR feature. For example, as shown in class 2, the nouns; gbaɲa ‘calabash’ and kuori ‘chief’ have their plurals as gbaɲ-hɩ ‘calabashes’ and kuori-hi ‘chiefs’ respectively. They select their plural suffixes based on the final vowel in their stems. In gbaɲa ‘calabash’ the final vowel is –ATR therefore it selects the plural suffix that also bears the –ATR feature. Also, the final vowel in kuori ‘chief’ bears the +ATR feature so the noun selects hi as its plural suffix. Similar situation is observed in classes A and B. In class A, the nouns gaal-ɩ ‘thief’, hↄĺ ‘charcoal’ and suwoŋ ‘bean’ have their plural forms as gaal-a ‘thieves’, hↄĺ -ↄ ‘charcoals’ and suwoŋ-o ‘beans’ respectively and their plural markings are determined by the final vowel of the noun. Class 3 shows that the noun may have nɩ or ni as a plural marker because of the final vowel of the noun. The NP Nyu ‘head’ occurs with the morpheme ni because the final vowel u is +ATR. However, the nouns in classes 4 and 5 have only one form in their plural formation. In class 4, McGill et al. (1999) and Fembeti (2002) assert that these nouns have their final consonant as l and their plurals are formed by adding the morpheme lɩ. Class 5 is also made up of kinship nouns and this may account for why the nouns have ma as their plural suffix. However, there are few kinship nouns that do University of Ghana http://ugspace.ug.edu.gh 43 not have ma as their plural suffixes therefore, they do not fall into class 5. This is shown in the table below: Table 3.2: Kinship Nouns without Ma as a Plural Suffix Singular Plural mɩɩnabie younger sister/brother’ mɩɩnabii-hi ‘younger sister/brother’ hilbaal ‘father in law’ hilbaal-a ‘father in laws’ hilhaaŋ ‘mother in law’ hilhaan-a ‘mother in laws’ Inferring from table 3.2, these kinship nouns do not have ma as their plural suffixes and therefore, they fall into different classes. An observation made about these nouns is that, they are all compound words and they tend to take the plural suffixes of the final word in the compound. The noun mɩɩnabi-e ‘younger sister’ is made up of maana ‘elder’ and bie ‘child/small’. The final word; bie ‘child’ has its plural as bii-hi ‘children’ and this account for why the noun has its plural suffix as hi and not ma. Similar situation occurs in the other nouns. Hilbaal ‘father in-law’ is realised as hila ‘in law’ and baal ‘male or man’ and the plural form for man is baal- a ‘men or males’. Therefore, hilbaal ‘father in-law’ selects the vowel a as its plural suffix because of baal ‘man’. The same interpretation is given for hilhaaŋ ‘mother in law’. The discussion so far shows that, these nouns are grouped into different classes because of their morphological make up. University of Ghana http://ugspace.ug.edu.gh 44 The various classes do not show any agreement with determiners, demonstratives, numerals, adjectives, quantifiers among others. I now discuss how proper and common nouns are inflected for number. A. Proper nouns and common nouns Proper nouns do not undergo any morphological changes. They cannot be inflected for number. Common nouns on the other hand, can occur with plural suffixes to mark number. Let us consider the following sentences: (34) a. Kpahɩ-nɩ baliya chair- PL two. ‘Two chairs.’ b. * Kajukperi-nɩ baliya Kajukperi-PL two ‘Two Kajukperi’ In (34a), the common noun kpaha ‘chair’ can be inflected for number. However, the proper noun; Kajukperi, which is a name of a town, does not mark number. Givon (2001) notes that concrete nouns may be count or mass nouns and abstract nouns may also appear as count or mass. This section gives an insight into this phenomenon. Examples (35a-b) illustrate abstract and concrete count nouns respectively. University of Ghana http://ugspace.ug.edu.gh 45 (35) a. Hakil-lɩ fí idea-PL ten ‘Ten ideas.’ b. Baal-a badʋ man-PL six ‘Six men’ The abstract noun hakila ‘idea’ and the concrete noun baal ‘man’ are inflected for number and these nouns can be counted. Boadi (2010: 161) shows that “a count noun designates a single discrete (individuated) object with a definite outline” and a mass noun “designates an object with a fuzzy, no definite, outline”. This implies that count nouns consist of different kinds of items that are viewed as separate entities while mass nouns are not seen as separate entities but they consist of items of the same kind. In Sɩsaalɩ, abstract nouns such as tarɩ ‘failure’, nyaa ‘poverty’, barɩ ‘bravery’ are viewed as mass nouns. These nouns cannot be inflected for number. Also, concrete nouns such as yɩhɩ ‘salt’, taha ‘sand’; lɩɩ ‘water’, mɩa ‘millet’ miili ‘rice’, nʋʋ ‘oil’ are viewed as mass nouns in Sɩsaalɩ and these nouns are not inflected for number. These nouns can mark number when they occur in mensural classifiers that will specify their exact number. . (36) a. * Taha-hɩ baliya sand-PL two ‘Two sand.’ University of Ghana http://ugspace.ug.edu.gh 46 b. Miili bↄrɩ-hɩ baliya rice bag-PL two ‘Two bags of rice’ c. Lii bↄkↄtɩ-hɩ banaa water bucket-PL four ‘Four buckets of water.’ d. Nʋʋ galↄn-hɩ banaa oil gallon-PL four ‘Four gallons of oil.’ Example (36a) shows that the mass noun taha ‘sand’ cannot be inflected for number and thus, it cannot appear as a count noun. Examples (36b-d) illustrate mass nouns that appear with the mensural classifiers bↄrɩ ‘bag’ bↄkↄtɩ ‘bucket’ galↄn ‘gallon’ to mark number. In addition, these mass nouns can also occur with other modifiers when they appear in mensural classifiers as exemplified below. (37) a. * Ʋ yↄ ̀ↄ ́ á miili-bálá bápɛ̀ búlòŋ 3SG.SUBJ buy.PST DET rice-big.PL seven all ‘She bought all the seven big rice.’ b. Ʋ yↄ ̀ↄ ́ á miili bↄrɩ-hɩ bálá bápɛ̀ 3SG.SUBJ buy.PST DET rice bag-PL big.PL seven búlòŋ all ‘She bought all the seven big bags of rice.’ University of Ghana http://ugspace.ug.edu.gh 47 Example (37a) shows that the concrete mass noun cannot occur with other elements such as numerals, adjectives and quantifiers unless they occur in containers as illustrated in (37b). The discussions have shown that proper nouns, mass nouns and abstract nouns have limited syntactic distribution. Also, these subtypes of nouns lack morphological marking therefore, these nouns cannot serve as prototypical heads to the noun phrase. 3.3 Bare Nouns Alexandre and Hagemeijer (2007:37) define bare nouns as “noun phrases without overt determiners”. In Sɩsaalɩ, bare nouns may have different interpretations depending on the context in which they occur. They either show indefiniteness or convey generic meaning. Consider the following sentences that are associated with indefinite interpretations. (38) a. Ŋ bórí dááŋ 1SG.SUBJ break.PST stick ‘I broke a stick’ b. Váhà à-cháŋ hògí. dog HAB-chew bone ‘A dog chews a bone.’ University of Ghana http://ugspace.ug.edu.gh 48 c. Géliì à-kàŋ kↄ́láà. cat HAB-catch mouse ‘A cat catches a mouse.’ The bare nouns daaŋ ‘stick’, vaha ‘dog’ , geli ‘cat’, hogi ‘bone’ and kↄlaa ‘mouse’ in sentences (38a- c) express indefiniteness. The indefinite determiner is covertly realised in the bare forms of the nouns daaŋ ‘stick’ vaha ‘dog’ and gelii ‘cat’ hogi ‘bone’ and kↄlaa ‘mouse’. Sɩsaalɩ does not have an indefinite marker to show indefiniteness and due to this, the language expresses indefiniteness by the use of the bare form of the noun. Sulemana (2012) indicated that in Buli, indefiniteness is expressed by a bare noun and they are interpreted as generic as illustrated below. (39) a. Bū:k à ŋ ↄ̄-̄bī vá :tà goat.INDEF PRES-chew leaves ‘A goat chews leaves.’ (Sulemana 2012: 48) Bare nouns may also convey generic interpretations. In this regard, the noun usually refers to characteristics that are related to a certain group or class of species. With reference to (40a and b), the bare nouns bↄgↄ ‘farm’ and yↄbↄ ‘market’ convey generic meaning. The bare nouns bↄgↄ ‘farm’ and yↄbↄ ‘market’ in this context refer to any farm or market in general as illustrated below. University of Ghana http://ugspace.ug.edu.gh 49 (40) a. Bà báŋ bↄ ̀gↄ́. 3PL go farm ‘They go to the farm.’ b. Ʋ nàá yↄ̀bↄ̀. 3SG see.PST market ‘He saw the market.’ 3.4 Pronouns Pronouns can function as heads of the noun phrase. Pronouns as heads of noun phrases do not appear with a modifier but may function as subject or object of a sentence as nouns. (41) a. Bà tʋ́ŋ ʋ̀. 3PL.SUBJ send.PST 3SG.OBJ ‘They sent it.’ b. Ŋ jʋ̀ŋ báàl nʋ́. 1SG.SUBJ know man this ‘I know this man.’ The pronouns ba ‘they’ and ʋ ‘it’ in (41a) are noun phrases that are functioning as the subject and object in the sentence respectively. In (41b), the pronoun ŋ ‘I’ also forms a noun phrase that functions as the subject in the sentence. University of Ghana http://ugspace.ug.edu.gh 50 In Sɩsaalɩ, the personal pronouns are marked for number and persons. Table 3.3 presents the personal pronouns for both the subjects and the objects: Table 3.3: Personal pronouns SUBJECT OBJECT PRONOUN PRONOUN 1st person SG ŋ ‘I’ ŋ ‘me’ 2nd person SG ɩ ‘you’ ɩ ‘you’ 3rd person SG ʋ ‘he, she, it’ ʋ ‘him, her, it’ 1st person PL à ‘we’ mà ‘us’ 2nd person PL mà ‘you’ mà ‘you’ 3rd person PL ba ‘they’ ba ‘them’ With reference to the table 3.3, the subject pronouns are the same as the object pronouns except the 1st person plural that occurs as ma ̀ ‘us’ at the object position. Consider the following examples: (42) a. Ŋ nàá báàl hʋ́. 1SG.SUBJ see.PST man that ‘I saw that man.’ University of Ghana http://ugspace.ug.edu.gh 51 b. Báàl hʋ́ nàá ŋ̀. man that see.PST 1SG.OBJ ‘That man saw me.’ (43) a. Ɩ tʋ́ŋ hááŋ nʋ́. 2SG.SUBJ send.PST woman this ‘You sent this woman.’ b. Háàŋ nʋ́ tʋ́ŋ ɩ̀. woman this send.PST 2SG.OBJ ‘This woman sent you.’ (44) a. Ʋ ŋmáá á bìé 1PL.SUBJ beat.PST DET child ‘He beat the child.’ b. A bìé ŋmáá ʋ̀ the child beat.PST 3SG.OBJ ‘The child beat him.’ (45) a. À pɛ̀ɛ́ hááŋ nʋ́ 3PL.SUBJ help.PST woman this ‘We helped this woman.’ b. * Hááŋ nʋ́ pɛ̀ɛ́ à woman this help.PST 3PL.OBJ ‘This woman helped us. University of Ghana http://ugspace.ug.edu.gh 52 c. Hááŋ nʋ́ pɛ̀ɛ́ ma ̀ woman this help.PST 3PL.OBJ ‘This woman helped us.’ (46) a. Mà pír váhà nʋ́ 2PL.SUBJ hurt.PST dog this ‘You hurt this dog.’ b. Váhà nʋ́ pír mà dog this hurt.PST 2PL.OBJ ‘This dog hurt you.’ (47) a. Bà tʋ̀ʋ̀hɩ́ háŋtólìbì-hí hʋ́ 3PL.SUBJ insult.PST girl-PL those ‘They insulted those girls.’ b. Háŋtólìbì-hí hʋ́ tʋ̀ʋ̀hɩ ́ bà girl-PL those insult.PST 3PL.OBJ ‘Those girls insulted them The above sentences show that both the subjective and objective pronouns have the same form except the 1st person plural where the subjective pronoun is à ‘we’ and the objective pronoun is mà ‘us’ as illustrated in (45a and c). Also, the objective pronoun of 1PL and the subject or the object pronoun of 2PL take the same form. In this situation, the interpretation of pronoun ‘ma ̀’ as a 1PL or 2PL becomes University of Ghana http://ugspace.ug.edu.gh 53 a bit difficult. The only way one can interprets the form as either 1PL or 2PL depends on the context in which the pronouns are used. 3.5 Reflexives and Reciprocals Reflexives and reciprocals are anaphors. Both reflexives and reciprocals indicate that in a sentence, there are two NPs that are co-referential, in that the reflexive or the reciprocal has an antecedent that refers back to it. 3.5.1 Reflexives Heine and Miyashita (2008:169) define a reflexive construction as “a singular referent A acts on himself or herself.” Lichtenberk (1985:26) also indicates that the participants that perform the actions in a reflective construction may “stand in some relation to himself/herself/itself rather than any other”. Therefore, in reflexive constructions, the referent undergoes the action by him/ herself. Cross-linguistically, every language has a distinct way of marking reflexives. As observed by Faltz (1977), some languages employ free morphemes for reflexives while others use bound morphemes. Saha (1987:215) observes that the co-referential entities in a reflective construction may be realized as “a word, particle or an affix”. Heine and Miyashita (2008:174) mention that cross-linguistically, a language may use personal pronouns, use a body-noun and possessive attribute, or use an adverbial ‘alone’ or ‘only’ as range of strategies for marking reflexives. Saah (1989) and Osam (2002) also show that reflexives in Akan are morphologically formed by a possessive pronoun (POSS) and the morpheme ho (self). Reflexives in Sɩsaalɩ are also University of Ghana http://ugspace.ug.edu.gh 54 morphologically marked. They are formed by a personal pronoun and the morpheme tɩɩ self as demonstrated in the examples below: (48) a. Fatimah pír ʋ̀- tɩ́ɩ́. Fatimah hurt.PST 3SG-self ‘Fatimah hurt herself.’ b. Bà kèrí bà-tɩ́ɩ. 3PL.SUBJ cut.PST 3PL-self ‘They cut themselves.’ In (48 a-b), the pronouns ʋ ‘him’ and ba ‘them’ are added to the morpheme tɩɩ ‘self’ to mark reflexives. Table 3.4 presents the reflexive pronouns in Sɩsaalɩ. Table 3.4: Reflexive REFLEXIVE 1st person SG ŋtɩɩ ‘myself’ 2nd person SG ɩtɩɩ ‘yourself’ 3rd person SG ʋtɩɩ ‘himself, herself, itself’ 1st person PL atɩɩ * matɩɩ ‘ourselves’ 2nd person PL matɩɩ ‘yourselves’ 3rd person PL batɩɩ ‘themselves’ University of Ghana http://ugspace.ug.edu.gh 55 In table 3.4, it is observed that the subject personal pronouns and the morpheme tɩɩ ‘self’ are employed to mark reflexives in Sɩsaalɩ. This is evident in the 1st person plural which has different forms in the subject and object positions as shown in table 3.4. 3.5.2. Reciprocals According to Gaby (2008: 259), in reciprocals, “the Actor of one instantiation of the event is also the Undergoer of another instantiation of the same event (A1 = U2) while the Undergoer of the first instantiation is the Actor of the second (U1 =A2)”. This implies that reciprocals require plural antecedents who act on each other. Consider the following sentences: (49) a. A hááŋ kpʋ́ ʋ̀-tɩ́ɩ́ DET woman kill.PST 3SG-self ‘The woman killed herself.’ b. A háán-à kpʋ́ bà-tɩ́ɩ́. DET woman-PL kill.PST 3PL-self ‘The women killed each other/themselves.’ Example (49b) is a reciprocal construction while (49a) is not. (49b) involves plural antecedents who act on each other. However in (49a), only a single referent is involved and this single referent acts on him/herself. Therefore, the construction University of Ghana http://ugspace.ug.edu.gh 56 cannot be seen as reciprocal. It is reflexive. This indicates that reciprocals require only plural antecedents in their formation. In Sɩsaalɩ, it is realized that reflexive constructions with plural antecedents are also viewed as reciprocal constructions. In this regard, the construction becomes ambiguous whether it is interpreted as a reflexive or reciprocal. However, Heine and Miyashita (2008) are of the view that language speakers are able to make a distinction between reciprocals and reflexives when the language employs the same expression for both concepts. Consider the following sentences. (50) a. Issah béé Amina àjàà bà-tɩ́ɩ́. Issah and Amina like 3PL-self ‘Issah and Amina like each other/themselves.’ b. Bà pɛ́ɛ́ bà-tɩ́ɩ́. 3PL help.PST 3PL-self ‘They helped each other/themselves.’ c. A bómbìì-hí bálìyà fàŋlɩ́ bà-tɩ́ɩ́. DET boy-PL two slap.PST 3PL-self. ‘The two boys slapped each other/ themselves.’ d. A ŋmáá à-tɩ́ɩ́. 1PL beat.PST 1PL-self ‘We beat each other/ourselves.’ Examples (50a-d) are ambiguous between reciprocal and reflexive readings. Although reflexive constructions with plural antecedents are also interpreted as University of Ghana http://ugspace.ug.edu.gh 57 reciprocals, there are some verbs that are seen as prototypical reciprocal verbs. Thus, they cannot be associated with reflexive interpretations irrespective of the fact that these verbs require plural antecedents within a construction. Consider the following sentences. (51) a. Bà ká kááhɩ̀. 3PL fight.PST fight. ‘They fought a fight.’ b. À háán-à bálìyà káá dↄ́mↄ́ŋ. DET woman-PL two quarrel.PST each other ‘The two women quarreled’ c. A chàŋ-hɩ ́ bálìyà bàhɩ́ wia. DET friend-PL two talk.PST word ‘The two friends had a chat.’ d. A bombii-hi bálìyà púú dↄ́mↄ́ŋ. DET boy-PL two meet.PST each other ‘The two boys met’ The above sentences are associated with plural NPs that are co-referential. These NPs are said to be associated with reciprocal action rather than reflexive. It is observed that the verbs employed in the sentences require the various arguments or referents to act on each other rather than acting on themselves. University of Ghana http://ugspace.ug.edu.gh 58 In reflexive and reciprocal constructions, the reflexive and the reciprocal depend on their antecedents for their interpretations. The reflexive and the antecedent are marked with the subscript j to show that they co-refer to each other while the reflexive and the antecedent with subscript j and k respectively indicate nonreferentiality as illustrated below. (52) a. Báàlj hʋ́ pìr ʋ̀-tɩ́ɩ́j man that hurt 3SG-self ‘That man hurts himself.’ b. Báàlj hʋ́ pìr ʋ̀k man that hurt 3SG ‘That man hurts him.’ c. Báàl-aj hʋ́ pìr bà-tɩ́ɩ́j man-PL that hurt 3PL-self ‘Those men hurt themselves/each other.’ d. Báàl-aj hʋ́ pìr bàk man-PL that hurt 3PL ‘Those men hurt them.’ Examples (52a and c) are reflexive constructions while (52c) is reciprocal. In (52a), the reflexive ʋ̀tɩ́ɩ́ ‘himself’ refers back to its antecedent baal ‘man’ and in (52c), the reflexive or the reciprocal bàtɩ́ɩ́ ‘themselves/each other’ and the NP baala ‘men’ are co-referential. However, (52b and d) are not reflexive or reciprocal constructions. This is because the NPs baal ‘man’ and ʋ ‘him’ are not co-referential. University of Ghana http://ugspace.ug.edu.gh 59 Similar situation is observed in (52d) where the NP ba ‘them’ does not refer back to its antecedent; baala ‘men’. It is very necessary to note that reflexives in Sɩsaalɩ are marked for number and persons. When the antecedent is a plural entity, the reflexive must also appear in the plural form and when it is singular, the reflexive is also singular. This is realised in the subject personal pronouns that are attached to the morpheme tɩ́ɩ́ ‘self’. The pronoun is inflected for number while tɩ́ɩ́ ‘self’ remains in the same form as illustrated in the examples below. (53) a. Ŋ ̀̀ chògí ŋ̀-tɩ́ɩ́. 1SG destroy.PST 1SG-self ‘I destroyed myself.’ b. Ʋ pír ʋ̀-tɩ́ɩ́. 3SG hurt.PST 3SG-self ‘He hurt himself.’ c. Bà fàŋlɩ ́ bà-tɩ́ɩ́. 3PL slap.PST 3PL-self ‘They slapped themselves.’ d. A tʋ̀ʋ̀hɩ ́ à-tɩ́ɩ́. 1PL insult.PST 1PL-self ‘We insulted ourselves.’ Sentences (53a-b) show reflexive constructions that have their antecedents as singular NPs while (53c-d) illustrate reflexives with plural antecedents. University of Ghana http://ugspace.ug.edu.gh 60 In the distribution of reflexive and reciprocals, the antecedent always occurs at the subject position. The antecedent always precedes the reflexive/reciprocal in a reflexive/reciprocal construction. The sentence becomes ungrammatical when the reflexive/reciprocal appears as the initial NP as demonstrated below: (54) a. Bà pír bà-tɩɩ́ .́ 3PL hurt.PST 3PL-self ‘They hurt themselves/each other.’ b. * Ba- tɩ́ɩ́ pír bà̀. 3PL-self hurt.PST 3PL ‘Themselves /each other hurt them.’ (55) a. A biihi leŋ ba niina keri DET child-PL make.PST 3PL mother cut.PST ʋ-tii bee a sie. 3SG-self with DET knife ‘The children made their mother cut himself with the knife.’ b. * A biihi leŋ ʋ-tii keri ba niina DET child-PL make.PST 3SG- self cut.PST 3PL mother bee a sie. with DET knife ‘The children made himself cut their mother with the knife.’ University of Ghana http://ugspace.ug.edu.gh 61 (56) a. Fati bahɩ tia ŋ baa ʋ bala aa paane Fati speak.PST to 1SG that 3SG husband HAB blame ʋ-tɩɩ yɛ ba bie sʋʋ wia. 3SG-self EMPH 3PL child death matter “Fati told me that her husband blames himself over the death of their child.” b. * Fati bahɩ tia ŋ baa ʋ-tɩɩ aa paane ʋ Fati speak.PST to 1SG that 3SG-self HAB blame 3SG bala yɛ ba bie sʋʋ wia. husband EMPH 3PL child death matter “Fati told me that himself blames her husband over the death of their child.” Example (54b), (55b) and (56b) show that the reflexives/reciprocals cannot precede their antecedents. This implies that antecedent always comes before the reflexive/reciprocal. Saah (1989) reveals that in reflexive constructions, the antecedent and the reflexive are clause mates. A reflexive construction requires that the two NPs (antecedent and reflexive) appear in the same clause. When the antecedent and the reflexive are found in different clauses, it renders the sentence ungrammatical. This is the case for Sɩsaalɩ also. (57) a. [[Ʋ bàhɩ́ [bàà bà kpʋ́ bà-tɩ́ɩ́.]] 3SG.SUBJ say.PST that they kill.PST 3PL-self. ‘He said that they have killed themselves.’ University of Ghana http://ugspace.ug.edu.gh 62 b. *[[Ʋ bàhɩ́ [bàà bà kpʋ́ ʋ̀-tɩ́ɩ́.]] 3SG.SUBJ say.PST that they kill.PST 3SG-self. ‘He said that they have killed himself.’ (58) a. [[A jʋ́ŋ [bàà Hamza piŕ́ ʋ̀-tɩ́ɩ́.]] 1PL.SUBJ know.PST that Hamza hurt.PST 3SG-self. ‘We knew that Hamza hurt himself.’ b. *[[A jʋ́ŋ [bàà Hamza píŕ à-tɩɩ́ ́.]] 1PL.SUBJ know.PST that Hamza hurt.PST 3PL-self. ‘We knew that Hamza hurt ourselves.’ The above examples show that the antecedent requires the reflexive to occur with it in the same clause. In (57a), the antecedent ba ‘they’ and the reflexive batɩɩ ‘themselves’ are found in the same clause and the construction is grammatical in that context. However in (57b), the antecedent ʋ ‘he’ and the reflexive ʋtɩɩ ‘himself’ are found in different clauses and this makes the reflexive construction ungrammatical. Also, in (58a), the antecedent Hamza and the reflexive ʋtɩɩ ‘himself’ are found in the same clause while in (58b) when the antecedent a ‘we’ and atɩɩ ‘ourselves’ are found in different clauses and this makes the construction ungrammatical. Associative constructions can also serve as antecedents in a reflexive construction. This is illustrated in the sentences below. University of Ghana http://ugspace.ug.edu.gh 63 (59) a. Issah mááná pír ʋ̀-tɩɩ́ ́ Issah elder sister hurt.PST 3SG.OBJ-self ‘Issah’s elder sister hurt herself.’ b. Amina báàlá kèrí ʋ̀-tɩ́ɩ́. Amina husband cut.PST 3SG.OBJ-self ‘Amina’s husband cut himself.’ We have seen that in reflexive and reciprocal constructions, the antecedent and the reflexive are co-referential entities and clause mates. Again, it was noted that reflexives with plural antecedents also have reciprocal readings and their interpretations are context bound. 3.6 Elements in a Noun Phrase This section examines the morpho-syntactic properties of elements which occur in the noun phrase. It seeks to identify which of the elements are post or pre-elements and the position that they assume in the noun phrase. 3.6.1 Determiners. Determiners modify the head noun in Sɩsaalɩ. Any determiner that occurs with the head noun does not only exhibit a syntactic relationship with the head noun but it also serves referential purposes. Kpatolie dialect has the definite article ‘a’ which is a pre-nominal element. However, McGill et.al (1999), Dumah (2017) point out that Sɩsaalɩ does not have an indefinite article. A similar situation occurs in the Kpatolie University of Ghana http://ugspace.ug.edu.gh 64 dialect. Indefiniteness is not morphologically marked but expressed by the use of a bare noun. Consider the following sentences. (60) a. Boḿ biè ́ tíŋ ʋ ̀. boy send.PST 3SG ‘A boy sent him.’ b. Á bómbiè ́ tíŋ ʋ.̀ DET boy send.PST 3SG ‘The boy sent him.’ (61) a. Ba ̀ yↄↄ̀ ́ píe ́hú. 3PL buy.PST sheep ‘They bought a sheep.’ b. Ba ̀ yↄↄ̀ ́ a ́ píe ́hú. 3PL buy.PST DET sheep ‘They bought the sheep.’ Sentences (60a) and (61a) show that Sɩsaalɩ does not have an indefinite article but indefiniteness is covertly expressed by the bare NPs bombie ‘boy’ and piehu ‘sheep’. Examples (60b) and (61b) illustrate head nouns that occur with the definite article ‘a’ in the noun phrase. The definite article precedes its head in the above constructions. However, the definite article has a different distribution in the other dialects of Sɩsaalɩ. For instance, Bʋwaalɩ dialect has different distribution with regard University of Ghana http://ugspace.ug.edu.gh 65 to the position of the definite article. The dialect displays the definite article na as a post-modification element rather than a pre-modification element. The position of the definite article in Bʋwaalɩ is illustrated in the sentences below: (62) a. Ŋ yↄwe pieso na. 1SG buy.PST sheep DET ‘I bought the sheep.’ b. Ba kaŋ gaara na 3PL catch.PST thief DET ‘They caught a thief.’ c. Baal na ko rɛ. man DET come.PST FOC ‘The man came.’ The above sentences show that the definite article na occurs right after the head nouns pieso ‘sheep’, gaara ‘thief’ and baal ‘man’ in (62ac) respectively. Fembeti (2002) also notes that the definite article hʋ in the Paasaal dialect occurs after the head noun as demonstrated in the noun phrases below: (63) a. Haaŋ hʋ woman DET ‘The woman.’ University of Ghana http://ugspace.ug.edu.gh 66 b. Diya hʋ house DET ‘The house.’ (Fembeti 2002: 25) The definite article hʋ in the Paasaal dialect occurs after the head nouns haaŋ ‘woman’ and diya ‘house’. Therefore, the definite article in Kpatolie is a pre- modification element whist it is seen as a post modification element in the Pasaalɩ and Gbieni dialects. The definite article in Kpatolie and Paasaal dialects are not sensitive to number. Bʋwaalɩ dialect shows that the definite article can be inflected for number as shown below: (64) a. Ba kaŋ gaara na. 3PL catch.PST thief DET ‘They caught the thief.’ b. Baal-a wanyaa ko rɛ. man-PL DET come.PST FOC ‘The men came.’ The morphemes na and wanyaa are used to make a distinction between singular and plural head nouns respectively. University of Ghana http://ugspace.ug.edu.gh 67 3.6.2 Demonstratives Demonstratives are post nominal elements in Sɩsaalɩ. Diessel (1999) observes that demonstratives exhibit deictic features; they show the closeness of an entity to the deictic center (speaker). Demonstratives can be expressed in two forms, proximal and distal. Proximal demonstratives are used when the referent is near the deictic center, while distal demonstratives are used when the referent is far away from the deictic center or the speaker. The two demonstratives, nʋ and hʋ can be identified in the Kpatolie dialect. The former is proximal, and the latter is distal. This is demonstrated in the examples below: (65) a. Báàl nʋ́ yàà ŋ̀ kúwò chàná man DEM is 1SG father friend. ‘This man is my father’s friend.’ b. Váhà hʋ̀ à-húòsì yʋ́gↄ̀. dog DEM HAB-bark a lot ‘That dog barks a lot.’ In (65a), the NP baal ‘man’ is right in front of the speaker while in (65b), there is a relative distance between the speaker and the referent vaha ‘dog’. Demonstratives are not sensitive to number. A similar situation is also observed by McGill et.al (1999) and Dumah (2017) in Paasaal and Gbieni dialects respectively. Number can only be exhibited by the head noun in question. The head noun appears as a singular or plural entity while the demonstrative appear in the same form in both singular and plural constructions as illustrated in the sentences below: University of Ghana http://ugspace.ug.edu.gh 68 (66) a. Hááŋ nʋ́ à-yɛ́lɛ̀ míílì yↄ̀bↄ̀ má. woman DEM HAB-sell rice market at ‘This woman sells rice at the market.’ b. Háán-à nʋ́ a-yɛ́lɛ̀ míílì yↄ̀bↄ̀ má. woman-PL DEM HAB-sell rice market at ‘These women sell rice at the market.’ (67) a. Háŋtólìbìé hʋ́ tʋ̀ʋ̀hɩ́ ʋ̀ náá. girl DEM insult.PST 3SG mother ‘That girl insulted her mother.’ b. Háŋtólìbì-hí hʋ́ tʋ̀ʋ̀hɩ́ bà náá. girl-PL DEM insult.PST 3PL mother ‘Those girls insulted their mother.’ Sentences (66a) and (67a) show demonstratives with singular heads haaŋ ‘woman’ and haŋtolibie ‘girl’ while sentences (66b) and (67b) have plural heads haana ‘women’ and haŋtolibihi ‘girls’. However, demonstratives in Bʋwaalɩ dialect are inflected for number. Nouns phrases with singular heads are marked differently from those with plural heads. Consider the following sentences: (68) a. Haal nee ka ŋ yala. woman DEM is 1SG aunt ‘This woman is my aunt’ University of Ghana http://ugspace.ug.edu.gh 69 b. Haal-a wanyan ka ŋ yala-wa. woman-PL DEM are 1SG aunt-PL ‘These women are my aunts. c. Baal na ka namballa. man DEM is hunter ‘That man is a hunter.’ d. Baal-a wanyaa ka namballa. man-PL DEM is hunter ‘ ‘Those men are hunters.’ As shown in (68a-b) and (68c-d) respectively, the proximal demonstrative nee ‘this’ is realised as wanyan ‘these’ when the head is a plural entity and the distal demonstrative na ‘that’ is also expressed as wanyaa ‘those’ when the head is a plural noun. McGill et.al (1999) and Dumah (2017) show that in Paasaali and Gbieni dialects respectively, the distal demonstrative haŋ ‘that/those’ is a pre-nominal element and it occurs with the determiner hu which is a post-nominal element. McGill et.al (1999) further mentions that the distal demonstrative haŋ cannot occur on its own unless it is attached to the determiner while the proximal demonstrative no ‘this/these’ can occur on its own and it cannot occur with the determiner hu. University of Ghana http://ugspace.ug.edu.gh 70 (69) a. Haaŋ no woman this ‘This woman.’ b. Haŋ haaŋ hʋ that woman the ‘That woman.’ McGill et.al (1999: 30) However, the Kpatolie dialect shows that both the proximal and the distal demonstratives are independent morphemes and they can occur with the determiner as show below: (70) a. A bombie nʋ DET boy DEM ‘This boy’ b. A vaha hʋ DET dog DEM ‘That dog’ 3.6.3 Adjectives An adjective also modifies the head noun in Sɩsaalɩ. It occurs after the head noun they modify. Schachter (1985:13) defines adjectives as ‘‘words that denote qualities and attributes’’. Adjectives usually help to define, describe and identify referents of University of Ghana http://ugspace.ug.edu.gh 71 head nouns. Adjectives in Sɩsaalɩ are in two forms; there are adjectives derived from verbs and those which are non-derived. (71) a. A gáá mʋ́má-wáh-ɛ̀ 1PL steal.PST maize-roast-NOM ‘We stole a roasted maize.’ b. Ʋ cháŋ nàmɩ́-hál-ɛ̀ 3SG chew.PST fish-fry-NOM ‘He chewed a fried meat.’ The above examples show adjectives that are derived from verbs. The adjectives wahɛ ‘roasted’ and halɛ ‘fried’ that serve as modifying elements to the head nouns mʋmaŋ ‘maize’ and namɩa ‘meat’ are derived from the verbs halɩ ‘to fry’ and wahɩ ‘to roast’ respectively. An observation made by Bodomo (1997) Dakubu (2005), Hudu (2014) about adjectives in Gur languages indicate that, they are attached to the head nouns they modify and the two elements form a single constituent. The suffix of the head noun has to be dropped before the adjective is added. Bodomo (1997) & Dakubu (2005) point out that in Dagaare, adjectives and the noun they modify form a compound. Adjectives are attached to the head noun they modify. Issah (2013) & Hudu (2014) also show that a similar situation is observed Dagbani. Consider the following Sɩsaalɩ noun phrases. University of Ghana http://ugspace.ug.edu.gh 72 (72) a. * A báal-̀á fìáŋ-hɩ̀ we daha maŋ. DET man-PL fair-PL are here in ‘The fair men are here.’ b. A bá-fìáŋ-hɩ ̀ we daha maŋ. DET man-fair-PL are here in ‘The fair men are here.’ (73) a. * Ʋ kaŋ hɛ́ŋɛ̀ bìŋ nɛ. 3SG has bowl black FOC ‘She has a black bowl.’ b. Ʋ kaŋ hɛ́ŋ-bìŋ nɛ. 3SG has bowl-black FOC ‘She has a black bowl.’ As shown in (72a-b) and (73a-b), the suffixes of the NPs baala ‘men’ and hɛŋɛ are dropped before the adjectives fiaŋhɩ ‘fair’ and biŋ ‘black’ were added. Adjectives in Sɩsaalɩ can be used attributively and predicatively. Predicative adjectives use the copula ‘yaa’ to link the head noun and the adjective while the attributive adjectives follow the head noun as illustrated below: (74) a. A píé-pʋ̀lʋ́ŋ díé à kìdíìlèe DET sheep-white eat.PST DET food ‘The white sheep ate the food.’ University of Ghana http://ugspace.ug.edu.gh 73 b. A píéhʋ́ yàà kɩ́-pʋ̀lʋ́ŋ DET sheep be thing-white ‘The sheep is white.’ (75) a. A nàmíá we á hɛ̀ŋ-bɩŋ̀ ma. DET meat LOC DET bowl-black POST ‘The meat is in the black bowl.’ b. A hɛ̀ŋɛ̀ yàà kɩ-́bɩŋ̀ DET bowl be thing-black ‘The bowl is black.’ Sentences (74a) and (75a) show adjectives that have been used attributively whilst (74b) and (75b) illustrate the predicative use of the adjective. In (74a and 75a), the adjectives pʋlʋŋ ‘white’ and biŋ ‘black’ occur after the head nouns piehʋ ‘sheep’ and hɛŋɛ ‘bowl’ while in (74b) and (75b), the NPs piehʋ ‘sheep’ and hɛŋɛ ‘bowl’ are linked to the adjectives pʋlʋŋ ‘white’ and biŋ ‘black’ by the copula yaa. In predicative adjectives, the head nouns appear in their full forms as demonstrated in (74b) and (75b) while in the attributive use of the adjective, the suffix of the head noun is removed before the adjective is attached to it as shown in (74a) and (75a). It is observed that, the NPs piehu ‘sheep’ appear as ‘pie’ and hɛŋɛ ‘bowl’ as ‘hɛŋ’ in (74a) and (75a) respectively. Issah (2013) also notes that Dagbani requires only the root form of the noun in an attributive adjective as it is also seen in Sɩsaalɩ. It is worth mentioning that adjectives in Gur languages are sensitive to number (Dakubu 2005, Sulemana 2012). Adjectives in Sɩsaalɩ are also sensitive to University of Ghana http://ugspace.ug.edu.gh 74 number and singular adjectives have their plural forms in Sɩsaalɩ. The table below presents adjectives in their singular and plural forms. Table 3.5: Singular and Plural Adjectives ADJECTIVES Singular Plural biŋ ‘black’ bine ‘black’ fiaŋ ‘red’ fiaŋhɩ ‘red’ pʋlʋŋ ‘white’ pʋŋlɩ ‘white’ doli ‘tall’ dole ‘tall’ woli ‘beautiful’, ‘nice’ wole ‘nice’, ‘beautiful’ fɛlɩ ‘new’ fɛlɛ ‘new’ balɩ ‘big’ bala ‘big’ bɛnɩɩ ‘old’ bɛnɛɛ ‘old’ nɛrɩɩ ‘fat’ nɛrɛɛ ‘fat’ Consider the following sentences that show NPs with singular and plural heads. (76) a. A há-bìŋ. DET woman-dark ‘The dark woman.’ University of Ghana http://ugspace.ug.edu.gh 75 b. * A háan-a bìn-é DET woman-PL dark- PL ‘The dark women. c. A há-bìn-é DET woman-dark- PL ‘The dark women.’ (77) a. A galaal-fiaŋ. DET dress-red ‘The red dress.’ b. * A galaal-ɛ- fiaŋ-hɩ. DET dress-red-PL ‘The red dresses’ c. A galaal- fiaŋ-hɩ DET dress-red-PL ‘The red dresses’ Since the head noun and the adjective form a compound word, only the root form of the head noun appears while the adjective occurs with its plural suffix to mark number as illustrated in (76a-c) and (77a-c). Adjectives in Sɩsaalɩ also make a distinction between human and non-human nouns when they are used predicatively. University of Ghana http://ugspace.ug.edu.gh 76 (78) a. A gáláal-ɛ ̀ yàà ki-bɩ̀n-e. DET dress-PL are thing-black-PL ‘The dresses are black.’ b. A dááŋ yàà ki-́dólí. DET house is thing-long ‘The tree is long.’ (79) a. A báàl-a yàà ní-dól-e.́ DET man-PL are human-tall-PL ‘The men are tall.’ b. A hááŋ yàà ni-́bɩ̀ŋ DET woman is human-dark ‘The woman is dark.’ The morpheme kɩ/ ki depending on the initial sound in the adjective is added to the predicative adjective to show that the head noun is a non-human NP as seen in (78a and b) whilst the morpheme ‘nɩ/ ni’ is attached to the predicative adjective to show that the head noun is human as illustrated in (79a and b). The morphemes ‘kɩ̀/ki’ which is added to the adjectives is derived from the word kiŋ ‘thing’ while the morpheme nì/nɩ̀ is also derived from the word nɛl ‘human’. The Gbieni dialect also makes a distinction between human and non-human entities in predicative adjectives. Consider the following Gbieni sentences: University of Ghana http://ugspace.ug.edu.gh 77 (80) a. Baalↄ na ka bɩ-fɩɛmↄ man DET is human-fair. ‘The man is fair.’ b. Haanↄ na ka bɩ-bino. woman DET is human-dark ‘The woman is dark.’ (81) a. Vaha na ka be-fɩɛmↄ. dog DET is thing-red ‘The dog is red.’ b. Pieso na ka be-bino sheep DET is thing-black ‘The sheep is black.’ The Bʋwaalɩ dialect also employs the morphemes ‘be’ and ‘bɩ’ to make a distinction between human and non -human nouns respectively in a predicative adjective. It is possible for adjectives to occur successively within a noun phrase. Moran (2006) observes that adjectives in Sɩsaalɩ do not have any specific order of arrangement in the noun phrase. Although adjectives do not have any sequential order, adjectives of dimension and colour usually occur at the initial position. These adjectives often precede other adjective types as shown in (82a-c). University of Ghana http://ugspace.ug.edu.gh 78 (82) a. A há -dól fìáŋ wól-é. DET woman-tall fair beautiful-PL ‘The fair tall beautiful women.’ b. A galaal-bii biŋ woli. DET dress-small black nice ‘The small black nice dress.’ c. A kpahɩ bal yuhi bↄŋ binii. DET chair big heavy dirty old ‘The big heavy dirty old chair.’ Amfo et.al (2007) show that adjectives in Akan, Ga and Ewe can also express comparative or superlative degree. In this case, verbs that can be glossed as ‘exceed/surpass’ are used. Boadi (2010) also indicates that adjectives in Akan can be modified by a comparative verb phrase. Similar phenomenon occurs in Sɩsaalɩ. Sɩsaalɩ employs gɛhi/ bↄŋ ‘more than’ to show the comparison as illustrated in (83a- b) (83) a. A baal doli gɛhi/bↄŋ Hamza. DET man tall more than Hamza ‘The man is taller than Hamza.’ b. Ʋ rɛ woli gɛhi/bↄŋ ʋ. 3SG FOC beautiful more than 3SG ‘She is more beautiful than her.’ University of Ghana http://ugspace.ug.edu.gh 79 3.6.4. Numerals (Ordinals and Cardinals) Numerals also modify the head noun in Sɩsaalɩ. Numerals refer to both ordinals and cardinals which serve as post nominal elements in the noun phrase. B. Cardinals Cardinals specify the sum of what is being counted and they occur as post modifiers in Sɩsaalɩ. (84) a. Kúórì-hì bↄ́nↄ́ŋ̀ chief-PL five ‘Five chiefs As illustrated above, the cardinal bↄnↄŋ ‘five’ occurs after the head noun Kuorihi ‘chiefs’. Cardinals agree in number with the head noun they occur with as demonstrated in (85a and b) and (86a and b) (85) a. Ba káŋ gáál-á bálìyà. 3PL catch.PST thief-PL two. ‘They caught two thieves.’ b. Ba káŋ gáálɩ́ kɩ̀dɩg̀ ɩ́ 3PL catch.PST thief one ‘They caught a (one) thief.’ University of Ghana http://ugspace.ug.edu.gh 80 (86) a. Ʋ káŋ háán-à bánàà 3SG has wife-PL four ‘He has four wives.’ b. Ʋ káŋ hááŋ kɩ̀dɩ̀gɩ́. 3SG has wife one ‘He has a (one) wife. In (85a) and (86a), the cardinals baliya ‘two’ and banaa ‘four’ agree with head nouns gala ‘thieves’ and haana ‘wives’ respectively while in (85b) and (86b), the cardinal kɩdɩgɩ ‘one’ agrees with the head nouns gaali ‘thief’ and haaŋ ‘wife’. The formation of cardinals from one to hundred is illustrated below: Formation of cardinals kɩdɩgɩ ‘one’ baliya ‘two’ boto ‘three’ banaa ‘four’ bↄnↄŋ ‘five badʋ ‘six’ bapɛ ‘seven’ kyori ‘eight’ nibi ‘nine’ fi ‘ten’ fi bee kɩdɩgɩ ‘ten and one’ University of Ghana http://ugspace.ug.edu.gh 81 fi bee baliya ‘ten and two’ mↄↄlaa ‘twenty’ mↄↄlaa bee kɩdɩgɩ ‘twenty and one’ mↄↄlaa bee fi ‘twenty and ten’ mↄↄlaa bee fi bee kɩdɩgɩ ‘twenty and ten and one’ mↄↄliya ‘twenty times 2’ mↄↄliya bee kɩdɩgɩ ‘forty and one’ mↄↄliya bee fi ‘forty and ten’ mↄↄliya bee fi bee kɩdɩgɩ ‘fifty and one’ mↄↄto ’twenty times three’ mↄↄto bee kɩdɩgɩ ‘sixty one’ mↄↄto bee fi ‘sixty and ten’ mↄↄto bee fi bee kɩdɩgɩ ‘seventy and one’ mↄↄnaa ‘twenty times four mↄↄnaa bee kɩdɩgɩ ‘eighty and one’ mↄↄnaa bee fi ‘eighty and ten’ mↄↄnaa bee fi bee kɩdɩgɩ ‘ninety and one’ kↄↄ ‘hundred’ kↄↄ bee kɩdɩgɩ ‘hundred and one’ With reference to the formation of numerals in Sɩsaalɩ, it is observed that the numeral is either a mono-morphemic word or a compound word. Numerals 1 to 10, 20 and 100 are made up of single morphemes while the other numerals are formed University of Ghana http://ugspace.ug.edu.gh 82 by combining two or more morphemes. The compound forms are either as a result of addition or multiplication. For instance, the numerals 11, 12 and 30 are derived on the basis of addition. 11 is derived by adding 10 to 1 fi bee kɩdɩgɩ, 12 is also written as fi bee baliya (10+2) and 30 as mↄↄlaa bee fi (20+10). Numerals such as 40, 60 and 80 are also expressed by the multiplication of the base. For example: the numeral 40 is obtained by multiplying 20 by 2, 60 as 20 by 3 and 80 as 20 by 4. When the compound formed is as a result of multiplication, the two numerals that are combined to form the compound word are reduced in form. It is seen that mↄↄliya ‘forty’ is derived by the combination of mↄↄlaa ‘twenty’ and baliya ‘two’ which means 20 by 2 where the suffix of the initial numeral and the prefix of the final numeral are dropped. Similar situation is observed in 60. The morphemes mↄↄlaa ‘twenty’ and boto ‘three’ are joined to derive mↄↄto ‘twenty times three’. It is very important to note that numerals that are formed as a result of addition do not reduce in form whilst numerals that are formed on the basis of multiplication are reduced in form. Hurford (1975) notes that most languages employ three main strategies to express a numeral that has a complex structure. Languages usually use multipliers (M), units (U) and remainders (R) for complex numeral expressions. This assertion also holds in Sɩsaalɩ. For instance, the complex numeral 41 is made up of these three components. Mↄↄliya bee kɩdɩgɩ ‘forty one’ is made up of mↄↄlaa ‘twenty’, baliya ‘two’ and kɩdɩgɩ ‘one’. The numerals; mↄↄlaa ‘twenty’ and baliya ‘two’ are joined to derive the structure mↄↄliya ‘forty’. This implies that forty 41 is obtained by multiplying the Unit (mↄↄlaa ‘twenty) and the multiplier (baliya ‘two) and adding the remainder (kɩdɩgɩ ‘one). Also, the numeral 81 has a complex structure. Mↄↄnaa University of Ghana http://ugspace.ug.edu.gh 83 bee kɩdɩgɩ ‘eighty one’ comprises of mↄↄlaa ‘twenty’, banaa ‘four’ and kɩdɩgɩ ‘one’. Mↄↄlaa ‘twenty’, banaa ‘four’ are also joined to obtain mↄↄnaa ‘eighty’ and kɩdɩgɩ ‘one’ is added. In this regard, the U (mↄↄlaa ‘tewnty) and the M (banaa ‘four’) are multiplied and the R (kɩdɩgɩ ‘one’) is added to obtain the numeral. B. Ordinals Ordinals show the order of the item in a set as they indicate the positions of items. In Sɩsaalɩ, ordinal can be expressed in various forms. Below are noun phrases that appear with ordinals (87) a. Ʋ hↄŋ kpàhá -lìyà tɩ́ɩ́ná maŋ nɛ 3SG sit chair-two fellow on FOC ‘She is sitting on the second chair.’ b. Ʋ yↄↄ a gáláálɩ̀-nàà tɩ́ɩ́ná rɛ 3SG buy.PST DET dress-four fellow FOC The fourth dress.’ As shown in (87a-b), ordinals can be derived from cardinals by blending the head noun and the cardinal which is then followed by the morpheme tɩɩna ‘fellow’. Ordinals in Sɩsaalɩ can also be expressed in a form of a clause as demonstrated in (88a- b). University of Ghana http://ugspace.ug.edu.gh 84 (88) a. Kpàhá nʋ́ pɛ́ bálìyà chair this add two ‘This chair adds up to be two.’(Second chair) b. Gáláálɩ̀ nʋ́ pɛ́ bánàà dress this add four ‘This chair adds up to be fourth.’(Fourth dress) In Sɩsaalɩ, it is possible to have the sequence of adjective and numeral after the head noun. Consider the examples below: (89) a. A náá bá-bìn-é bálìyà. 1PL see.PST man-dark-PL two ‘We saw two dark men.’ b. Ba yↄ̀ↄ́ kpàhɩ́-bál-á bↄ́nↄ́ŋ̀. 3PL buy.PST chair-big-PL five ‘They bought five big chairs.’ c. Ŋ káŋ gá-fɛ́l-ɛ́ fí. 1SG have cloth-new-PL ten ‘I have ten new clothes.’ As illustrated above, adjective precedes the numeral while the head noun precedes the adjective. Sentences (89a-c) show that the adjectives bine ‘dark’, bala ‘big’ and fɛlɛ ‘new’ precede the numerals baliya ‘two’ bↄnↄŋ ‘five’ and fi ‘ten’ University of Ghana http://ugspace.ug.edu.gh 85 respectively. Adjectives can occur with determiner, demonstrative and the numeral in the noun phrase as well. (90) a. A bá-bìn-é bálìyà yↄ̀ↄ́ píéhú. DET man-dark-PL two buy.PST sheep. ‘The two dark men bought a sheep.’ b. A gá-fɛ́l-ɛ́ fí yàà bà-kɩ́ŋ DET dress-new-PL ten are 3PL-thing ‘The ten new dresses are theirs.’ c. Ŋ yↄ̀ↄ́ a kpàhɩ-́ bál-á bↄ́nↄ́ŋ̀ hʋ́. 1SG buy.PST DET chair-big-PL five those ‘I bought those five big chairs.’ d. Ŋ hɩ́ yɛ́lɛ̀ a náŋtↄ-̀wólí kɩd̀ ɩg̀ ɩ ́ nʋ́. ISG FUT sell DET shoe- nice one this ‘I will sell this one nice shoe.’ The above constructions show that the determiner is the first element that occurs in the NP. The head noun is the next element that follows the determiner, then the adjective. The numeral comes after the adjective and the demonstrative is the final modification element in the noun phrase. University of Ghana http://ugspace.ug.edu.gh 86 3.6.5 Quantifiers Quantifiers are used to show the amount of quantity of something referred to by a noun. They are different from numerals because they indicate an approximated amount rather than the exact amount. Quantifiers in Sɩsaalɩ includes; a. badↄmↄŋ ‘some’ b. yugↄ ‘many’ or ‘plenty’ c. mʋ̀hʋ́ ‘few’ d. búlòŋ ‘every’ or ‘all’ e. duŋa ‘only’ Quantifiers occur after the head noun in a noun phrase as demonstrated in the sentences below: (91) a. Báàl-à bádↄ̀mↄ́ŋ káŋ móóbìì. man-PL some have money. ‘Some men have money.’ b. Nɛ́lɛ́ yúgↄ̀ a-dohi suonuŋ. people many HAB-plant beans ‘Many people plant beans.’ The quantifiers badↄmↄŋ ‘some’ and yugↄ ‘many’ come after the head nouns baala ‘men’ and nala ‘people’ in (91a and b) respectively. Quantifiers differ with respect to the head noun with which they occur. Count and non -count nouns (mass) University of Ghana http://ugspace.ug.edu.gh 87 differ with regard to the quantifiers they can occur with. Consider the following noun phrases: (92) a. * Yɩ̀hɩ ́ mʋ̀hʋ́ salt few ‘Few salt’ b. Báàl-à mʋ̀hʋ́ man-PL few ‘Few men’ (93) a. Yɩ̀hɩ ́ mʋ̀fɩ́ɩ́ salt little ‘Little salt’ b. * Báàl-à mʋ̀fɩ́ɩ́ man-PL little ‘Little men’ (94) a. * Mia badↄmↄŋ millet some ‘Some millet’ b. Vahɩ-nɩ badↄmↄŋ dog-PL some ‘Some dogs’ University of Ghana http://ugspace.ug.edu.gh 88 With reference to (92a-b), (93a-b) and (94a-b), it is not any quantifier that occurs with any subtype of noun. There are quantifiers that appear with countable nouns and those that appear with non-countable nouns. In the above noun phrases, the countable nouns occurred with the quantifiers badↄmↄŋ ‘some’ and mʋhʋ ‘few’ but could not occur with the quantifier mʋfɩɩ ‘little’. However, the non-countable nouns (mass) only appeared with the quantifier; mʋfɩɩ ‘little’ and not the others that occurred with the countable nouns. Sɩsaalɩ allows the sequence of quantifiers and adjectives in the nominal phrase as demonstrated below: (95) a. Bá-fìáŋ-hɩ̀ mʋ̀hʋ́ féé kó daha. man-fair-PL few EMP come.PST here. ‘Few fair men came here.’ b. Ʋ naa bá-dól-é yʋ́gà . 3SG see.PST man-tall-PL many ‘He saw many tall men.’ c. Há-wólɩ́ búlòŋ a-chuↄlɛ Wɩhɩ. woman-good every HAB-pray God. ‘Every good woman prays’. The head noun is the initial element and it precedes the adjective and the quantifier. The quantifiers; mʋhʋ ‘few’. yugↄ ‘many’ and buloŋ ‘every’ occur after the adjectives fiaŋhi ‘fair’, dole ‘tall’ and wolɩ good’ in (95a-c). The sequence of University of Ghana http://ugspace.ug.edu.gh 89 numerals and quantifiers is also permissible in Sɩsaalɩ. Consider the following sentences. (96) a. Haŋtolibii-hi banaa badↄmↄŋ a-yɩɩ yɩla. girl-PL four some PROG-sing song ‘Some four girls are singing.’ b. Bii-hi badʋ duŋa kó. child-PL six only come.PST ‘Only six children came.’ In (96), the head nouns precede all the elements in the noun phrase. Also, the quantifier is the final element in the noun phrase which is preceded by the numeral. The numerals baliya ‘two’ and badʋ ‘six’ precede the quantifiers; badↄmↄŋ ‘some’ and duŋa ‘only’ Quantifiers can also occur with the determiner, demonstrative, numeral and adjective in the noun phrase. This sequence is permissible in Sɩsaalɩ. Consider the following sentences: (97) a. Á ba-bin-e fii buloŋ na kò. DET man-dark-PL ten all have come. ‘All the ten dark men have come.’ b. Á ha-wol-e bapɛ badↄmↄŋ pɛɛ ma. DET woman-beautiful-PL seven some help.PST 3PL ‘Some of the seven beautiful women helped us.’ University of Ghana http://ugspace.ug.edu.gh 90 c. Ba-bin-e fii nʋ buloŋ nà kó. man-dark-PL ten these all have come ‘All these ten dark men have come.’ d. Ha-wol-e hʋ bapɛ badↄmↄŋ pɛɛ ma woman-good-PL those seven some help.PST 3PL ‘Some of those seven good women helped us. Sentences (97a and b) show that the determiner is the first element in the noun phrase, followed by the head noun. The adjective comes right after the head noun and it is also followed by the numeral. The quantifier appears as the final element in the noun phrase. In (97c and d), the head noun is the initial element, followed by the adjective and then the numeral or the demonstrative. The demonstrative may come before or after the numeral as shown in (97c and d). The quantifier is the final element found in the phrase. 3.7 Possessives In possessive constructions, the possessum is construed as the head and the possessor is the modifying element as illustrated in (98a-c) where ba ‘their’, Amina and gboro ‘door’ are the possessors and dia ‘house’, kidiilee ‘food and nↄŋ ‘hand’ are the possessum (the head). In this regard, the possessor is seen as a pre-modification element to the head noun (possessum). The possessor is a pre-nominal element that modifies the possessum (head). Also, possessive is not overtly realised but it is expressed by juxtaposing the possessor and the possessum. University of Ghana http://ugspace.ug.edu.gh 91 (98) a. Ba dia 3PL house ‘Their house.’ b. Amina kidiilee Amina food ‘Amina’s food’ c. A gboro nↄŋ The door hand The door’s hand’ With reference to the (98a-c), the possessor precedes the possessum. Sɩsaalɩ has both predicative and attributive possessive constructions. Heine (1997) observes that all languages are able to make a distinction between predicative (or verbal) and attributive (or nominal) possession constructions syntactically. Consider the following sentences: (99) a. Ʋ fuwonamiya 3SG fish ‘His fish.’ b. Ʋ kaŋ fuwonamiya 3SG has fish ‘He has a fish.’ University of Ghana http://ugspace.ug.edu.gh 92 (100) a. À búuŋ 3PL goat ‘Our goat.’ b. À kaŋ búuŋ 3PL have goat ‘We have a goat.’ (101) a. Ali lↄↄre Ali car ‘Ali’s car’ b. Ali kaŋ lↄↄre Ali has car ‘Ali has a car’ (102) a. Issah haan-a Issah wife-PL ‘ Issah’s wives’ b. Issah kaŋ haan-a Issah has wife-PL ‘ Issah has wives’ The NPs (99a), (100a), (101a) and (102a) show the attributive use of possessives while sentences (99b), (100b), (101b) and (102b) illustrate predicative University of Ghana http://ugspace.ug.edu.gh 93 possessive constructions. In the attributive constructions, the possessor comes immediately after the head noun and the possessor is viewed as the head. Therefore, ʋ ‘his’ a ̀ ‘our’ Ali and Issah are the pre-modification elements to the head nouns; fuwonamiya ‘fish’ búuŋ ‘goat’ lↄↄre ‘car’ an haana ‘women’ respectively. The predicative use of the possessive requires a copula kaŋ that links the possessor and the possessum as portrayed in sentences (99b) (100b), (101b) and (102b). The same pronouns are used to express both possession and the personal pronouns of the language. It is observed that the possessive pronouns take the same form when they serve as modification elements to the possessor except the 1st person singular possessive which differ with respect to the noun that it is attached to. It may be realised as ‘m’ or ‘ŋ’ depending on the initial sound of the head noun. The possessive ‘m’ occurs with head nouns that begin with the sounds (p, b and f) while ‘ŋ’ occurs with the rest of the sounds. This phenomenon is illustrated below. i. m piehu ‘my sheep’ ii. m bↄgↄ ‘my farm’ iii. m bala ‘my husband’ iv. m fiŋfɛnniŋ ‘my soap’ v. m foto ‘my photograph’ vi. ŋ duubie ‘my bird’ vii. ŋ galaalɩ ‘my dress University of Ghana http://ugspace.ug.edu.gh 94 The possessives pronouns in Sɩsaalɩ are presented below: Table 3.6: Possessives Possessive Pronouns 1st person SG ŋ ,m ‘my’ 2nd person SG ɩ ‘your’ 3rd person SG ʋ ‘his, her, its’ 1st person PL a ‘our’ 2nd person PL ma ‘your’ 3rd person PL ba ‘their’ 3.8 Chapter Summary This chapter has examined the morpho-syntactic properties of the noun phrase. It has shown the subtypes of nouns that can serve as prototypical heads to the noun phrase. Again, it has identified the various interpretations that can be associated with bare nouns. This chapter has established the fact that reflexives with plural referents are also interpreted as reciprocals and has shown that in some context, reciprocal constructions can be distinguished from reflexives. It has also examined the elements that can occur with the head noun as well as their distribution in the noun phrase. This chapter has also shown the distribution possessives. University of Ghana http://ugspace.ug.edu.gh 95 CHAPTER FOUR THE RELATIVE CLAUSE 4.1 Introduction This chapter discusses the syntax of relative clauses. It shows how relative clauses are marked, presents the elements that are found in the Sɩsaalɩ relative clause. It also shows the various grammatical positions that are accessible to relativization and the distribution of the relative clause when it occurs with other modifiers of the noun phrase. 4.2. The Structure of the Clausal Modifier in Sɩsaalɩ Relative clauses function as modifiers of the noun phrase. Languages have diverse ways of forming a relative clause. Dixon (2010:338) pointed out that, there are various ways by which languages mark relative clauses. He started that, a relative clause may be marked by one intonation contour across the relative clause construction, by the position of the relative clause within the main clause, by prosodic means, by an inflection on the verb of the relative clause, by a relative marker or by a relative pronoun. In Sɩsaalɩ, the relative clause is introduced by a relativizer aa as illustrated below. (103) a. A bombie àà ∅ kpʋ́ á gélì hʋ́. DET boy REL kill.PST DET cat DEM ko daha. come.PST here ‘The boy who killed that cat came here.’ University of Ghana http://ugspace.ug.edu.gh 96 b. Ŋ kyↄↄ̀ ́ á gélì á báàl àà kpʋ́. 1SG cook.PST DET cat DET man REL kill.PST ‘I cooked the cat which the man killed.’ c. A naa buki a tikya aa sɛbɛ. 1PL see.PST book DET teacher REL write.PST ‘We saw a book which was written by our teacher.’ As shown in (103a-c), relative clauses in Sɩsaalɩ are marked by the relativizer; aa, noting that the relativizer is an obligatory element and when it is omitted from the relative clause, it renders the relative clause ungrammatical. (104) a. Ʋ naa kyↄↄ a kìdíìlèe bà àà díé 3SG mother cook.PST DET food 3PL REL eat.PST ‘His mother cooked the food which they ate.’ b. * Ʋ naa kyↄↄ a kìdíìlèe bà ∅ díé 3SG mother cook.PST DET food 3PL REL eat.PST ‘His mother cooked the food which we ate.’ (105) a. A jʋŋ a bìí-hì á báàl-à àà ŋmáá 1PL know DET child-PL DET man-PL REL beat.PST ‘We know the children who the men beat.’ University of Ghana http://ugspace.ug.edu.gh 97 b. * A jʋŋ a bìí-hì á báàl-à ∅ ŋmáá 1PL know DET child-PL DET man-PL REL beat.PST ‘We know the children who the men beat.’ How the relative clause is marked in Sɩsaalɩ is similar to that of Akan. Saah (2010) shows that relative clauses in Akan are also marked by a relative clause marker which is an obligatory element in the relative clause. Apart from the relativizer, there are other elements that are present in the relative clause. As show in (104a-b) and (105a-b), the relativized noun appears at the initial position and it can occur with a definite determiner or a demonstrative. There is also a relativizer aa that introduces the relative clause and a gap ∅ that indicates that the head noun is realised as null in the embedded clause. 4.3 The Relativized Noun and Other Elements A relativized noun can appear in its bare form or it can occur with other elements to show grammatical function. The relativized noun without any determiner or demonstrative expresses indefiniteness in Sɩsaalɩ. (106) a. Ʋ yↄↄ naŋtↄbↄ aa kii ki-weli yugↄ. 3SG buy.PST shoe REL look thing-nice very ‘She bought a shoe which looks very nice.’ b. A naa galaalɩ aa kyeaha rɛ a kpaha maŋ. 1PL see.PST dress REL tear.PST FOC DET chair on. ‘We saw a dress which is torn on the table.’ University of Ghana http://ugspace.ug.edu.gh 98 c. Ba kaŋ geli aa kyo kidiilee yↄga 3PL have cat REL like food very much ‘They have a cat that likes food very much.’ Sɩsaalɩ does not have an indefinite article and thus, indefiniteness is expressed by the bare form of the noun. The relativized nouns naŋtↄbↄ ‘shoe’ and galaalɩ ‘dress’ and geli ‘cat’ in (106a-c) respectively appear in their bare forms to mark indefiniteness. The relativized noun can also appear with the definite article. The definite article is the first element, followed by the relativized noun and the embedded clause as shown below. (107) a. A dɩa aa yaa ʋ kʋwo tiŋii rɛ ba yɛlɛ. DET house REL is 3SG father belong FOC 3PL sell.PST ‘The house which belongs to his father has been sold.’ b. A báàl-a àà kpʋ́ á gélì hʋ́. DET man-PL REL kill.PST DET cat DEM ko daha. come.PST here ‘The men who killed that cat came here.’ c. Ŋ kyↄↄ a kìdíìlèe à àà díé ISG cook.PST DET food 1PL REL eat.PST ‘I cooked the food which we ate.’ University of Ghana http://ugspace.ug.edu.gh 99 As shown in (107a – c), the relativized nouns dɩa ‘house’, báàla ‘men’ kidiilee ‘food’ appear with the definite article to make the relativized nouns definite. The relativized noun can also occur with a demonstrative. The demonstrative occurs right after the relativized noun. Demonstratives that occur with the relativized noun provide deictic functions. It shows how the relativized noun is closer or far away from the deictic center. Consider the following examples. Proximal Demonstrative (108) a. Báàl nʋ́ àà kpʋ́ á gélì hʋ́ man DEM REL kill.PST DET cat DEM ‘This man who killed that cat.’ b. Bìí-hì nʋ á báàl-à àà ŋmáá child-PL DEM DET man-PL REL beat.PST ‘These children who the men beat.’ Distal Demonstrative (109) a. Báàl hʋ́ àà kpʋ́ á gélì hʋ́ man DEM REL kill.PST DET cat-SG DEM ‘That man who killed that cat.’ b. Bìí-hì hʋ́ á báàl-à àà ŋmáá child-PL DEM DET man-PL REL beat.PST ‘These children who the men beat.’ University of Ghana http://ugspace.ug.edu.gh 100 The demonstratives nʋ ‘this/these’ and hʋ ‘that/those’ appear with the relativized nouns baal ‘man’ and biihi ‘children’ to serve deictic functions. It is worth mentioning that the relativized head can also occur with both the definite article and the demonstrative. In this regard, the definite article appears as the initial element, followed by the relativized head, the demonstrative and the embedded clause. Proximal Demonstrative (110) a. A báàl nʋ́ àà kpʋ́ á gélì hʋ́ DET man DEM REL kill.PST DET cat DEM ‘This man who killed that cat.’ b. A juŋ a bìí-hì nʋ á báàl-à àà 1PL know DET child-PL DEM DET man-PL REL ŋmáá beat.PST ‘We know these children who the men beat.’ Distal Demonstrative (111) a. A haaŋ hʋ aa yɛlɛ milli ko daha. DET woman DEM REL sell rice come.PST here. ‘That woman who sells rice came here.’ b. A báàl-à bálìyà hʋ́ àà kpʋ́ á gélì DET man-PL two DEM REL kill.PST DET cat ‘Those two men who killed the cat.’ University of Ghana http://ugspace.ug.edu.gh 101 The definite article a ́ ‘the’ that occurs before the relativized heads with demonstratives can be omitted without any semantic implication on the relativized noun as illustrated in (112a-b) and (113a-b). (112) a. A hááŋ hʋ́ [àà pír á háŋtólíbìé] DET woman DEM REL hurt.PST DET girl ‘That woman who hurt the girl.’ b. Hááŋ hʋ́ [àà pír á háŋtólíbìé] woman DEM REL hurt.PST DET girl ‘That woman who hurt the girl’ (113) a. A báàl-a nʋ́ [àà kpʋ́ a gélì] DET man-PL DEM REL kill.PST DET cat ‘These men who killed the cat.’ b. Báàl-a nʋ́ [àà kpʋ́ á gélì] man-PL DEM REL kill.PST DET cat ‘These men who killed the cat.’ In addition, we can have both the proximal and the distal demonstratives with the relativized head. In this situation, the proximal demonstrative appears as the initial element followed by the distal demonstrative. When this sequence occurs, prominence is given to the proximal demonstrative and the sequence is interpreted as proximal indicating that the relativized noun is far away from the speaker. Consider the following. University of Ghana http://ugspace.ug.edu.gh 102 Proximal and Distal Demonstratives (114) a. Báàl nʋ́ hʋ́ àà kpʋ́ á gélì man DEM DEM REL kill.PST DET cat ‘This man who killed the cat.’ b. Bìí-hì nʋ hʋ́ á báàl-à àà ŋmáá child-PL DEM DEM DET man-PL REL beat.PST ‘These children who the men beat.’ Distal and Proximal Demonstratives (115) a. * Báàl hʋ́ nʋ́ àà kpʋ́ á gélì man DEM DEM REL kill.PST DET cat ‘That man who killed the cat.’ (116) b. * Bìí-hì hʋ́ nʋ́ á báàl-à àà ŋmáá child-PL DEM DEM DET man-PL REL beat.PST ‘These children who the men beat.’ It is observed that the sequence of the proximal demonstrative nʋ and the distal demonstrative hʋ is permitted to occur with the relativized noun. However, the sequence of the distal demonstrative and the proximal demonstrative is not permissible and yield ungrammatical forms as shown in (115a and 116a). This shows that the proximal demonstrative is required to always appear first before the distal demonstrative in this sequence and the construction is seen to provide a proximal function rather than distal. University of Ghana http://ugspace.ug.edu.gh 103 Moreover, the sequence of the proximal and distal demonstratives can also occur with the optional definite article. This implies that the presence or the absence of the definite article does not change the implied meaning carried by the head noun and the demonstrative. (117) a. A báàl nʋ́ hʋ́ àà kpʋ́ á gélì hʋ́. DET man DEM DEM REL kill.PST DET cat DEM ‘This man who killed that cat.’ b. Báàl nʋ́ hʋ́ àà kpʋ́ á gélì hʋ́ man DEM DEM REL kill.PST DET cat DEM ‘This man who killed that cat.’ (118) a. A bìí-hì nʋ hʋ́ á báàl-à àà ŋmáá DET child-PL DEM DEM DET man-PL REL beat.PST ‘These children who the men beat.’ b. Bìí-hì nʋ hʋ́ á báàl-à àà ŋmáá child-PL DEM DEM DET man-PL REL beat.PST ‘These children who the men beat.’ 4.4 Relative Clauses and Other Elements Relative clauses can occur with other elements that also modify the head noun. This section discusses relative clauses and other modifiers and show the distribution of the relative clause in the noun phrase. University of Ghana http://ugspace.ug.edu.gh 104 4.4.1 Relative clauses and Numerals Sɩsaalɩ relative clauses can occur with numerals to modify the relativized noun. In this sequence, the numeral precedes the relative clause. As shown in (119 a-b), the numerals boto ‘three’ and banↄŋ ‘five’ come before the relative clauses. (119) a. A biihi boto aa yↄbↄ a kidiilee. the child-PL three REL buy.PST DET food. ‘The three children who bought the food.’ b. Ʋ kaŋ galaalɛ banↄŋ ʋ naa aa ala rɛ 3SG has dress-PL five 3SG mother REL sew.PST FOC ko. bring.PST ‘She brought five dress which her mother sewed.’ 4.4.2 Relative clauses and Adjectives It is permissible for the relative clause to occur with an adjective. The adjective comes before the relative clause. In (120 a –b), the adjectives bal ‘big’ and wele ‘nice’ precede the relative clauses. (120) a. A lɔɔre bal aa yaa baal tiŋii DET car big REL be man belong ‘The big car which belongs to the man.’ University of Ghana http://ugspace.ug.edu.gh 105 b. A naŋtɔ- woli ŋ aa yɔbɔ lii Tumu. DET shoe-nice 1SG REL buy.PST from Tumu ‘The nice shoe which I bought from Tumu.’ 4.4.3 Relative Clauses and Quantifiers Relative clauses that appear with quantifiers occur as the final modifier in such a sequence. The quantifier comes first followed by the relative clause. As shown in (121a-c), the quantifiers badɔmɔŋ ‘some’ and yʋga ‘many precede the relative clauses. (121) a. Ʋ naa bombii-hi badɔmɔŋ aa kii 3SG see.PST boy-PL some REL look ni-wol-e human-handsome-PL ‘She saw some boys who look very handsome.’ b. Ŋ jʋŋ haŋtolibii-hi yʋga aa bee mʋ 1SG know girl-PL many REL NEG go sukuu.. school ‘I know many girls who do not attend school.’ 4.4.4 Relative Clauses, Adjectives, Numerals and Quantifiers This sequence is also permissible in Sɩsaalɩ. The adjective appears as the initial element in the noun phrase since it is attached to the relativized noun. It is then University of Ghana http://ugspace.ug.edu.gh 106 followed by the numeral and the quantifier. The relative clause is the final element in the noun phrase. (122) a. Sukuu bii-fɛl-ɛ nibi badɔmɔŋ aa ko school child-new-PL eight some REL come.PST a sukuu gyinaŋ tenni-fiala rɛ yʋga. 1PL school today body-cool FOC very ‘Some eight new students who came to our school today were very happy.’ b. A lɔɔre pʋŋlɩ bato buloŋ aa we a dia DET car white.PL three all REL are DET house sideŋ maŋ yaa a tikya tiŋii rɛ in front on is DET teacher belong FOC ‘All the three white cars which are in front of the house belong to our teacher.’ 4.4.5 Relative Clauses with Possessives, Determiners, Demonstratives, Adjectives, Quantifiers, and Numerals This section looks at both the post and pre-nominal elements of the noun phrase. It shows the syntactic slot that is prescribed for each of the element in the noun phrase. Consider the following examples. (123) a. A bombi-hi bádʋ̀ búlòŋ àà gáá á píéhú . DET boy-PL six all REL steal DET sheep ‘All the six boys who stole the sheep.’ University of Ghana http://ugspace.ug.edu.gh 107 b. Baal-a dól-é bápɛ̀ hʋ́ búlòŋ àà ŋmáá á man-PL tall-PL seven those all REL beat.PST DET bìé child ‘All those seven tall man who beat the boy.’ c. A ʋ tʋntʋnne-fɛl-ɛ hʋ nibi badↄmↄŋ aa DET 3SG worker-new-PL DEM eight some REL juu Tumu maŋ ko a lee re. live Tumu in come 1PL place FOC ‘Some of those eight new workers of his who live in Tumu came to visit us.’ d. A naa kpahi-bii-hi boto dʋŋ nɛ aa 1PL see.PST chair-small-PL three only FOC REL leme a dɩa maŋ leave.PST DET house in ‘We found only three small chairs which were left in the room.’ e. A ɩ chaŋ-hɩ baliya aa gi ko lee DET 2SG friend-PL two REL always come place ‘The two friends of yours who always visit you’. Examples (123 a- e) show that relative clauses can occur with other elements that modify the head noun. The relative clause can occur with the determiner, demonstrative, numeral, adjective and the quantifier in a noun phrase. All the University of Ghana http://ugspace.ug.edu.gh 108 examples show that, when the relative clause appears with other elements within the noun phrase, it occupies the final slot in the noun phrase. Therefore, the elements in the noun phrase are order as: [(DET) (POSS) HEAD (ADJ) (NUM/DEM) (QUANT) (REL)] The determiner and the possessive are pre-nominal elements in the noun phrase and the determiner always precedes the possessive as shown in (123c and e). The head noun occurs after these two pre-nominal elements. Adjectives occur right after the head noun since they are always attached to it. The numeral may come before or after the demonstrative then followed by the quantifier. The relative clause is the final element in the noun phrase. 4.5 Grammatical Positions That Are Accessible To Relativization. Keenan and Comrie (1977) on their typological study on relative clauses proposed the Accessibility Hierarchy which states that there are NP positions that are more accessible to relativization than others. In Sɩsaalɩ, the subject, object and indirect objects are accessible to relativization. Subject Relativization (124) a. A bombie àà ŋmáá á bìé hʋ́ DET boy REL beat.PST DET boy DEM ko ́ daha. come.PST here. ‘The boy who beat that child was here.’ University of Ghana http://ugspace.ug.edu.gh 109 Direct object relativization (125) a. A naa a bìé á báàl àà ŋmáá. 1PL see.PST DET child DET man REL beat.PST ‘We saw the child the man beat.’ Indirect object relativization (126) a. Fatima tia a bòsúlʋ́mbìé àà ko daha Fatima give.PST DET orphan REL come.PST here gáláálɩ̀ dress.’ ‘Fatimah gave the orphan who came here a dress.’ It is also possible to relativize oblique in Sɩsaalɩ. In (127a), the locative kpaha ‘chair’ as the oblique has been relativized in (127b). Oblique relativization (i) Locative (127) a. Fati léŋ á gáláálɩ̀ rɛ́ á kpàhá máŋ Fati leave.PST DET dress FOC DET chair on ‘Fati left the dress on the chair.’ b. Á kpàhá máŋ Fati àà léŋ á gáláálɩ̀ DET chair on Fati REL leave.PST DET dress bori. break.PST ‘The chair on which Fati left the dress is broken.’ University of Ghana http://ugspace.ug.edu.gh 110 The possessor is also accessible to relativization in Sɩsaalɩ. In (128), the possessor baal ‘man’ who possesses the money has been relativized. Possessor (128) a. A bìé ré gáá á báàl móóbìì DET boy FOC steal.PST DET man money ‘The child stole the man’s money.’ b. Á báàl móóbìì á bìé àà gáá DET man money DET child REL steal.PST ‘The man whose money the child stole.’ Also, objects of comparison can be relativized. In (129), the object of comparison is á bómbìé ‘the boy’ which has been relativised in (129b) Object of comparison (129) a. Hamza wíí bↄ́ŋ á bómbìé Hamza weep.PST more the boy ‘Hamza wept more than the boy.’ b. Á bómbìé Hamza àà wíí bↄ́ŋ The boy Hamza REL weep.PST more ‘The boy who Hamza wept more than.’ University of Ghana http://ugspace.ug.edu.gh 111 It is noted that the subject, object, indirect object, oblique, possessor and object of comparison are grammatical positions that are accessible to relativization in Sɩsaalɩ. 4.6 The Head Noun within the Embedded Clause Comrie (1989) points out that, the head noun within the embedded clause may be associated with a particular role. Cross-linguistically, the head noun in the embedded clause may be realised as a pronoun retention, a gap or a relative pronoun. In Sɩsaalɩ, the relativized noun is seen as a gap in the embedded clause. Consider the following examples. Subject Relativization (130) a. A háán-à àà pír á háŋtólíbì-hì ko DET woman.PL REL hurt DET girl-PL come.PST daha. here ‘The women who hurt the girl came here.’ b. * A háán-àj àà baj pír á háŋtólíbì-hì DET woman.PL REL they hurt DET girl-PL ‘The women who hurt the girl.’ (131) a. A báàl àà ŋmáá á bìé DET man REL beat.PST DET child ‘The man who beat the child.’ University of Ghana http://ugspace.ug.edu.gh 112 b. * A báàlj àà ʋ̀j ŋmáá á bìé DET man REL he beat.PST DET child ‘The man who beat the child.’ Object Relativization (132) a. Ʋ kyↄↄ a kìdíìlèe bà àà díé. 3SG cook.PST DET food 3PL REL eat.PST ‘She cooked the food which they ate.’ b. * Ʋ kyↄↄ a kìdíìlèej bà àà díé ʋj. 3SG cook.PST DET food 3PL REL eat.PST it ‘She cooked the food which they ate.’ (133) a. Ŋ juŋ a bìí-hì á báàl-à àà 1SG know.PST DET child-PL DET man-PL REL ŋmáá. beat.PST ‘I know the children who the men beat.’ b. * Ŋ juŋ a bìí-hìj á báàl-à àà ŋmáá 1SG know.PST DET child-PL DET man-PL REL beat.PST baj them ‘I know the children who the men beat.’ With reference to the above examples, the relativized nouns in the embedded clause are realised as gaps as illustrated in the subject and object relative clauses University of Ghana http://ugspace.ug.edu.gh 113 above. Similar observation is made by Hiraiwa (2003). He also notes that the relativized subjects and objects in Buli are seen as gaps in the embedded clause. However, Bodomo & Hiraiwa (2004) point out in Dagaare, relativized nouns are also realised as gaps with the exception of relativized possessors which are seen as resumptive pronouns in the embedded clause. 4.7. Extra Posed Relative Clause In most cases, relative clauses follow the antecedent NP in their distribution. However, Givon (2001) and Saah (2010) note that there are situations where other elements are introduced after the antecedent NP before the relative clause appears. Consider this example by Givon (2001). (134) a. A man came in yesterday who lost his wallet. (Givon 2001:207) It is realised that the head noun man is not adjacent to the relative clause who lost his wallet. A similar situation is observed in Sɩsaalɩ. The examples below give an insight into this phenomenon. (135) a. Bómbìé wè déŋ [àà hì kaŋ ʋ̀ mʋ̀ dɩ̀á.] boy is there REL FUT send it go house ‘There is a boy who will send it home for you.’ University of Ghana http://ugspace.ug.edu.gh 114 b. Nɛ̀l kírìì wè déŋ [àà dàŋ á bìì-hí Person one is there REL cater the child-PL ‘There is someone who will cater for the children.’ The above examples show that the antecedents; bombie ‘boy’ and nɛl kirii ‘someone’ are followed by the verb phrase wè déŋ ‘is there’ before the embedded clause appears. Therefore, the verb phrase wè déŋ ‘is there’ separates the relativized nouns from the embedded clauses. 4.8 Conclusion This chapter has provided a detailed analysis of the relative clause in Sɩsaalɩ. It has shown the structure of the relative clause and pointed out the elements that are found in the relative clause. It has also discussed the various grammatical positions that can be relativized. It has shown that the relative clause is the final element in the noun phrase when it occurs with other modifiers. University of Ghana http://ugspace.ug.edu.gh 115 CHAPTER FIVE CONCLUSION 5.1 Introduction This study has been geared towards the description of the noun phrase in Sɩsaalɩ, by placing emphasis on the elements of the noun phrase and their sequential order. This chapter provides a summary of the aspects of the noun phrase discussed in each chapter and the recommendations for further study. 5.2 Summary of the Chapters Chapter one has been concerned with the general introduction to this thesis. It provided the background for the study by looking at the Sɩsaalɩ language and its people, the research problem, the research questions, the objectives and the significance of the study. It also pointed out the various issues that were discussed in the subsequent chapters and showed how the thesis is organized. Chapter two dealt with the review of literature that are relevant and related to the study. It presented the controversies surrounding the definition of a noun from both morpho-syntactic and semantics perspectives. It also discussed what a phrase is and distinguished it from a clause which helped to define a noun phrase. Issues with regard to what constitute the head of the noun phrase were also highlighted. The chapter again discussed studies on noun phrases which focused on the internal components of the noun phrase and how these elements are ordered. University of Ghana http://ugspace.ug.edu.gh 116 Chapter three examined the nominal phrase in Sɩsaalɩ. The chapter began by analyzing the morpho-syntactic properties of subtypes of nouns and showed that common nouns serve as prototypical heads to the noun phrase. It again discussed bare nouns in Sɩsaalɩ and note that bare nouns are interpreted as generic or indefinite. The chapter provided a detailed discussion on reflexives and reciprocals. Determiners, possessives, adjectives, numerals, quantifiers, demonstratives and relative clauses were identified as modifiers in Sɩsaalɩ. It has also shown that the internal constituents of the noun phrase differ with regard to the dialect in question. Kpatolie dialect presents the determiner as a pre-nominal element which can occur with the demonstrative to exhibit deictic feature. Adjectives make distinctions between human and non-human nouns when they are used predicatively. Also, because adjectives and the head noun are joined together, the adjective is always the first post-nominal element in the noun phrase. Discussions on numerals also show that ordinal as modifiers can be expressed in various forms. The sequential order of the elements in the relative clause is realised as: [(DET) (POSS) NOUN (ADJ) (NUM/DEM) (QUANT) (REL)] Chapter four discussed the syntax of the clausal modifier, highlighting on the elements found in the clausal modifier. Relative clauses in Sɩsaalɩ are post modifiers and the final modifiers in a noun phrase when they occur with other modifiers. Again, a relative clause is marked by an obligatory relativizer and the relativized noun is realised as a gap in the embedded clause. Also, it has pointed out the various grammatical positions that are accessible to relativization. University of Ghana http://ugspace.ug.edu.gh 117 5.3 Recommendations for Further Study This study has been concerned with providing insight into the morpho-syntactic properties of the Sɩsaalɩ noun phrase. However, there are aspects of the Sɩsaalɩ noun phrase which this study could not cover. Further studies on the noun phrase in Sɩsaalɩ could examine the noun phrase in relation to its semantics. University of Ghana http://ugspace.ug.edu.gh 118 REFERENCES Aboh, Enoch. 2010. The Morphosyntax of the Noun Phrase. In Aboh, Enoch O. & Essegbey, James. (eds.), Topics in Kwa Syntax, pp. 11-38. New York: Springer. Alexandre, Nélia. & Hagemeijer, Tjerk. 2007. Bare nouns and the nominal domain in Santome. In Baptista Marlyse & Guéron, Jaqueline (eds.), Noun Phrases in Creole Languages: a multi-faceted approach, 37-59. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. Amfo, Nana Aba A, Boateng, Stella. A & Otoo, Yvonne A. 2007. 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