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EXPRESSING PROPERTY CONCEPTS IN GA
BY
YVONNE AKWELE OTOO
(10021495)
THIS THESIS IS SUBMITTED TO THE UNIVERSITY OF GHANA, LEGON IN
PARTIAL FULFILLMENT OF THE REQUIREMENT FOR THE AWARD OF
PhD LINGUISTICS DEGREE
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DECLARATION
I do declare that this thesis is the result of my own research and has not been presented
either in whole or part for award of any degree elsewhere. References to other sources of
information used in this work have been duly acknowledged. All mistakes found are from
me.
………………………………….. ……………………….
Yvonne Akwele Otoo
CANDIDATE DATE
………………………………….. ……………………….
Prof Kofi .K. Saah
SUPERVISOR DATE
………………………………….. ……………………….
Dr. Paul .K. Agbedor
SUPERVISOR DATE
………………………………….. ……………………….
DR. James .A.N. Saanchi DATE
SUPERVISOR
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DEDICATION
This is dedicated to my family, especially my husband, Rev Seth Ashikwei Kuma
Ollennu, my mum, Mrs. Mary Otoo, my daughters, Naa Asheley Kuma Ollennu and Naa
Amankwaa Kuma Ollennu as well as my siblings. Thanks to you all for the daily prayers
and encouragement.
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ABBREVIATIONS
1 - first person
3 - third person
a - Subjunctive prefix
ADV - adverb
AG SUF - agentive suffix
ASSOC - Associative prefix
COMP - complementizer
CONJ - Conjunction
COP - Copula
DEF - Definite
DET - Determiner
DIST - distributive
FUT - future
H - head
HAB - Habitual
ICV - Inherent Complement Verb
IDEO - ideophone
IND FUT - indefinite future
INT - intensifier
ITR - iterative
NEG - negative
N - noun
NOM - nominalizer affix
NP - Noun phrase
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NULL PRO - null pronoun
PART - predicative particle
PERF - perfect
PC - property concept
PL - plural
POSTP - postposition
PP - Postposition Phrase
PREF - prefix
PROG - progressive
PST - past
RED - reduplicant
REL - relativizer
SG - singular
SBJV - subjunctive
SUF - suffix
VP - Verb phrase
! - downstepped tone
` - low tone
´ - high tone
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ACKNOWLEDGEMENT
To God be the Glory Great things He has done.
I praise the name of my Maker for how far he has brought me. I thank you Lord for the
mercies that You have shown me.
I would not have done this work without the efficient supervision of my able supervisors,
Prof. Kofi. K Saah, Dr. Paul Agbedor and Dr. James .A. N. Saanchi. My supervisors
really inspired me, gave me the information on books available, and encouraged me till
the end. I would not forget Prof. Kofi Agyekum who assisted me when my application
was over-delayed and things were complicated, I am so grateful. He also encouraged me
and always enquired about my work anytime I see him. Thanks Prof. because anytime I
am coming to the Department, I made sure I have written something down before you
meet me. I am highly grateful to you for the great concern you showed towards me, God
richly bless you.
I am grateful to Prof. Kweku Osam and Prof. Nana Aba Amfo for their encouragement
and who, though not aware, are my mentors and have inspired me in many ways.
How can I forget Mrs. Agatha Augustt of the Linguistic Department, University of
Ghana, who sent messages and call me several times to give me the necessary
information and who I consulted on the style sheet for the write up every now and then.
Mr. Emmanuel Nii- Adjetey Adjei, a part-time lecturer and a father to me when I was
employed at University of Education, Winneba, who I consulted day and night on issues
not clear to me and he was never tired of my questions, God richly bless you.
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Thanks to Dr. Joseph Nana Annan of University of Education, Winneba who also helped
in diverse ways for the work to get to its completion, especially in printing my drafts so I
can proofread them. I am also grateful to my husband, Rev. Seth Ashikwei Kuma
Ollennu, who I nicknamed ‘chief supervisor’ as every Saturday that I woke up, the first
question is ‘where have you reached in the write up’ and he went further to give me
deadlines to meet. Thanks Darling because returning home every weekend from Winneba
where I work, I knew I have to respond to my ‘chief supervisor’.
God bless my parents and family especially my mum, Mrs. Mary Otoo and auntie, Miss
Rebecca Akoto who took care of my daughter on several occasions when I was very busy
and always spurred me on each time, especially, the last few months to complete this
work.
I thank University of Education, Winneba for their financial support and granting me
study leave to further my education.
I am also indebted to Margot van den Berg of Radbound University who introduced me
to the toy task and sent to me relevant materials to help me complete my work, thanks so
much.
I thank the current Level 300 students in University of Education, Winneba with whom I
had conversation and discussions with on the description of objects. It will be ungrateful
of me if I do not mention Mrs. Paulina Kuornoo who showed much interest in the
research and was always willing to answer questions and helped in the data collection.
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Finally, I thank all who helped in diverse ways in this research and to complete this work,
God bless you all.
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ABSTRACT
This study investigated Property concepts in Ga using the Framework-free Grammatical
theory (Haspelmath 2008). The study examined three main syntactic categories namely
adjectives, verbs and nouns that are used to expressed property concepts in Ga. The
morphological, syntactic and semantic properties of these three categories were
investigated. Morphologically, most of the adjectives used as property concepts agree
with the head noun in number, with the exception of those adjectives whose sources are
mainly from nouns and a few that are derived from verbs. Verbs that are employed to
express property concepts were mainly stative and may not necessarily agree with the
subject but always express a property of whatever noun is found in the subject position.
Nouns that precede head nouns to serve as property concepts do not inflect to show
number agreement with the head noun but those nouns that occur after the head (nominal
adjectives) do agree in number. Syntactically, the attributive role of property concept
words is played by all the three categories. Although the predicative role is played by
adjectives, they may occur in the same forms or be nominalized, and verbs in predicative
positions serve as heads of verb phrases. Six semantic types of Dixon’s adjective classes
were identified to be filled by adjectives, and nouns were found to be in the Human
Propensity class. The order of multiple property concepts were found not to be strictly
ordered, either in attributive or predicative positions.
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TABLE OF CONTENT
Page
Declaration … …. … … … … … … … i
Dedication … … … … … … … … … ii
Abbreviations … … … … … … … … ….. .. iii
Acknowledgement … … … … … … … … v
Abstract … … … … … … … … … viii
CHAPTER ONE: GENERAL INTRODUCTION … … … 1
1.0 Introduction … … … … … … … … 1
1.1 Background to the Study … … … … … … 2
1.2. Dixon’s Semantic Classification of Adjectives … … … 5
1.3 Statement of the Problem … … … … … … 10
1.4 The Ga Language … … … … … … … 11
1.4.1 Dialects … … … … … … … … 12
1.4.2 Sociological Status … … … … … … … 13
1.5 Scope and Purpose of the Study … … … … … 13
1.6 Research Questions … … … … … … … 14
1.7 Delimitation of the Study … … … … … … 14
1.8 Significance of the Study … … … … … … 14
1.9 Methodology … … … … … … … … 15
1.9.1 Study Area and Target Group … … … … … … 15
1.9.2 Sampling Procedure and Sample Size … … … … 15
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1.9.3 Data Collection … … … … … … … 15
1.9.4 Data Handling and Processing … … … … … 16
1.10 Definition of Key Terms … … … … … … 16
1.11 Organisation of Chapters … … … … … … 17
CHAPTER TWO: THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK AND
LITERATURE REVIEW
2.0 Introduction … … … … … … … … 19
2.1 Framework- Free Grammatical Theory … … … … 19
2.1.1 Application of Framework Free Grammatical Theory
on Previous Works .. … … … …. … … …. … … … … … …. 20
2.2 Dixon’s Semantic Classification … … … … … 23
2.3 Literature Review … … … … … … … 25
2.4 Chapter Summary … … … … … … … 40
CHAPTER THREE: USING ADJECTIVES TO CODE
PROPERTY CONCEPTS IN GA
3.0 Introduction … … … … … … … 41
3.1 Brief Function of Adjective … … … … … … 44
3.2 Sources of Ga Adjective … … … … … … 44
3.2.1 Deep Level Adjectives … … … … … … 45
3.2.1.1 Morphological Properties … … … … … … 48
3.2.1.2 Number Agreement … … … … … … … 48
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3.2.1.3 Nominalisation … … … … … … … 53
3.2.1.4 Reduplication of Deep Level Adjectives … … … … 56
3.2.1.5 Syntactic Properties of Deep Level Adjectives … … … 57
3.2.1.6 Expressing the Comparative … … … … … … 60
3.2.1.7 Superlative … … … … … … … … 61
3.2.1.8 Semantic Types … … … … … … … 62
3.3 Derived Adjectives in Ga … … … … … … … 65
3.3.1 Adjectives Derived from Nouns … … … … … 65
3.3.2 Nominalisation of Adjectives Derived from Nouns … … … 69
3.3.3 Syntactic properties of Adjectives Derived from Nouns … … 70
3.3.4 Semantic Types … … … … … … … 73
3.4 Adjectives Derived from Verbs … … … … … 73
3.4.1 Number Agreement … … … … … … … 76
3.4.2 Nominalisation of Adjectives from Verbs … … … … 79
3.4.3 Syntactic Properties … … … … … … … 81
3.4.4 Dixon’s Semantic Classes … … … … … … 85
3.4.5 Another Semantic Class Identified in The Colour Class … … 85
3.5 Adjectives Derived from Adverbs … … … … … 85
3.6 Chapter Summary … … … … … … … 88
Endnotes .. … … … … … … … … .. ….. …. … …. …. .. 90
CHAPTER FOUR: SEQUENCING OF ADJECTIVES IN GA
4.0 Introduction … … … … … … … … 91
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4.1 Sequencing of Adjectives in Some Ga Literature …. …….. .. 97
4.2 Data collection… …. … … … …. … … 104
4.2.1 Questionnaire … …. …. …. … …. …. … ….. …. 104
4.2.2 Subjects …. … … … …. … … … … … …. … …. … 104
4,2. 3 Design …. ….. …. … ….. ….. ….. …. …. …. … …. …. …. 106
4.2.4 Results … …. …. … … … . . … … ….. ….. ….. ….. …. …. …. … 108
4.3 Adjectives in Attributive Position ….. …… ….. ….. ….. ….. …. … . 109
4.3.1 Sequencing of two adjectives …. …….. ….. …… ….. ….. …. … 109
4.3.2 Sequencing of three adjectives …. …. …. ….. …. …. ….. ….. …. .. 111
4.3.3 Adjectives from same Semantic Class Plus Another ……… . …… .. … 122
4.3.4 Plural Nouns with Adjectives ….. … …. …. …. …. …. …. …. …. …. …. 125
4.4 Adjectives in Predicative Position … … …. … …. … …. … .. … . 128
4.4.1 Results …. ….. …. …. ….. …… …. ….. ……. ….. ….. …. …. .. 129
4.5 Summary and Generalisations … …… …. ….. …. …. ….. 135
4.6 Chapter Summary …… ….. …… …. ….. ….. …… ……. …. … 138
Endnotes ……. …. …. …… … …… …. …. …. …. … 139
CHAPTER FIVE: USING GA VERBS TO DENOTE PROPERTY CONCEPTS
5.0 Introduction… … …. … …. … … . . .. … … . . . … … .. … . 140
5.1 What is a verb?.... ….. …. … … …. ……. …. . … … .. .. … 141
5.2 Sources of Verbs … … ….. …. …. … … … … .. …. . 142
5.3 Inflectional Morphology for Ga Verbs … …. …. ….. … … … 143
5.4 Derivational Morphology of Ga Verbs …. …. …. … …. … ….. . 148
5.5 Transitivity of verbs/ complement options for verbs… … … … . . 148
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5. 6 Verbs that express property concepts in Ga …. … … … …. … 154
5.6.1 Application of the questionnaire ….. … ….. …. … … . … …. … 156
5.6.1.1 The formal criteria …. ….. ….. …. … …. …. … . … … … …. … … 156
5.6.1.2 Semantic Criteria … … … … .. .. … .. …. …. … … . 173
5.7 Sequencing of Property Concept verbs …. …. ….. … … …. 185
5.8 Chapter Summary …. … .. … … … … … ….. … … …. … 186
Endnotes … … …. … … …. …. …. …. 188
CHAPTER SIX: NOUNS USE D TO CODE PROPERTY CONCEPTS IN GA
6.0 Introduction…. …. …. …. …. … … … .. … … 189
6.1 Brief features of Nouns… ….. …. … … … … … .. … 190
6.2 The Ga Noun Phrase……. … … … . … …. … .. 204
6.3 Nouns as Property concepts …. …. …. …. . … …. ….. …. . .. ..206
6.3.1 Nouns That Occur As Epithets ……… …. ….. …. … …. …. .. … … 216
6.3.2 Expressing Comparative Superlative. ……. …. … … .. … … 223
6. 3.3 Nouns that occur after the head noun….. …. …. …. …. … … … … .. .. .. 225
6.3.4 Nouns in Apposition …….. … … … … … .. … .. … … … .. … 232
6. 4 Questionnaire Analysis …. ….. … …. … … …. … … … . . 234
6.5 Semantic Classification of Nominal PCs.. …. ….. …. … … … … . 237
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6. 6 Chapter Summary … …. … … …. … … .. …. …. .. … 238
CHAPTER SEVEN: SUMMARY AND CONCLUSION
7.0 Introduction…….. …. … … … … … .. … … … .. … … 240
7.1 Property Concepts in Ga ….. …. ….. …. …. … …. … …. … . 242
7.2 Morphological Properties of Property Concepts in Ga … … … …243
7.3 Syntactic Properties of Property Concepts in Ga … ….. … … ….. …. 246
7.4 Semantic Properties of Property Concepts in Ga… …. …. …. … …. . 248
7.5 Future Research……. …. … … …. .. … .. … … … 249
Appendix 1 ….. …. …. … …. … .. … … .. … … .. …. .. .. … … .. .. 251
References …. … …. … … … . .. … … … … … .. … 257
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TABLES
Page
Table 1.1: Variation in the Pronunciation of Some Ga Words… … … .. 12
Table 2.1: Comparison of properties of simple adjectives, nouns and verbs … 38
Table 2.2: Comparison of verb-like adjectives, simple adjectives and verbs .. …. 39
Table 4.1 : Two Adjectives from the semantic Group of Dimension(D)
and Value (V) ….. … .. … …. .. .. … 109
Table 4.2 : Two Adjectives from Dimension (D) and Age (A) ……. ….. …. ….110
Table 4.3: Adjectives from the Adjective Semantic Class of
Physical Property (PP), Dimension (D) and Age (A) … … … 112
Table 4.4: Adjectives from the Physical Property (PP), Colour (C)
and Dimension (D) Semantic Classes … …. … … .. .. 113
Table 4.5: Adjectives from the Value (V), Dimension (D) and Colour (C) … .. 114
Table4.6: Physical Property (PP), Value (V) and Colour (C) Adjectives ……. 116
Table 4.7: Adjectives from Colour (C) Age (A) and Value (V) Semantic Classes 117
Table 4.8: Analysis the Ordering of Adjectives from the Semantic Class of
Physical Property (PP), Age (A) and Colour (C) … … … 119
Table 4.9: Value (V), Age (A) and Physical Property (PP) Adjectives … 120
Table 4. 10: Adjectives from the Semantic class of Dimension
(D) Age (A) and Colour (C) … … … … … 121
Table 4.11:Two Adjectives from the Dimension (D) and one
from the Age (A) Group … … … … … … 123
Table 4.12: Two Adjectives from the Dimension Class (D)
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and one from Colour Class (C) … … … … … 124
Table 4.13: Two Adjectives from Dimension (D) and one from Colour (C) …. 125
Table 4.14: Age, Dimension and Colour Adjectives with a Plural Noun.. … 127
Table 4.15: Age, Value and Colour Adjectives … … … … 128
Table 4.16: Predicative (Dimension and Colour)…. …. …. …. …. …. …. … . 130
Table 4.17: Age in Predicative position … .. .. … … … … … … …. … .. . 131
Table 4.18: Colour and Dimension in Predication… .. … … …. … … … .. 133
Table 4.19: Age and Physical Property Adjectives ……. .. … … . .. . .. . . 134
Table 5.1 Verbs with corresponding adjectives … … .. .. … .. .. … … . .. . . . . 168
Diagram 1…… ……… …… ……… ……… …… …… …… …. 209
Diagram 2 …. ……. … …. ….... …… ……. ….. ……. …… …. 210
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CHAPTER ONE
GENERAL INTRODUCTION
2.0 Introduction
Expression of property concepts in Ga syntax and semantics is an area which has not
received extensive research. Scholars and students alike always associate the term
property concept with the syntactic category adjective because most property concept
words are found in the adjective category. Property concepts are also known as
“adjectival” concepts because adjectives are words commonly used to express property in
most languages (Palancar 2006:326). It must be noted that the adjective is just one
category that is used to express a property concept in a particular language. Property
concepts (henceforth PCs), according to Thompson (1988:167), name properties or
qualities of an entity and have two primary communicative functions: attributive and
predicative. In other words, PCs refer to properties, qualities and characteristics of
referents. A PC having the role of attribution serves to modify the head noun in the Noun
Phrase and the PC that serves as complement of verb normally plays the role of
predication/predicative. There is normally a relationship between the head noun and the
PC word used. It can be realized that PCs are not only adjectives but nouns, verbs, and
adverbs as well, depending on the language under consideration. PCs are therefore
expressed in languages with different lexical categories, depending on the particular
language under discussion.
Dixon (1982:16) proposed various semantic categories for PCs in a wide variety of
languages and stated further that languages vary in the number of the members they have
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in the adjective class. Ga has adjectives which may be derived or of deep level (Amfo et
al. 2007, Otoo 2005). The thesis therefore studied how features or characteristics that are
attributed to an entity are realized in syntactic constructions in Ga. The syntactic
constructions are studied at both the morphosyntactic level and the semantic level. The
syntactic discussion focuses on the lexical category that the word used to express the
property of an entity belongs to, its morphological properties in relation to the head noun
and its semantic features. The study investigates what happens when a particular lexical
word is used to modify an entity, especially nouns, in the Ga language. The modification
of these lexical items is examined in terms of they being attributes of the noun, or are in
predicative positions denoting features of entities. The predicative position, in this
instance, refers to when the PC used serves as a complement of a verb or a copula verb
and also when the PC plays the role of intransitive predicate. In terms of attribute, the
word is used to modify the noun within the noun phrase.
1.1 Background to the Study
In language, certain features or characteristics are attributed to an entity. An entity may
be given the attribute of beauty. For example in English it will be.
(1) The girl is beautiful.
(2) The beautiful girl went home.
(3) The rich man slept soundly
The construction in (1) syntactically makes use of a Noun Phrase (NP) ‘The girl’
and a Verb Phrase (VP) is beautiful. The NP, which is in subject position, is headed by
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the noun ‘girl’ and the definite article ‘the’ serves as the determiner. The VP consists of
the verb ‘to be’(is) and an adjective. The adjective ‘beautiful’ is in predicative position
within the VP, that is the adjective serves as a complement of the verb (Copula
Complement) in (1).
In example (2) the sentence is made up of an NP and a VP. The NP which
contains a PC word ‘beautiful’, which is an adjective from the adjective class, serves as
a modifier for the noun ‘girl’. The adjective ‘beautiful’ in (2) is in attributive position.
Whereas the adjective plays the communicative role of predicative in (1), the adjective
functions as an attribute in (2). In example (3) the adjective ‘rich’ has been used to
modify the head noun ‘man’ in the NP as an attributive role.
In Ga these constructions are expressed as in (4) ,(5) and (6) below.
4) Yòό !lε hè yε fε ó.
woman DEF self possess beauty
‘The woman is beautiful.’
(5) Yòò fε ε fε ó lε tèè shíà.
woman beautiful DEF go.PST home
‘The beautiful woman went home.’
6) Nùù shìká-tsέ lέ wɔ՝ vìì.
Man money-owner DEF sleep soundly
‘The rich man slept soundly’
The Ga sentence in (4) consists of a Noun Phrase (NP) in the subject and a VP.
The NP is headed by the word hè ‘body’ with another NP emebedded, which is yòó !lέ ‘
the woman’ and the VP consists of the verb yὲ ‘to possess’ and a noun –fε ó ‘beauty’.
The preceding NP yòó !lέ ‘the woman’ functions as a possessive to the head noun, hè.
This NP in (4) is to express the attribute of physical property to the entity ‘girl’. The
4
construction differs from the English construction in terms of the structure of phrase
found in the subject position and also the word found in complement position. Both
constructions have NPs in the subject positions but the NP in Ga is made up of an NP
embedded in another one whereas the English has a determiner and the head noun.
Furthermore, the complement of the verb in Ga is a noun (abstract) fέó ‘beauty’ and
English uses an adjective ‘beautiful’. The noun used to express the property in the
construction appears in the predicative position. English also employs a noun as
complement of the verb though it is not commonly used by saying ‘The woman has
beauty’. When the word fε ó ‘beauty’ has to be used attributively or used to modify a
noun in Ga, the adjective form would be used. The adjective form is ‘fε ε fε ó’. This is
what is found in example (5). It would be incorrect to have the adjective form fε ε fε ó’ in
Ga in the complement position, that is in predicative position. In example (3) above, the
English adjective ‘ rich’ is used to modify the head noun ‘man’, but (6) in Ga, the word
used, shìkátsέ, ‘money-owner’ is from the noun class as it has the noun forming
morpheme tsὲ added to the noun, shìká ‘money’. Shìkátsέ ‘money owner’ can occur
with the determiner and can serve as the the head of the NP without any change in form,
unlike an adjective which may change form when used to serve as the head of the NP.
The illustrations in (4), (5) and (6) buttress the point that PCs are not only from the
adjective category but from other syntactic categories as well.
This is the reason why the work investigated in detail how PCs are encoded in Ga.
The thesis also seeks to answer the question: How are properties attributed to and
predicated of entities? Since adjectives form a large class among PC items, the work
5
first employs and investigates adjectives, then nouns and verbs and possibly adverbs that
are used.
Dixon (1982:5), in his study of adjectives noted that there exists languages that have a
small number of adjectives and those with large membership. Dixon (1982) classifies
adjectives into seven groups. Dixon cited Birk (1976) who reported that Australian Malak
Malak has only seven adjectives namely adjectives denoting the attributes large, small,
short, young, old, good and bad. Dixon’s (2006) recent semantic classification of
adjectives served as a basis to start the study as it indicates ways of expressing property
of an entity.
1.2 Dixon’s Semantic Classification of Adjectives
Dixon (2004, 2006) identifies a set of semantic types of PCs that are encoded by the
adjective class in languages that have them. The classes are thirteen in his recent work
and these are:
DIMENSION: in this class the property concepts denote size, shape etc. e.g. big, small,
long, deep, etc.
PHYSICAL PROPERTY: e.g hard, strong, sweet, cheap, etc.
SPEED: this class shows the fastness or slowness of an entity e.g fast, quick,
rapid, etc.
AGE: in this class the PCs denote how old something may be e.g new, old,
young, modern, etc.
COLOUR: in this class, the nature of the entity in terms of colour is expressed e.g
black, white, golden, etc.
6
VALUE: adjectives that denote value are seen in this class e.g good, bad, lovely,
pretty, etc.
DIFFICULTY: how difficult an entity may be is found in this class e.g easy, tough,
hard, simple, etc
VOLITION: e.g accidental, purposeful, deliberate, etc
QUALIFICATION: what qualifications are found in this class (This has subtypes) e.g
true, obvious, normal, right, etc
HUMAN PROPENSITY: In this class adjectives that denote the nature of human are
mainly expressed (This also has subtypes), e. g angry, jealous, clever,
sad, etc
SIMILARITY: e.g different, equal (to), analogous (to) etc.
QUANTIFICATION: eg all, many, few, only, enough etc
POSITION: eg high, low, distant, northern, near, left etc
(Adapted from Dixon 2004 and 2006)
In languages that do not have adjectives, these concepts are expressed by other lexical
categories. There will be more explanation on the semantic types in chapter two. The
work investigates how Ga uses adjectives and other lexical categories to express property
concepts.
According to Dixon (1982, 2004) the adjective class typically fills two roles. In
Dixon (2004:10) he stated the following roles for adjectives:
a) in a statement that something has a certain property. There are two ways for
encoding it syntactically: i) adjective functions as an intransitive predicate as in
7
example (8) in the Boumaa Fijan language or the adjective functions as Copula
Complement(CC) as in (7).
b) as a specification that helps focus on the referent of the head noun in an NP that
relates to predicate argument. The adjective is shown as a modifier within the NP.
The example in English illustrates this in (9).
(7) [My father] CS [is] COPULA PREDICATE [tall] CC.
(8) [e balavu] INTRANSITIVE. PREDICATE [ a tama –qu] S.
3sgS tall ARTICLE father –Isg POSSESSOR
‘My father is tall’.
(From Dixon 2004:7 eg 3& 4)
(9) [The tall man] S [laughed] INTRANSITIVE. PREDICATE.
(Dixon 2004:10 eg 7)
Depending on the language under discussion, these two roles may be performed by
the adjective class or not. It is also possible for the adjective to have only one of these
functions in a particular language (Dixon 2004). Dixon(2004:28) further name two
features of adjectives namely;
c) as the parameter for comparison in comparative construction
d) as modifiers to a verb, in adverbial function.
In (8) above the sentence is an intransitive clause and the head of the predicate is headed
by balavu ‘tall’. Balavu ‘tall’ which is an adjective is preceded by the third person
singular pronoun as if it is a verb. Verbs are preceded by the pronouns in Fijan. In (7) the
sentence is a copula clause with two arguments ‘ my father’ and ‘tall’. The Copula
Subject (CS) is ‘my father’ and the Copula Complement (CC) is ‘tall’. In (9)’ The tall
man’ is the Intransitive subject (S) and ‘laughed’ is the Intransitive Predicate.
8
Similarly Givon (2001) indicated that adjectives can be found within two syntactic
contexts that are: as predicated in copula clauses and in noun phrases as modifiers
(attributive use). In Ga the basic adjective can serve as an attribute for a noun as in
examples 10a-c.
(10) a. Nùù kpìtíóó lε w .
man short DEF sleep. PST
‘The short man slept.’
b. Tsò wùlú !lε gbèé shì.
tree huge DEF fall.PST down
‘The huge tree fell down.’
c. Kpằằ kàkàdáŋ ŋ lε là mí-nànѐ.
rope long DEF hook.PST 3SG- leg
‘The long rope hooked my leg.’
From examples (10a–c) the bolded words kpìtíóó ‘short’ wùlù ‘huge’ kàkàdáŋ ŋ ‘tall’
used to express PCs of the nouns mentioned are all from the adjective class in Ga. The
adjectives play the role of attribution. Lets consider the examples in (11a –c) also.
(11) a. Yòò nílèl lε é - bà.
woman wise DEF PERF-come
‘The wise woman came’.
b. O՝bláyòò shìkátsέ ! lε hé wòlò.
young woman money-owner DEF buy.PST book
‘The young rich woman bought a book.’
c. Kàsél àwùŋàyè-l !lε jò fòì
student jealous.AG SUF DEF run.PST away
‘The jealous student ran away.’
The constructions in examples (11a-c) contain NPs in subject positions, which
contain nouns serving as modifiers for the head nouns in the NPs. Normally in Ga, the
9
adjective has a reverse position compared to English; that is, it occurs after the head noun
it modifies as seen in (10a-c). In (11a–c) the nouns nílèl ՝ ‘wise person’, shìkátsέ ‘rich
person’ and àwùŋàyè-l ‘jealous person’ are used to modify the head nouns yòò ‘woman’,
òbláyòò ‘young woman’ and kàsél ՝ ‘student’ respectively. These words used to modify
the head nouns in (11a-c) are all nouns which occur in the adjective position. These
bolded words used in (11a-c) are said to be nouns because they take the noun agentive
suffix /-l / or tsὲ (free morpheme) which is not attached to adjectives in Ga. All these
nouns used as modifiers can occur in subject positions by themselves without the nouns
(as head nouns) and are from the noun class.
In examples (12a –c) below the nouns in bold used to serve as modifiers precede the
head nouns. In terms of the position of the bolded nouns, they seem to be like the English
structure, where the modifier precedes the modified. Dakubu (2000, 2002, 2003) refers
to these nouns that precede the head nouns as epithet, whereas Dzameshie (2007:76)
refers to these nouns as ordinary nouns.
(12) a. Tsò tsú !lε kú.
wood house DEF break.PST
‘The wooden house broke.’
b. Ayele hé dàdé àwàlè.
Ayele buy.PST iron spoon
‘Ayele bought a metal spoon.’
c. È -jwà r bà gògá lε .
3SG -break.PST rubber bucket DEF
‘She broke the rubber bucket.’
10
The examples (13a-c) below illustrate some verbs that denote PCs or have adjectival
meanings. The words in the predicate position are verbs which have the Ga verbal
morphology and syntactically they take subjects.
(13) a. Wónú !lε ŋ .
soup DEF be sweet.
‘The soup is tasty/delicious.’
b. Blòdó !lε wà.
bread DEF be hard
‘The bread is hard.’
c. Ajele mlì é-fú.
Ajele inside PERF-swells
‘Ajele is angry.’
The verbs ŋ ‘be sweet’ and wà ‘ be hard’ and fú ‘ to swell’ are the verbs which have
adjectival meanings attached to them. When they are encoded in English, adjectives
would be used to serve as complement of the verb (see the English translations).
1.3 Statement of the Problem
PCs have received some amount of research over the years (Sergio & Gildea 2005,
Dorvlo 2010, Palancar 2006, Holton 2001, Jenks et al 2013, Bobuafor 2013). Most
languages use adjectives, if present in that language, to express the property of an entity.
It is either to modify the noun (attributive) or to serve as a complement of a verb or
copula verb or as an intransitive predicate (predicative). Languages without an adjective
class or those with few/many adjectives, may employ other lexical categories to denote
the features of an entity (i.e to express a property concept). For instance, there is only
one adjective which is not ideophonic kpá ‘bad’ in Tutrugbu (Essegbey 2010:158). Tafi,
11
a Ghana Togo Mountain language, also has only three basic adjectives namely bhuli
‘small’ gunu ‘short’ and kpa ‘bad’ (Bobuafor 2013). The research investigates how
attribution of an entity is expressed in Ga when it uses an adjective and when there is no
adjective to be employed. One may wonder whether there are adjectives in Ga. The
answer to that is : yes. There are both deep level and derived adjectives in Ga. The work
is not limited to the study of adjectives alone but other lexical categories such as nouns,
verbs and adverbs that could possibly be employed to indicate the property of an entity.
Can all features or qualities of an entity (head noun) from the thirteen semantic types
proposed by Dixon be expressed in Ga using adjectives? To find answers, the study
describes the morphological, syntactic and semantic properties of these lexical categories
which may be employed and the types of constructions used.
One other issue is that there are inadequate materials on the morphology, syntax and
semantics of the Ga language. Apart from that there is little work done in the area of
property concepts in Ghanaian languages ( Akan, Osam 2003, Saah & Osam 2010, Leteh,
Akrofi-Ansah 2013). I believe that an in-depth research into the expression of Ga PCs
will lead the way in this area of linguistic research.
The insufficiency of written material on Ga poses problems for researchers, students
and educators. These are some of the reasons why this work attempts to do a further
study in this area of the Ga language. This will help to facilitate the production of
textbooks in the language for teaching and learning.
1.4 The Ga Language
The Ga language forms a sub-group of the Western Kwa language group under the larger
Niger Congo family. Ga is spoken by the inhabitants of Accra (Ga Mashi), La, Teshi,
12
Nungua, Tema and Kpone as well as some Ga villages like Abokobi, Bͻi, Oyibi,
Bawaleshi, Akpͻman, Oyarefa, Kweiman, Teiman and Samsam which are spread at the
foot of the Akwapim Hills. Ga is spoken also by some non-natives as well who have
stayed in the Ga area for a long time. The people who speak Ga are called Gas or the Ga
people. Ga is sometimes used in speech to refer to the city of Accra by the people living
in the hinterlands when they are travelling to Greater Accra. The term, as used in this
work, refers to the language and nothing else.
1.4.1 Dialects
Ga has no dialects. However there are differences in pronunciation of some words. Kotei
(1969) and Mante (1971) cited in Dakubu (2002) note that there are some few vocabulary
items that have different pronunciations moving from one coastal town to another. Below
are examples in Table 1.1.
Table 1.1:Variation in The Pronunciation of Some Ga Words
Accra La Teshie Nungua Kpone Gloss
ὸnùfú onùúfú ònú!fú onùúfú ònùúfú Snake
gbѐsàŋѐ gbòsàŋѐ Gbòsàŋѐ gbòsàŋѐ gbòsàŋѐ leathery turtle
òdáàkl òdáàkl òdáá!kl òdáàkl òdáàkl Lizard
t ŋ՜tr՜ ՜ŋ՜ t ՜ŋ՜t ՜ŋ՜ t ՜ŋ՜t ՜ŋ՜ t ՜ŋ՜t ՜ŋ՜ t ՜ŋ՜t ՜ŋ Mosquito
bòé!boé bòé!boé mòé!moé mòé mòémòé a type of fish
àmεdεέ àmεdεέ Bεdεέ àmεdεέ àmεdεέ a type of fish
àklòntià àkͻntiá Aklòtià àklòtià àklòtià Pin
mfl!ábέ!dì mfl!ábέ!dì mfl!ábέ!dì - m!práábέ!dí fresh water
fish
k ՜k ՜ k ՜k՜ kw ՜kw ՜k ՜k kw ՜kw ՜ a type of fish
(Dakubu 2002:2 Table 1)
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1.4.2 Sociological Status
Ga is taught in many Ghanaian schools as an elective course. In some tertiary institutions
(for example, University of Ghana, University of Education Winneba, and University of
Cape Coast) it is studied as subject by many students. It is also used in churches, on
some of the television channels and also for some radio programmes. Many people who
have come to live in Accra speak Ga as their second language. There are materials that
have been published in/on Ga like the Bible, literary works like Mojawe, by Simeon
Yartey (1978), Dakubu (1981a) One Voice, The Linguistic Culture of an Accra Lineage
among others. Two editions of Ga dictionary edited by Dakubu have been published in
1999 and 2007 respectively.
Ga has five nasalized vowels /ã, ͻ , ῖ ũ,ε / and seven oral vowels /a,i u o, e, ͻ,ε/. The
vowels [a, o, e] occur at the initial position in words. There are forty-four sounds in Ga.
Four syllable types are found in Ga namely vowel [V], consonant and vowel [CV],
Syllabic Nasal [N] and consonant and a liquid [CL]. Codas are non existent mostly in Ga
words.
1.5 Scope and Purpose of the Study
The study aims to investigate the morphology, syntax and semantics of PCs in Ga. It
examines the lexical categories that are used in property constructions and examines also
in detail how the thirteen semantic property concepts proposed by Dixon (2004, 2006) are
encoded in the language. The focus is on how attribution and predication are expressed.
Further attention is given to the types of syntactic constructions used. The theory to be
employed in this work is the Framework-Free Grammatical Theory (Haspelmath 2008).
The theory’s details are discussed in chapter two.
14
1.6 Research Questions
The main objective of the work is to find answers to the following:
- Which of the thirteen semantic classes of PC words exist in Ga?
- What lexical categories are used to express PCs in Ga?
- Are there differences in the syntactic structures denoting PC (morphosyntactic
properties)?
- In what order do multiple PCs occur in the language?
1.7 Delimitation of the Study
The scope of the study is limited to examination of syntactic constructions,
morphological and semantic properties of lexical categories that denote property concepts
in Ga. The geographical area is limited to the Ga speaking areas in Greater Accra
Region.
1.8 Significance of the Study
It is hoped that the outcome of this study will inform teachers, students, linguists and
educationists about the morphosyntactic and semantic properties of entities or lexical
categories that denote PCs in the Ga language. It will disabuse people’s minds,
especially learners of Ga, about classifying every Ga word that correlates with an
adjective in English as an adjective, which is not always the case. It also contributes to
the cross-linguistic study of PCs in languages of the world and also adds to the existing
literature on Ga.
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1.9 Methodology
1.9.1 Study Area and Target Group
The study area is Ga Mashi area of Greater Accra Region where most typical Gas are
found, and Osu. The study took place in these areas because I believe appropriate
information on what pertains on the ground could be obtained there. The target group
was made up of Gas living in Bukom, James Town, Asene and Gbese of the Ga Mashi
area and in Osu, all in the Greater Accra region.
1.9.2 Sampling Procedure and sample size
A non- probability sampling technique was used for the selection of the respondents for
questionnaires that were administered to ascertain the order of multiple adjectives if
sequenced. Purposive and accidental sampling were used to get the target group. These
sampling methods were chosen since they would enable the researcher to assess
information from people capable of providing the needed information. Sample size of the
study was fifty-nine people though hundred questionnaires which consisted of 10 key
informants, fifty men and forty women were distributed. The age of the target group
ranged from 18 to 60 years plus.
1.9.3 Data Collection
Data were collected using both primary and secondary sources. Sources of information
included books like novels, textbooks and unpublished articles. The data were
supplemented with spoken Ga from people in the above mentioned areas and also Ga
programmes on the radio (Obonu FM). People were also engaged in conversations that
focused on description and attribution through the use of the toy task or director –
16
matcher elicitation task (Gulberg, Indefrey & Muysken 2009). The participants in toy
task were two people who were given the role Director and Matcher. They sat at a table
which had a barrier in the middle. The barrier prevented the participants from seeing
each other. On the table were objects with all sizes, colours, shape etc, twelve in all.
The Director asked the other to do some arranging or act on some particular instruction.
The objects were arranged on both sides of the board placed in the middle of table. As
instructions were given the participants spoke and answered to whatever was said. The
toy task was originally designed for elicitation of complex noun phrases, determiners,
colour adjectives and nouns. The study did a little modification to the toy task method so
that PCs of entities could be obtained. The toy task aided in gathering information on
constructions that express PCs and properties of entities. This enabled the researcher to
find out the lexical category of items used in these constructions.
1.9.4 Data Handling and Processing
The constructions which were obtained from books were carefully studied to see their
morphological and syntactic properties. The data obtained from the toy task were also
studied to find how the PCs were coded. The data from the questionnaire that sought
information on the sequencing of multiple PCs and the rendition of some English
sentences into Ga were put in excel and tabulated and analysed.
1.10 Definition of Key Terms
The key concept in this work is ‘property concept’. The definition of property concept in
this work is grounded on Thompson’s (1988) and Palancar’s (2006) definitions. The
term ‘property concept’ used here has to do with words that are used to modify nouns and
17
serve as predicatives. The study investigated how three lexical categories namely nouns,
adjectives and verbs are used to denote PCs. The function of these three PCs in terms of
attribution and predicative roles were examined, that is how they are employed in relation
to nouns. The study examined three main categories of word classes used as PCs. In Ga,
adjectives or other lexical categories are used. The modification of the noun was
examined in terms of attribution and predication. That is to say the work is a detailed
study of how adjectival meanings are expressed in Ga using three main syntactic
categories.
Epithet which is another concept is used here to refer to nouns or phrases that are
employed to modify the head nouns. These nouns or phrases precede the head noun.
These are ordinary nouns (Dzameshie 2007:76) and I believe the term epithet is a
function name given to these nouns, therefore it is more of function nature in relation to
the head noun. In this work, I prefer to used the term epithet which was also posited by
Dakubu (2002, 2003) for nouns that precede the head nouns and modify them as I
examine the function in relation to the head noun.
1.11 Organisation of Chapters
The thesis consists of seven chapters.
Chapter one consists of the introduction, background to the study, significance and
purpose of the study, statement of the problem, objectives of the study, methodology and
research questions.
Chapter two consists of the theoretical framework and literature review.
Chapter three examines the morphological and syntactic properties of adjectives used in
expressing property concepts.
18
Chapter four examines sequencing of adjectives and a comparison of the lexical
categories used.
Chapter five deals with verbs used in expressing the properties of entity.
The chapter six looks at nouns used in expressing property concepts.
Chapter seven is the summary of findings and conclusions and recommendations for
future research.
19
CHAPTER TWO
THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK AND LITERATURE REVIEW
2.0 Introduction
This chapter provides a discussion on the theoretical framework to be employed in this
study. There have been a lot of studies on the adjective class in Ghanaian languages, like
Akan (Osam 1999, 2003), Ewe (Dzameshie 2007, Ameka 2003), Ga (Dakubu 2002, Otoo
2005), Siyase (Adjei 2007). However, the topic under investigation will not be dealing
with only adjectives but all kinds of words used in describing or modifying nouns in Ga.
The chapter also reviews some literature related to PCs and other works that have
studied the adjective class. Some relevant works on adjective classes are reviewed as
well, because most often, the adjectives, when available in the language, tend to be the
PCs that are used to qualify nouns.
2.1 Framework- Free Grammatical Theory
The work will employ the Framework-Free Grammatical Theory by Haspelmath (2008).
This is mainly a descriptive framework. This is a framework or theory of morphosyntax.
It is not a restrictive theoretical framework, but allows the researcher to examine the
language and describe it in its own terms. It is agreed by most linguists, according to
Haspelmath (2008), that in analysing an unfamiliar language, efforts should be made not
to be biased or be influenced by our native language or other languages we know. For
instance, he claimed that pre-modern linguists who described non-European languages in
terms of Latin using grammar as a base are discredited in recent times. The
20
Framework-Free Grammatical Theory proposed that a language should be described in its
own terms. In other words, language description should not be strictly put under any
bound framework. A model language should not be used, when another language is
being investigated, if not the language under investigation may be expected to have
particular issues which may not occur, and it will be examined from a particular
perspective as the restricted bound framework gives constraints. In employing
Framework-Free Grammatical Theory (FFG), you are able to discover unsuspected
connections between phenomena and be guided only by the data you have gathered. This
is because in analyzing language, sometimes new puzzles, new categories come up that
may not fit into a particular bound framework you may be employing. Every language
has its own categories, similarities also occur among languages and therefore one can
learn from other languages that have been investigated to use certain terminologies like
noun or verb, but should not be bound by these occurances, so that completely new
discoveries can be accounted for in that language. It is therefore better to use
Framework-Free Grammatical theory to give better analyses of the real issues in a
language as it is descriptive and allows the researcher to analyse issues as they occur and
account for exceptions and irregularities that may come up.
2.1.1 Application of Framework- Free Grammatical Theory in Previous Works
Linguistics scholars have applied the Framework -Free Grammatical Theory to languages
and believe that their findings have been more realistic than if they had applied a strict
bound theoretical framework in Linguistics. Some of these scholarly works are discussed
below.
21
Schacter & Otanes (1972: 57-85), cited in Haspelmath (2008), analysed Tagalog
basic sentence structure using the Framework-Free Grammatical Theory. The outcome of
the analyses in Tagalog gave a picture rather different from what pertains in English
structure. If they had applied a strict bound framework which may be based on English,
it may not have given the true picture in Tagalog. In Tagalog, for instance, the basic
sentence structure is not NP and VP but Predicate and Topic. Though there could be a
rough correspondence between Tagalog Topic and English Subject NP, the Topic may
also equate to English Direct Object, or English Preposition object. The Topic is marked
with ang. It is worth mentioning that Topic in Tagalg has a semantic peculiarity that
could not be traced in English, it must be definite. The main word of a Tagalog
Predicate in most cases is a verb but a noun or an adjective may occur. The main word
for the Tagalog Topic is often a noun but a verb could occur. Tagalog can combine Topic
marker ang directly whereas English may require relative clause construction to make
referential expressions of such kind. Schacter & Otanes (1972) did not describe the
Tagalog sentence as NP VP but used the term Predicate and Topic. However, with the
use of the descriptive framework, they had the opportunity to use terms which best
described what they found in their data and gave a true picture of what pertains in the
Tagalog sentence.
Investigation into German word order, Drach (1937) cited in Haspelmath (2008)
employed Framework- Free Grammatical Theory and was able to use terms that could
best describe the word order found.
In the examination of German by this European structuralist, Drach (1937) proposed
that German word order consists of at least five linear positions: Prefield, Left Bracket,
22
Middlefield, and the Postfield is the position following the right bracket. Grammatical
relations such as subject and object or VP are not issues seen in German Field typology.
If a bound framework had been used to analyse German, it might have been difficult or
probably may not fit into the English language analysis and these field typology terms
may not have resulted. The analyses may have been compared to English or Latin and
terms from these languages would have been imposed on the German language.
Most studies (Dixon 1982, 2004), Helmbrecht (2004), Backhouse (1984, 2006),
Palancar, (2006) just to mention few), on PCs, had used the descriptive framework. The
issue is that words that code PCs may differ from language to language. Certain
languages may employ only adjectives, others may employ both adjectives and verbs, and
others may only use verbs among others. The studies on these PCs most often, in
addition to the descriptive framework, also applied Dixon’s theory on adjectives. Dixon
proposed semantic types of PCs that are coded by adjectives in languages that have
them. A study without Dixon’s theory would not be complete, therefore this work, in
addition to Framework Free Grammatical Theory, also employs Dixon’s framework. The
two frameworks complement each other as they both do description of situations in a
language.
Though Framework -Free Grammatical Theory approach is more difficult to construct
and more difficult to describe than those built on familiar bound framework, a descriptive
framework could be applicable to all possible languages. Moreover, most researchers
whose work I have reviewed apply the descriptive framework in addition to Dixon’s
semantic classification of adjectives. For instance, in applying X-bar theory , it can be
23
realized that not all proposed phrase structure rules existed in all languages, therefore
without a restrictive bound framework, one can describe the syntax in its own terms.
The Framework- Free Grammatical Theory also caters for diversity in language, for
instance, it is a proposed theory that derivational affixes occur before inflectional ones,
but this may not be the case for all languages. When a language is approached with
particular concepts and pre-established ideas in mind, the individual tends to be biased
but when there is open mindedness and there is no restrictive and strict bound framework
that is being applied, there is a high possibility of giving a fair picture of issues found
during an investigation in the language. FFG therefore gives you the chance to describe
things as they are exactly seen and the possibility to deal with things that you may call
exceptions.
In summary, analyses of languages must be done separately for each language since
languages have different structures. I believe that my use of this framework in the study
under investigation in Ga has given a very good objective and true picture of Ga at the
end of the study.
2.2 Dixon’s Semantic Classification
Dixon (2004, 2006) identifies a set of semantic types of PCs that are encoded by the
adjective class in languages that have them. The total number of these classes is thirteen
in his recent work. He first mentioned four core types which are found in languages that
have small and large adjective classes (Dixon 2006:3-5). These are:
1. DIMENSION- ‘big’, ‘small’, ‘long’, ‘tall’, ‘short’, ‘deep’,‘wide’ etc.
24
2. AGE- ‘new’, ‘young’, ‘old’, etc.
3. VALUE- ‘good’, ‘bad’, ‘lovely’, ‘perfect’, ‘odd’, ‘strange’ etc.
4. COLOUR-‘black’, ‘white’, ‘red’, etc.
He continued with more semantic types and revealed that these types are generally
associated with medium- sized and large adjective classes and they are
5. PHYSICAL PROPERTY – ‘hard’, ‘soft’, ‘heavy’, ‘wet’, ‘rough’, ‘strong’,
‘clean’, ‘hot’, ‘sour’, etc. And a sub-class referring to corporeal properties, eg
‘well’, ‘sick’, ‘tired’, ‘dead’, ‘absent’
6. HUMAN PROPENSITY – ‘jealous’, ‘happy’, ‘kind’, ‘clever’, ‘generous’, ‘cruel’,
‘proud’, ‘ashamed’, ‘eager’, etc.
7. SPEED – ‘fast’, ‘quick’, ‘slow’, etc
Lastly, he concluded the semantic types which are found in languages with large
adjective classes which are
8. DIFFICULTY – ‘easy’, ‘difficult’, ‘tough’, ‘hard’, ‘simple’, etc
9. SIMILARITY –‘like’, ‘unlike’,’similar’ ‘different(/strange)’,’other’, etc.
10. QUALIFICATION –‘definite’, ‘true’,‘probable’ possible, ‘likely’, ‘usual’,
‘normal’, ‘correct’, ‘common’, ‘appropriate’, ‘sensible’, etc.
11. QUANTIFICATION – ‘all(/whole)’, ‘many’, ‘some’, ‘few’, ‘only’, ‘enough’, etc.
12. POSITION – ‘high’, ‘low’,’near’, ‘far/distant’, ‘right’, ‘left(/strange)’ ‘northern’,
etc.
25
13. CARDINAL NUMBERS - (in some languages these constitute a separate word
class). And ‘first’, ‘last’ (together with other ordinal numbers).
Dixon explained that the first four semantic types are the core ones and the rest are
peripheral types that are found in languages. The question is how do languages that have
a small class of adjectives code other PCs and he asserted that:
(a) PHYSICAL PROPERTY terms, when they are not found in the adjective class,
are generally found in the verb class;
(b) HUMAN PROPENSITY items, if not in the adjective class may be either in the
noun class or the verb class;
(c) SPEED terms tend to be found in the adjective class if PHYSICAL
PROPERTY items are in this class, and in the adverb class if PHYSICAL
PROPERTY terms are in the verb class.
(Dixon 2004 :4)
Dixon’s semantic theory is applied in this study to find out what types are available in Ga
and what other lexical categories fill those that adjectives cannot fill.
2.3 Literature Review
PCs in Hocank, a Siouan language of the Missisipi Valley branch, were studied by
Helmbrecht (2004). He made it known that most PC words come from the adjective class
in Hocank. He stated in his study that adjectives that are found in Hocank do not show
any agreement with the head nouns when these hypothetical adjectives serve as
modifiers. The study examined PCs in Ga. Ga has adjectives that are used as PC words
and serve as modifiers, but unlike Hocank, they show agreement morphologically with
26
the head nouns in terms of number. Gender and noun class are also absent in Hocank, just
like Ga. The study also revealed that prototypical adjectival concepts are expressed using
intransitive inactive verbs. Property words may also be found in noun compounds, in
ordinary NPs and in relative clauses. It is worth mentioning that Hocank uses periphrastic
and pragmatic inferences in gradation for adjectives. Based on Helmbrecht’s examination
it could be concluded that studies of PCs in languages need not leave issues of gradation
and morphological markings of the word or lexical item found to code that meaning in
the language under examination. Similarly, Grunow –Harsta (2011) examined terms that
describe PCs in Magar, a Himalayish language spoken in Nepal. In the paper, Grunow-
Harsta referred to these words that code PCs as adjectival. This term, I believe, is most
appropriate, as it included not only adjectives that are used for PCs but all other
categories a language may use. For the study in Magar, the term adjective was reserved
for basic adjectives/non-derived adjectives in Magar. Unlike Ga, the non-derived
adjectives found in Magar are all borrowed words/ adjectives from Nepali. PCs in Magar
are coded with the borrowed adjectives and in Magar verbs are also used. Based on the
descriptive approach employed by Grunow-Hasta, this research also adopted a
descriptive approach or framework. However, the Magar study did not examine the
ordering of multiple PCs, and the gradation of adjectives which Helmbrecht (2004)
investigated was absent. It is worth investigating the ordering of multiple PCs in
languages and this study takes a look at that.
PCs in Otomi were investigated by Palancar (2006), and he realized that Otomi had
no adjective class but PCs are encoded by verbs and nouns. He claims that lexical items
that denote PCs can be divided into two groups: Group I and Group 2.
27
Group 1 consists of verbs, and he referred to them as PC verbs and Group 2 as PC
nouns. The Group 1 which consists of verbs, forms a larger class than Group 2 which
consists of nouns. He stated that Group 1 PCs have been referred to as adjectives by
authors like Ecker (1952), Hess (1968), Voigtlander and Echegoyen (1985), Hekking
(1985) and Bartholomew (2004). These authors labeled the verbs as adjectives based on
semantic grounds as the corresponding translation in English or Spanish falls in the
adjective class. Palancar disagrees with them and believes strongly these are verbs and
those in group two are nouns. He employed the Markedness Theory (Beck 1999; 2002) to
emphasise this stand of his. Lexical items may, in addition to their prototypical roles,
perform other syntactic roles. He cited Beck (2002: 25) who pointed out that lexical items
require ‘additional grammatical machinery’ to appear in such extended cases and this
could be said to be ‘marked’ cases. He stated that Hengeveld (1992) refers to this
‘additional grammatical machinery as ‘further measures’ (FM). He posits that Becks
(1999) defines FM as ‘the morphological, syntactic, or semantic properties acquired by
an element in a non-prototypical syntactic role’. Simply put, Markedness theory claims
that a lexical item will act as an unmarked element in its prototypical environment but
will need FM to function elsewhere. The term ‘marked’ can therefore be equated to FM
and unmarked equated to ‘without further measures’ (WFM). I share the opinion of
Palancar that words that have features of verbs and those having noun features should be
considered verbs and nouns since morphological and syntactic criteria in identifying a
word class are very acceptable. To claim and put a word into a lexical category based on
its semantics or its translation is not so correct, and this is one issue that motivated the
researcher to do this study. Most of the Ga textbooks put all words that correspond to
28
adjectives in English when translated, into the adjective category, based on meaning,
without looking at the features. This has been a serious problem for many students who
are studying Ga. The researcher has tried in this study, to clarify the issue. Nouns and
some stative verbs may be used in Ga to encode PCs but that does not change their word
classes. This is discussed in chapters five and six. In the same manner, in Tobelo, a
Papuan language, PC words may be nouns or verbs, since there is no adjective class that
plays that role, as established by Holton (2001). Mostly, the verbal PC words are used in
predicative function while nominal PCs function as attributes. It was also established that
nominal PCs do not exhibit cross referencing features. It was later claimed that though
verbs indicate PCs, they could correlate to predicate adjectives and nominal PCs to
modifying adjectives in English. On the other hand, predicating PCs are not only verbs
but nouns as well in Tobelo as below:
(1) o- Mariam ma- ago –agomo mi-ihene de duru i-rame
NM-k.o.gun REL-RDP-large INC:A-hear and very 3A-loud
‘We heard a large gun and it was very loud.’(kukuhi)
(2) o-senjata ma-ilingi i-maka-duhuku ma-rame
NM-gun REL –voice 3 MASC:A-RECIP-shoot NM-loud
‘The sound of the shooting guns was loud.’(Kukihi)
(Holton 2001: 224 eg 31 & 32)
In the above examples (1) and (2) both verbal PC word and nominal PC word have
been used to function predicatively.
On the other hand, though earlier research had claimed that there were no adjectives
in Totonac, a language spoken in Mexico, Levy (2006) identified and substantiated that
there are PCs which are adjectives. She further established the subtle differences between
29
nouns and verbs on one hand and adjectives that are used to denote PCs in Totonac on the
other hand. For instance, PCs that are adjectives modify nouns and occur only in
comparative constructions.
Dixon (2006), in his study of Jawara adjectives as PC items stated that Jawara has 14
adjectives. Jawara is highly a synthetic language and is one of the Madi languages which
belongs to the Arawa family. Using the typological features of adjectives he had
proposed, he studied this small class of adjectives. He stated the semantic types these
adjectives of Jawara fall into, which included Dimension, Physical Property, Age, Value,
Quantification and Qualification. In addition to the deep level adjectives(adjectives that
are not derived) in Jawara, he investigated derived adjectives that were also found in the
Jawara language. The derivation of adjectives is mainly through suffixation to verbs.
These derived adjectives carry extensive meanings. The types of verbs used are all verbs
of state in Jawara. Ga also, in addition to deep level adjectives, has derived adjectives
which are discussed in the next chapter. The derivation of Ga adjectives is done through
several processes. It is worth noting that the derived adjectives in Jawara serve as copula
complement but not as modifiers. This may not be the same in Ga but this is yet to be
investigated in the following chapter. It is relevant to study the grammatical properties of
the adjectives and other words used to denote PCs in order to get a clear distinction
between them. The grammatical properties were analysed by Dixon (2006). He realized
that Jawara deep level adjectives can serve as modifiers within the NP. The adjective
follows the head noun in this instance. This is the same for the deep level adjective in Ga,
as it also follows the head noun it modifies. Below is an example in Ga.
30
(3) Nùù kpìtíóó lε tèè.
man short DEF go.IMPF
‘The short man went.’
In example (3) the adjective kpiti՜o՜o՜ ‘short’ which is non-derived follows the head noun.
In Dixon’s analysis, he did state that derived adjectives cannot function as modifiers
in the NP, they only serve as copula complements. Ga has derived adjectives and from
Otoo’s (2005) brief study of adjectives these derived ones can serve as modifiers.
However since Otoo’s study was brief this phenomenon is further investigated in the next
chapter to find out whether all derived adjectives could possibly be used to serve as
modifiers.
When more than one adjective is used to modify the noun, the ordering or sequence
of adjectives is free and not restricted in a particular order as found in Jawara. This is
explored in Ga, as studies of the sequencing of several adjectives used to modify nouns
have not been given much attention. Since nouns are modified in various forms can we
say that all modifiers are from the adjective class? This may not be so, as all the words
used may come from different word classes but all belong to the modifier set. Dixon also
explored the differences that existed between adjectives and possessed nouns. That was
very important as he noted that at first glance, they looked similar but detailed analyses
brought out the following differences
a) in terms of position, the argument modifier mee precedes a possessed noun but
follows an adjective.
31
b) looking at the possibilities of copula complement, he realized that a copula
complement could be an NP or just an adjective. A possessed noun cannot serve as a
copula complement.
c) he studied the differences that existed in terms of gender markings within an NP in
Jawara. Apart from two adjectives that showed masculine and feminine distinctions
the other adjectives are all marked feminine. When it comes to possessed noun it may
be feminine or masculine and sometimes even complex due to the noun it occurs with.
d) lastly, the ordering of adjectives and possessed nouns was investigated within an NP.
The study in Jawara revealed that the ordering of the adjectives within the NP is
generally free but in the case of possessed noun the order is fixed.
(adapted from Dixon 2006:193)
This is quite significant as it brings to fore, the need to investigate possessed nouns and
adjectives in Ga to determine whether they behave in a similar manner.
Another important investigation was investigating nominalised verbs that
semantically have adjectival meanings and words from the adjective class. The
investigation revealed that the nominalised verbs have different grammatical properties
from adjectives. The detailed study of Jawara adjectives by Dixon (2006) had not been
explored in Ga, especially in terms of semantic types and possessed nouns . A detailed
look at this paper on Jawara adjectives was helpful to this study.
Cobert (2006) employed the typological features of adjectives in general. Cobert
explored the Russian adjective which is also one of the items in the PC set. The paper
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was reviewed due to the discussions on the morphological and syntactic properties of the
adjective in Russian. Syntactically, the Russian adjective does function as complement of
a copula but this may not be so in Ga, as Otoo (2005) did not examine this aspect into
detail. However, this issue is revisited in this study to possibly ascertain the true picture.
The Russian adjective occurs as a modifier of a noun in NP like adjectives in other
languages such as Ga, Akan, Jawara, among others. However, the Ga adjective follows
the noun while Russian adjective precedes the head noun. The inflectional morphology of
nouns, verbs and adjectives were investigated and even though some of the categories
were overlapping there was a clear distinction between the adjective used as PC item and
the other syntactic categories. A critical study revealed that the Russian adjective occurs
in two forms with different inflections to indicate gender distinctions as well as case. The
two forms are the long form and the short form. Specifications for the long forms differ
from the nouns. The long forms have fixed stress on their stems. The other form, the
short form, does not differentiate case marking but gender distinctions rather. Their stress
patterns are not fixed and they are restricted in their predicative use. It was revealed
further that not all the adjectives have the short forms. Those that have the short forms
are those used freely in the predicate and are mostly non-derived synchronically. Also the
adjectives without the short forms can be used in predicate positions employing their long
forms. In terms of comparative analysis, Russian has synthetic and analytic comparatives.
The criterion that was used to study the comparative has served as a good guide in this
research. The superlative in Russian employs samyj in addition to the long form for
agreement. Another useful analysis by Cobert in the paper was the derivational potential
of the adjectives, that is other word classes that had adjectives as their sources were
33
investigated. Otoo (2005) did not do such investigation and this study explored the
derivational potential of the Ga adjective to determine the similarities and differences
between Russian and Ga. Amfo et al. (2007) also did a study of adjectives and examined
the Ga adjectives and the sources from which adjectives were derived but not the other
way round. This is something this study looked at and Cobert’s strategy served as a
guide. Cobert (2006:205) notes in Russian, words whose sources had adjective roots
included the following:
a) Derivation of nouns through suffixation which gives rise to abstract nouns in
Russian example staryj ‘old’ starost‘old age.’
b) Derivation of verbs. This employs several strategies for example staret ‘grow old’
from staryj‘old’
c) Derivation of adjectives from adjectives: it is possible to derive adjective from
adjective in Russian for instance zelenovatyj ‘greenish’ from zelengj ‘green.’
d) Derivation of adverbs from adjectives is also possible through suffixation of /–o/
for instance krasivo ‘beautifully’ from krasvjy’beautiful’ is similar to the short
form neuter (Lopatin 1980b, cited in Corbert 2006)
When the adjective is in attributive position it occurs between any determiner and the
noun generally. However if there is a complement it is postposed. A detail discussion was
not given on this in Russian. The adjective is the sole element in an NP in Russian, the
adjective especially the long form shows semantic agreement.
34
Cross-linguistically all the core semantic types of adjectives are expressed in Russian.
It is interesting to note that in Russian the colour terms consist of a special hierarchy as
Cobert cited Kay (1969:5), with the colour blue having two basic terms in Russian.Ga
also has the colour green having two basic terms; baaŋmɔŋ and eŋɔli , though these two
are hardly used nowadays. He noted also that possession may be denoted by derived
adjectives and some intensifiers that have adjectival meaning. Likewise, Ga uses the
word brown ‘brown’ often a borrowed item from English though there is the word
asrasu for the colour brown. A critical study was also done on numerals and their
agreement with the nouns in Ga. This is investigated in chapter six. Cobert (2006) also
discussed other lexical items which have adjectival properties and found out those
participles, adjectival nouns and some names have adjectival properties. Does this pertain
in Ga? It needs to be investigated, especially the names.
In summary, Russian adjectives have two syntactic properties and three
morphological properties. Though there are many adjectives in Russian, only a few
exhibit the features of canonical adjectives. The adjective distribution has two focal
points (predicate and second argument) those that are more verb-like and the more noun-
like ones which appear only in attributive slots.
Hansen (undated) discussed Iquito adjectives by investigating the uncharacteristic
characteristics, using the Dixon and Aikenvald (2004) adjective typology. The adjective
class in Iquito is a separate class from other word classes like nouns and verbs. The
morphosyntactic properties are very different from other word classes. The features that
they exhibit are commonly found in the literature, with the exception of two features that
were not common. Using data from elicitation sessions, text and interviews, the adjective
35
class was investigated. The adjective can precede or follow the noun when in attributive
function which is interesting as the position is not fixed, however, two nouns form
possessive construction. Adjectives in Iquito can also be used in comparative
constructions and they also modify verbs, as he cited Schachter & Shopen (2007), and
Dixon (2004:11) also emphasizes this issue. Adjective roots function as adverbs without
any marking. Adjectives can be marked to show plurality (number), and /or animacy
agreement, with the use of a portamanteau suffix. This distinguishes the adjectives and
nouns in Iquito. An interesting investigation done by Hansen was dimunitivisation of
nouns and especially adjectives with different inflectional markings. The paper gave a
comprehensive investigation of adjectives and it would be interesting to also study the
issues discussed. However, the unusual finding was the adjective classifiers which also
exhibit orientational clitics. These clitics may occur with the adjective or noun,
depending on the order or sequence in which they occur. All the morphological markings
occur with adjective roots to form free adjectives. Another interesting issue discussed in
the paper in detail is the derivational processes of adjectives that derive other word
classes. Before concluding the paper it was mentioned that adjective roots could also be
derived from other word classes and their morphosyntactic properties were outlined in
detail. The paper failed to give a comprehensive discussion of the semantic types of
adjectives in Iquito, The information on this in the paper was scanty but the current study
tried to probe further than what was described in Hansen’s paper.
Backhouse (1984, 2006) examined PCs in Japanese, while Genetti & Hildebrandt
(2006) investigated PCs in Manange, a Tibeto Burma language spoken in Annapurna
region of Himalayas in Nepal. In both studies, two groups of adjectives were found.
36
Backhouse divided these adjectives into two groups: i) inflected adjectives referred to as
i-adjectives and ii) uninflected adjectives which also have sub-divisions as na-adjectives
and no- adjectives, whereas Genetti & Hildebrandt refer to the PC words simply as
adjectives. An interesting issue in the study was that the two groups of adjectives in
Japanese have different inflections; whiles the i-adjectives are more like verbs, the na-
adjectives and no-adjectives are more like nouns. Based on Dixon’s seven semantic types
of PCs which are encoded by adjectives in languages that do have them, the Japanese
paper examined the seven types and found which of the two groups fill each type.
Dixon’s semantic classification was applied to the study and this, in my opinion, could be
used to examine PCs also in Ga. From the study it was concluded that Japanese falls
within the languages with a large open adjective class consisting of all or almost the
seven semantic types of classification of adjectives, based on Dixon (1982). Backhouse
further did a detailed study of the morphological properties of the types of Japanese
adjectives; he studied the differences in affixation and copula verbs that appear with
verbs and adjectives. Based on Backhouse’s approach, the researcher also found it
necessary to study the morphological properties of adjectival items in Ga. In studying the
uninflected adjectives in Japanese, a comparison was made between nouns syntactically
and the differences were clearly revealed. For instance, uninflected adjectives in Japanese
do not occur as head of NP. In addition, the similarities were also studied. It will also be
good to follow these steps of comparing adjectives with other lexical items in Ga in the
following chapters. It was further stated that inflected adjectives are similar to verbs
morphologically with some slight differences being exhibited among them. Does Ga have
these inflected verbs which are adjectival like? Yes is the answer. An example is below.
37
4. Nùú !lε é - yè òmɔ
man DEF PERF-eat rice
‘The man has eaten rice.’
5. Nú !lε é -dɔ՝
water DEF PERF-hot
‘The water is hot.’
From the example in (4) the verb yè ‘eat’ does not have adjectival meaning but the
second example in (5) contains a verb with adjectival meaning d ՝ ‘to be hot.’ All these
have morphologically been inflected for the perfect. The current work will check whether
all the inflections (affixes) for verbs could be taken by adjective-like verbs. The
researcher could say that verb-like adjectives in Ga normally do not have complements.
Syntactically, the Japanese inflected adjectives are similar to verbs but one main
difference is that they do not appear with auxiliaries. Apart from these two types,
Backhouse also noted semantic relations as well as semantic types of adjectives. To
discuss property concepts or coding items without studying the semantic types makes the
work incomplete and this would not be left out as the research covers property coding
items. In summary, Japanese has adjectives that can be grouped into two and are quite
different from other word classes such as nouns and verbs. Based on these divisions,
languages that have adjective classes and also make use of verbs to code adjectival
meaning could exhibit differences. This analysis was applied to Ga.
Genetti & Hildebrandt (2006) studies also explored a Tibeto- Burman language,
Manange, to investigate lexical items that code property concepts in the language. They
noted that two separate lexical classes code property concepts in Manange. The two
lexical classes are simple adjectives and verb-like adjectives. They demonstrated very
38
well in their paper the differences that exist between these two lexical classes and other
lexical classes like nouns. They discussed the morphological, syntactic and semantic
properties of these two lexical classes that code adjectival meaning. In addition, they
studied critically the phonological properties of these PCs which were investigated in the
current work as well. Table 2.1 below shows the features exhibited by the word classes in
Manange which summarize the differences among them.
TABLE 2.1 Comparison of properties of simple adjectives, nouns and verbs
PROPERTY
SIMPLE
ADJECTIVES
NOUNS
VERBS
Phonotactic Constraint
None
Many
Many
Affixation
None
None
Some
Head of NP
No
Yes
No
Post Nominal in NP
Yes
-
No
Occur as copula
complement
Yes
Yes
No
Morphological causation
No
No
Yes
(Genetti & Hildebrandt 2006: 88, Table 1)
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TABLE 2.2: Comparison of verb-like adjectives, simple adjectives and verbs
PROPERTY
SIMPLE
ADJECTIVES
VERB-LIKE
ADJECTIVES
VERBS
Conform to phonotactic constraints No Yes Yes
Morphological causatives No Yes Yes
Take verbal inflections No Some Yes
Intransitive predicate in perfective No Yes Yes
Intransitive predicative in
imperfective and irrealis
No
No
Yes
Post nominal in NP Yes Yes No
Occur in complement structures No No Yes
May occur as copula complement Yes Yes
May occur with adverbial
subordinating suffix
No
No
Yes
(From Genetti & Hildebrandt 2006:95, Table 3)
From the table 2.1, it is realized that simple adjectives in Manange cannot occur as heads
of NP and have no morphological causation whereas verbs have some morphological
causation. Further more, simple adjectives and nouns can occur as copula complements,
but verbs cannot be copula complements. In table 2.2, some features of Manange simple
adjectives are: they do not take verbal inflections, do not occur as intransitive predicate in
perfective and do not occur with adverbial subordinating suffix, whereas verbs exhibit
these features in Manange.
In Semelai, a Southern Aslian language, Kruspe (2006) concluded that adjectives
which serve as PC items are a distinct class, based on their morphosyntactic properties.
The Dimension and Colour semantic types of adjectives were found to be a subtype of
the adjective class. He finally stated that adjectives could not be grouped as a major word
class but a subclass of verbs, due to their characteristics that they share with the verbs in
Semelai. Ga has adjectives as a major word class and there are some verbs or verbal
equivalents for certain adjectives in Ga.
40
England (2004) examined a Mayan language, Mam, and found out that, like many
other languages true adjectives function as attributive and predicative. This is in contrast
with a Tibeto-Burman language, Quiang, in which adjectives function as intransitive
predicates only (La Polla & Hang 2006). In Ga some of the the adjectives that serve as
complements of the verbs in the predicate occur in the nominal forms, whereas verbs that
denote PCs occur as head of the Verb Phrase. Positional adjectives in Mam can only be
used predicatively. Though there exist in the Mam language a small number of adjective
roots, there are a large number of derived adjectives which are found in all the thirteen
semantic classes of adjectives proposed by Dixon (2004). Bobuafor (2013:103) also
posits that ideophonic forms, derived adjectives, verbs and relative clauses containing
PCs are used to express PCs in Tafi as only three deep level adjectives are found in the
language.
2.4 Chapter Summary
From the review of literature, it is clear that PCs have phonological, morphological,
syntactic and semantic properties which need to be studied. Phonologically the tone of
PC items may be examined to find if they change when they agree with the head nouns in
number and whether stress on a syllable has any effect on their meanings, where
necesaary. Some morphological issues to be dealt with include agreement markers with
nouns and gender/class markers. In terms of syntax, the position in which the PC item
appears, and whether we can have multiple PCs and the order in which they occur are
significant. The most appropriate framework to employ is the descriptive one in addition
to Dixon’s semantic classification of adjective types. The current research work adopted
these methods.
41
CHAPTER THREE
USING ADJECTIVES TO CODE PROPERTY CONCEPTS IN GA
3.0 Introduction
PC words come from different syntactic categories in languages. The syntactic categories
are mostly the major categories such as nouns, verbs, adjectives and adverbs. Palancar
(2006) states that PCs are also known as ‘adjectival’ concepts because they are expressed
by adjectives most often across languages. PCs are therefore mostly those lexical items in
languages that denote adjectival meaning. Though adjectives are used to express PCs in
languages, other word classes may also be used to denote adjectival meanings. Dixon
(2004:2) states and empahasizes the PC concept when he wrote that ‘a given concept may
relate to different word classes in different languages’ for instance the idea of ‘needing to
eat’ is expressed
a) by the adjective ŋamir in Dyirbal
b) by the noun ‘hunger’ in English, and by the noun faim in French;
c) by the verb esurio in Latin and by the verb-fimi- in Jawara.
(Dixon 2004:2)
The adjective as a syntactic category is not easy to define. According to Trask (1993:7),
an adjective is
a lexical category, or a lexical item belonging to this category, found in
many, though not all, languages, inflectionally and distributionally distinct
from the categories Noun and Verb, with which it typically shares the
characteristics of being an open class whose members have real semantic
content.
42
This chapter examines one of the categories used to denote PCs in languages and
discusses how they are used. The syntactic category to be examined is the adjective
category. The morphological, syntactic, and semantic properties of Ga adjectives are
examined. The phonological properties are also examined where necessary.
Studies (Ablorh 1982, Ablorh-Odjidja 1961, Bannerman 1948, Dakubu 2000, Kotey
1967) have revealed that Ga has adjectives and the membership is large. The adjective
class is examined, as studies have shown that languages that have the adjective class use
them more often to denote PCs than other syntactic categories. Christaller (1875:6)
defines an adjective as a ‘word added to a noun in order to mark or distinguish it more
accurately’. Bannerman (1948:9) has said that ‘words which restrict the meaning of
names are called name restrictives gbεi-suts l or adjectives’. Ablorh Odjidja (1961:12)
has described adjectives as ‘gbεi kadil aloo gbεi shishits l ’ that is ‘noun modifiers or
definers’ He further studied the plural formation of these noun modifiers and concluded
that it is realized through suffixation and reduplication. Dakubu (2002, 2003) made a
brief study of the adjective when investigating the structure of the Ga nominal phrase.
She found out that the adjective agrees in number with the head noun and more than one
adjective may be used to modify the head noun and therefore the adjective is the only
class that can be repetitive in the NP. Van Valin (2001:7) says ‘adjectives typically
express properties of entities’ whereas adjectives are defined in relation to nouns (Givon
2001:31). According to Tallerman (1998:30-32) the mode of identifying a word class is
by examining the forms the words assume morphologically, their position in the phrase or
sentence (distribution) and their function in the phrase or sentence.
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Dixon, in his earlier studies (1977, 1982) argued that the adjective category is not
found in all languages but after further research, Dixon (2004: 12) claims that there is an
adjective class in every language and even if it shares similarities with the noun and verb
classes in the language, there are definitely some subtle differences to clearly distinguish
adjectives from nouns and verbs. Dixon (2004:9-10) mentioned that the adjective class
shows variation in terms of size, unlike nouns and verb classes. Noun and verb classes
mostly have large membership and they are in the open class in languages. It is therefore
highly possible to add or form new nouns and verbs more easily than words in the closed
class like prepositions. Dixon also describes adjectives that are not derived as mainly
monomorphemic adjectives. Monomorphemic adjectives simply mean that these
adjectives cannot be segmented into two or more morphemes. The monomorphemic
adjectives consist of only one morpheme generally. Polymorphemic adjectives are those
that consist of more than one morpheme and mostly derived as they can be segmented.
No matter the size of the adjective class in terms of its monomorphemic membership
there are ways of adding to its membership most often through derivational processes.
The number of monomorphemic adjectives may range from 2-3, or 10-20 but the
membership size may increase as a result of the derivational processes from other
syntactic categories such as nouns and verbs, as well as adjective stems in a particular
language.
Dixon further grouped the adjectives into two classes. The two classes are non-
derived adjectives or monomorphemic adjectives which he simply refers to as deep or
basic adjectives and the other group termed as derived adjectives. One can therefore
44
conclude that adjectives can be put into two groups, the deep level group and the derived
group. Based on these two groups proposed by Dixon, Ga adjectives will be examined.
Ga has deep level adjectives as well as derived adjectives. Derived adjectives are
those adjectives that have their sources from either verbs or nouns or adverbs and
possibly phrases.
3.1 Brief Function of Adjective
Dixon (2001:67) noted that a class of adjectives should include words from all or some of
the semantic classes he proposed. Dimension, Value, Age, and Colour were the ones
noted by him to have adjectives expressing them. He further reiterated that the adjectives
from these semantic classes normally have functions, and according to Dixon (1982,
2004, 2006) the adjective class typically fills two roles (refer to page 6 &7 in chapter
one)
3.2 Sources of Ga Adjective
This section discusses the sources of Ga adjectives. Though Ga has a lot of adjectives
the membership is increased also through derivation. Adjective sources can be different
word classes as noted by Dixon (2004). Osam (2003:172) identifies three sources of
Akan adjectives. These three are:
i) Adjectives derived from verbs Example: kyew ‘fry’ kyewe ‘fried’
ii) Adjectives derived from nouns. Example: nsu ‘water’ nsuunsu ‘watery’
iii) Nouns used as adjectives. Example : osikanyi ‘rich person’
In the same vein, Ameka (2003) also postulated three sources of adjective derivation in
Ewe which are:
45
i) Adjectives from nominals. Example: dodo ‘stomach’ ga ‘big’, dodoga ‘big
stomached’
ii) Adjectives from verbals. Example: nyo ‘be good’ nyui ‘good’
ii) Adjectives from clauses. Example te ‘drag’ kpɔ ‘see’, -ma-tekpɔ ‘untried/
untested’
There is a similarity among Ga and Akan and Ewe languages, as far as the
derivational processes are concerned. From i) –ii) in Akan, affixation and reduplication
processes have been employed to derive the adjectives and these processes also pertain in
Ga as will be discussed shortly in this chapter. Affixation and compounding processes
have been employed in Ewe in i) –ii) above.The section discusses the sources of Ga
adjectives based on the two groups identified by Dixon as mentioned earlier. The two
groups are the deep level adjectives and the derived adjectives.
3.2.1 Deep Level Adjectives
The basic or deep level adjectives in Ga are clearly noted to be non-derived; they cannot
be segmented into any meaning parts. Below are examples in (4) of non-derived or deep
level adjectives in Ga.
Deep level adjectives
1) i) wùlù ’huge’ viii) fɔ ŋ ‘bad
ii) àgbò ‘big’ ix) bíbìóó ‘ small’
iii) hèè ‘new’ x) kpìtíóó ‘short’
iv) kàkàdáŋ ŋ ‘long’ xi) fε έfε ó ‘beautiful’
v) lε lε óó ‘narrow’ xii) kèkètèè ‘hard’
46
vi) lúkùtúú ‘round’ xiii) tɔ tr ɔ ɔ ‘fat’
vii) sàsàràà ‘ muscular/tough’
Deep level adjectives can be of different types in Ga as realized from all the Ga
adjectives I gathered/ encountered. The ones shown above in (1) do not look like
reduplicants. They are one morpheme words and cannot be divided. However, there are
some deep level adjectives that seem like they have been reduplicated in Ga. When such
words are divided or segmented into two or more parts, none of the parts would be
meaningful. These reduplicants are monomorphemic and therefore are deep level
adjectives. I would use the term ‘deep level reduplicants’ to refer to such adjectives in
this work. These seemingly reduplicant adjectives whose sources are not normally known
were also said to occur in Nafaanra (Atintono&Adjei 2008:19) and in Tafi (Bobuafor
2013:104). Their sources of derivation are not really known. Below are examples in (2)
of such ‘deep level reduplicant’ adjectives in Ga.
2) i) tsùkùtsùkù ‘crowded’
ii) ŋwàtàŋwátá ‘spotted’
iii) ŋmε lε ŋmε lε ‘coarse’
iv) ŋmɔ fúŋmɔ fú ‘bloated’
v) mómó ‘old’
vi) fùlùfùlù ‘powdery’
vii) pùèmpùèm ‘undercooked’
viii) fε tε fε tε ‘light’
ix) gblígblí ‘hard and crunchy’
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x) blóbló ‘thin/lanky’
xi) tr ótr ó ‘smooth’
For instance if blóbló ‘thin and lanky’ or tsùkùtùkù ‘crowded’ are divided into two
morphemes ‘bló- bló’, tsuku-tsuku none of the parts is meaningful in Ga. For the word
tsuku, a meaning could be derived when the tone pattern changes, to be high on the first
syllable and low on the second; a verb meaning ‘talk uproarisly’ would be derived.
These are one morpheme words that seem like reduplicants but in actual fact they are not.
Now examine the example in (3) below.
3) a. Mí - lé nùù blóbló.
1SG - know man thin and lanky
‘I know a thin and lanky man.’
It will be incorrect to say something like
b. *Mile nuu blo.
In the example in (3b) blo as one of the parts of the word blóbló does not have
meaning. All the deep level reduplicants cannot be segmented into two morphemes.
There, however, exists a word mó ‘well done’ in Ga. The adjective mómó ‘old, however
can occur in compounds. Where the adjective mómó ‘old’ occurs in compounds it is
realized as ‘mó’. This occurs in two words in Ga nùúmó ‘old man’ and yòómó ‘old lady’.
When the compound form is examined critically it is realized that the first syllable of
mómó is deleted with the tone left floating. This floating tone docks on the preceding
syllable and makes it high which was originally a low tone. Though the syllable mó is
deleted, its tone still has impact on the word. The examples in (4- 5) illustrate the use of
the adjective mómó ‘old’. In (4) the word mómó ‘old’ serves as a modifier for the noun
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màmà ‘ cloth’ and in (5) the word is found in the compound of nùúmó ‘old man’ which is
in subject position and yòómó ‘old woman’ which is the complement of the verb.
4) Màmá mómó kò ká bíε
cloth old certain lie.PST here
‘An old cloth is laying here.’
5) Nùúmó !lε ŋá yòòmó lε .
old man DEF greet-PST old woman DEF
‘The old man greeted the old man.’
3.2.1.1 Morphological Properties
In most languages of the world, adjectives can inflect for agreement, number, gender,
and class. For instance, in French, adjectives inflect for gender and number.Atintono &
Adjei (2008:23) note that adjectives in Nafaanra show animate concord with the head
noun. Example in Nafaanra
6 ). a. Tiŋe fiŋe b. sanyuun fiun
tree white bird white
‘a white tree’ ‘a white bird’
(Atintono & Adjei 2008:23 eg 39&40)
However in Ga, adjectives inflect to show number agreement with the nouns they
modify. The adjectives in Ga also take other affixes apart from plural affixes. This
section will examine number agreement, nominalization and reduplication.
3.2.1.2 Number Agreement
Deep level adjectives show number agreement with the nouns they modify when used
attributively. The number agreement is marked with the suffix -i (plural suffix) in Ga. In
Akan also, adjectives show agreement with the nouns they modify with the use of the
prefix /a-/ or /n-/ (Dolphyne 1988:86) . In Akan, with the prefix attached to the adjective,
the plural adjective can be reduplicated. The plural suffix –i, as mentioned, manifests
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itself in several forms, or simply put, has different realizations/ allomorphs. However,
three of these allomorphs are found to be prominent. These are: -i, -bii, and –ji. Below
are examples to illustrate in (7 ).
7) Singular Plural English Gloss
i) wùlù wùjì ‘huge’
ii) sàsàràà sàsàrài ‘tough/muscular’
iii) àgbò àgbòi ‘big’
iv) fɔ ŋ fɔ jì ‘bad’
vi) hèè hèi ‘new’
vii) kpìtíóó kpìtíbíi ‘short’
viii) pε m pε óó pε m pε bíi ‘medium sized’
ix) bíbìóó bíbìi ‘small’
x) túkúú túkúbíi ‘short’
The constructions below (8-11) show some of these adjectives used attributively to
show number agreement.
Singular:
8) Kójò mà tsù wùlù.
Kojo build.PST house huge
‘Kojo built a huge house.’
Plural:
9) Kojo mà-m tsù-i wù-jì.
Kojo build-ITR house-PL huge-PL
‘Kojo built huge houses.’
Singular:
10) Ajele jwà t hèè kò.
Ajele break.PST bottle new certain
‘Adjele broke a new bottle.’
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Plural:
11) Adjele jwàrà t -ì hè-ì kòmε -ì
Adjele break.PL bottle-PL new-PL certain-PL
‘Adjele broke some new bottles.’
From the above examples (8) and (10) the nouns tsu՝ ‘house’ and tɔ՝ ‘bottle’ are in
singular forms and agree with the adjectives. The adjectives wùlù ‘huge’ and hèè ‘new’
are in singular form. The examples in (9) and (11) show number agreement between
adjectives and nouns. When the nouns are plural the plural forms of the adjectives are
used. From the examples (9) and (11) the verbs also agree with the noun complements. In
brief, the adjectives and verbs both inflect for number to agree with the nouns. The object
agreement with the verb in Ga is common.
Though some of the adjectives inflect for number through suffixation, some of the
deep level adjectives in Ga show number agreement through reduplication which is
similar to some some Dimension adjectives in Nafaanra (Atintono & Adjei 2008:23).
Examples below in (12) illustrate
12) Singular Plural English Gloss
i) t t t t t t ‘fat’
ii) kèkètèè kèkètékèkètéè ‘hard’
iii) wàmàà wàmàwámàà ‘large and broad’
iv) bε dεε bε dε bε dε ε ‘very soft’
v) màtàà màtàmàtàà ‘slimy/dull’
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Before the plural forms are arrived at in example (12) above, the final vowel/syllable
in the adjective is deleted before the reduplication. In the plural which is reduplicated
forms of the singular, the second reduplicants have the full forms of the words with no
vowel deletion.
The constructions below (13 -16) elaborate further the use of some of the adjectives.
13) E-hìέ tòí wàmàà.
3SG-hold ear large.
‘He has a large ear.’
14) E -hìέ tòí-ì wàmà-wámàà.
3SG-hold ear-PL large-RED
‘He has large ears.’
15) Mi -nà yòò t t .
1SG-see woman fat
‘I saw a fat woman.’
16) Mi - nà yè - ì t t -t t .
1SG –see woman-PL fat -RED
‘I saw women.’
From the illustrations in (13) and (15) the singular forms of the adjectives wàmàà
‘large’ and t ՝t՝r՝ ՝ ‘fat’ are used attributively to agree with the singular nouns tòí ‘ear’
and yoo ‘woman’. When the nouns are in the plural forms in example (14) and (16) the
adjectives wàmàà ‘large’ and t ՝tr՝ ՝ ՝ ‘fat’ are reduplicated to be wàmàwámáá ‘large’ and
t t -t t ‘fat’ to show number agreement.
The deep level adjectives may all not be suffixed with the bound plural morpheme
to form their plurals or inflect for number agreement when used attributively. Some of
them, especially the deep level reduplicant adjectives generally, remain in the same forms
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whether they are used with singular nouns or plural nouns. Below are examples to
illustrate in (17).
17) Singular Plural
i) ŋwàtàŋwátá ‘spotted’ ŋwàtàŋwátá ‘spotted’
ii) ŋmε lε ŋmε lε ‘ coarse’ ŋmε lε ŋmε lε ‘coarse’
iii) ŋmɔ fúm ɔfú ‘bloated’ ŋmɔ fùmɔ fù ‘bloated’
iv) fùlùfùlù ‘powdery’ fùlùfùlù ‘powdery’
v) fε tε fε tε ‘light’ fε tε fε tε ì ‘light’
vi) bε tε bε tε ‘loquacious’ bε tε bε tε ‘loquacius’
vii) mómó ‘old’ méméjì ‘old’
viii) gblígblí ‘crunchy’ gblígblíi ‘crunchy’
ix) tr ótr ó ‘smooth’ tr ótr óì ‘smooth’
x) blóbló ‘slender’ blóblóbíì ‘slender’
In 17 (i-vi) the forms are the same and in 17 (vii-x) the forms are not the same as
they have been suffixed with the plural suffix -i. The adjective mómó ‘old’ has its stem
changing as seen in the (18) demonstration in (19).
18) Àdékà mómó kó mà tsù lε mlì.
box old certain lie room DEF inside.
‘There is an old box in the room.’
Plural Form:
19) Àdékà-ì mémé-ji kòmε -ì mà-mɔ tsù-ì lε amlì.
box-PL old-PL certain-PL lie-ITR house-PL DEF inside
‘There are some old boxes lying in the rooms.’
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Singular Form
20) E -yà - hé lòò fùlùfùlù nyε .
3SG-go -buy fish powdery yesterday
‘She bought powdery/broken fish yesterday.’
Plural form:
21) E - yà -hé lò-ì fùlùfùlù nyε .
3SG-go buy fish-PL powdery yesterday
‘She bought powdery fishes yesterday.’
From the above in (19) the adjectives mómó old is pluralized through the suffixation
process whiles the other in (21) fùlùfùlù ’powdery’ remains in the same form.
3.2.1.3 Nominalisation
The Ga deep level adjectives can be nominalised through affixation. This is done through
the prefixation of the bound morpheme e-. This prefix has the variant of zero allomorph
as realized on some of the adjectives. It must be noted that nominal forms of adjectives
are normally used when the interlocutors are aware of what the nominal form refers to in
their interaction.
An attempt is made to find out the condition under which the prefix occurs or not
occur before the end of the work. Below are Ga examples from the deep level adjective
group which show how they would appear in nominalized forms.
Adjective Gloss Nominal Form Gloss
22) i) wùlù ‘huge’ éwùlù (lε) ‘the huge one’
ii) kpèkpètèè ‘hard’ kpèkpètèè (lε) ‘the hard one’
iii) àgbò ’big’ àgbò (lε) ‘the big one‘
iv) bíbìóó ‘small’ bíbìóó (lε) ‘the small one’’
v) hèè ‘new’ éhèè (lε) ‘the new one‘
vi) kpìtíóó ‘short’ kpìtíóó (lε) ‘the short one’
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vii) kàkàdáŋ ŋ ‘long’ kàkàdáŋ ŋ ‘the long one ‘
viii) wàmàà ‘large’ wàmàà (lε) ‘the large one’
ix) lε lε óó ‘narrow’ lέlέóó (lε) ‘the narrow one’
x) kèkètèè ‘hard’ kèkètèè (lε) ‘the hard one’
xi) t t ‘fat’ t t (lε) ‘the fat one’
Below are examples of such adjectives used in constructions for further illustration
in (23-26).
23) Yòò t t !lε é -gbò.
woman fat DEF PERF-die
‘The fat woman is dead.’
24) T t !lε é -gbò.
fat DEF PERF-die
‘The fat one is dead.’
25) Máŋò kpákpá lέ é - tà.
mango good DEF PERF-finish
‘The good mango is finished’
26) É - kpákpá lέ fε ε é- tà.
NOM- good DEF all PERF-finish.
‘The good ones are finished.’
In (27) this is a popular Christian saying:
27) Ékpákpá kε mɔ bɔ nàlε aányìε mì - sε ε ……
Goodness and mercy shall follow-me……
In illustrations (24) ad (26) the nominal forms of the adjectives t t ‘fat one’ and
kpákpá ‘good’ has been employed to serve as the head nouns in the constructions. In (26)
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and (27) the nominal prefix is marked overtly on the adjective kpákpá ‘good’ but not on
the adjective t t ‘fat’ with zero allomorph in (27).
From the above (26) and (27 ) it can be concluded that when the adjective is prefixed
with the nominaliser e-, the outcome results in nouns as they can serve as subjects in the
construction, can occur with determiners. However, not all the adjectives are overtly
prefixed as in (24) for instance. It can be concluded that the prefix has an allomorph
which is the zero allomorph. Why some of the adjectives do not occur overtly with the
nominaliser prefix have not been studied. This work will make an attempt to investigate
this prefix in the next chapter.
The adjectives referred to as ‘deep level reduplicants’ remain in the same forms
when they are nominalised with the exception of a few like mómó ‘old’. These can be
seen below in (28). It will not be acceptable (whether in written or spoken form) to add
the nominaliser prefix to these deep level reduplicants.
28) Adjective Nominal Form
i) mómó ‘old’ émómó ‘ the old one’
ii) ŋwàtàŋwátá ‘spotted’- ŋwàtàŋwátá ‘the spotted one’
iii) ŋmε lε ŋmε lε ‘ coarse’ - ŋmε lε ŋmε lε lε ‘the coarse one.
iv) blóbló ‘lanky’ - blóbló lε ‘the lanky one’
v) fùlùfùlù ‘powdery’ - fùlùfùlù lε ‘the powdery one’
vi) fε tε fε tε ‘light’ - fε tε fε tε lε ‘the light one’
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3.2.1.4 Reduplication of Deep Level Adjectives
Adjectives can be reduplicated in Ga with the exception of the adjectives derived from
nouns. The reduplication normally shows intensity, emphasis and plurality. Reduplicated
adjectives semantically agree with the nouns they modify in number.
In examining the morphological properties of this group, those that could be prefixed
with the e- when in reduplicated form, can occur with the prefix when nominalised. For
instance in 29 (i) the adjective wùlù ‘huge’ in the nominal form will be ewùlù ‘the huge
one’. Those adjectives that take the zero morpheme when nominalised maintain that
position when they are reduplicated. The process is discussed as follows. For the
adjective to be reduplicated, for instance, wùlù ‘big’ is made plural to be wu ì ‘big. Pl’
then, the plural form is reduplicated to be wùjìwùjì. The noun form of the adjective wùlù
take the prefix e- and then becomes ewùlù ‘the big one' which can then be reduplicated
after it has been made plural to result in ewùjìewù i. It is ungrammatical to reduplicate the
singular form of the adjective, it must always be the plural form of the nominal.
29) Adjective Reduplicated Form Nominal Form(PL)
i) wùlù ‘huge’ w jìw jì ‘very huge’ ew jìew jì ‘the very huge ones‘
ii) bíbìóó ‘small’ bibiibibii ‘very small’ bíbíìbíbíì ‘the small ones
iii) kpìtíóó ‘short kpìtíbííkpítíbíì ‘very short’ kpìtíbííkpìtíbíì ‘the very
short ones’
v) gbíŋ ‘dry’ gbíjìgbíjì ‘very dry’ egbíjìegbíjì ‘the very dry ones’
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In (29) the adjectives occur, then the reduplication of the adjectives follow, this is
then followed by the reduplicated nominalised adjectives which are plural. (30a-b) show
some constructions where the reduplicants have been employed.
30. a) Tsè-ì bí –bíì -bíbíì pìì yε kòò lε mlì.
tree-PL small-PL-RED plenty is forest DEF inside
‘There are many small trees in the forest’.
b) Bí -bíì-bíbíì pìì yε kòò lε mlì.
small-PL-RED plenty is forest DEF inside
‘There are many small ones in the forest’.
3.2.1.5 Syntactic Properties of Deep level adjectives
This section examines the syntactic properties of deep level adjectives. This is examined
to find out if the deep level adjectives can function as attributes /modifiers and as
intransitive predicate or as copula complements; two common roles of adjectives. It is
possible for adjectives to play both or only one of these PC roles. The occurance of the
adjective in comparison construction will be examined briefly.
In examining the syntactic properties of the deep level adjective, let us look at the
examples in (31 -33) below.
31) Àwàlé àgbó !lε é –kùmɔ .
spoon big DEF PERF-break
‘The big spoon is broken.’
32) Mì-yε àdékà pε m pε óó kò.
1SG-have box little certain
‘I have a small box.’
33) Nùù gòjòó !lε é -tèè shía.
man tall/huge DEF PERF- go house
‘The tall man has gone home.’
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From the above examples (31-33) the deep level adjectives àgbò ‘big’, pὲmpὲòò
‘small’ and gòjòò ‘ huge/tall have all been used attributively. The Ga adjectives occur
after the nouns when they are used attributively, which is similar to Dangme(Ceasar p.c)
but unlike English. This emphasizes the role of the adjective as a modifier.
When the noun is plural the deep level adjective is also inflected to show number
agreement. The number marking could be done morphologically or through
reduplication. Below are examples showing adjectives agreeing with plural nouns (34-
36).
34) Àwàlé-ì àgbó-ì lε é - kù.
spoon-PL big -PL DEF PERF-break
‘The big spoons are broken.’
35) Mì-yε àdékà-ì pε m pε -bii kòmε -ì.
1SG-have box-PL little -PL certain-PL
‘I have small boxes.’
36) Hìì gójó-gòjòó ! lε é -tѐѐ shíà.
men huge-RED DEF PERF-went house
The tall men have gone home.
It is seen above (34-36) that when the nouns are plural the modifiers which are the
adjectives agree in number with the modified nouns. The adjectives are pluralised by
attaching the plural suffix /–i/ and /–bii/ as in examples (34-35) and reduplicating the
adjective gòjòò ‘huge’ in example (36).
As mentioned earlier, there are also deep level adjectives that seem like
reduplicants. These also serve as attributes for nouns. Instances are below in (37-39).
37) Sε í mómó kò mà bíε
chair old certain put here
‘There is an old chair here.’
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38) A՝tàdé ŋwàtàŋwátá lε é -tà
dress spotted DEF PERF-finish
‘The spotted is finished.’
39) E -tsí bàn kú bε tε bε tε
3SG-cook banku soft
‘She prepared the banku too soft.’
These also follow the noun they modify.
When the head nouns are plural some of these deep level reduplicant adjectives are
not marked for number agreement. That is to say there is inflectional marking on the
noun, but not on the adjective with the exception of mómó. Examples are below to
illustrate (40 -42).
40) Sε í -ì mémé-jì kòmε -í mà bíε .
chair-PL old -PL certain-PL put here
‘There are old chairs here.’
41) A՝tàdé-ì ŋwàtàŋwátá-ì lε é -tà
dress-PL spotted-PL DEF PERF-finish
‘The spotted is finished.’
42) E -tsí bàn kú bε tε bε tε
3SG-cook banku soft
‘She prepared the banku too soft.’
From the above example mómó ‘old’ in (37) has been inflected to agree with the
noun sὲíì ‘chairs’ by adding the plural suffix -ji to become méméjì in (40) which is an
exception. The example in (42) has not been marked for plural morphologically. The
reason is that the noun bàn՝kú is uncountable and generally remain in the same form in
both plural and singular. The adjective bε tε bε tε ‘very soft’ does not change form when
modifying a singular or plural noun. When these adjectives are used predicatively some
remain in the same forms and others are prefixed with the e-nominaliser. For instance, if
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the adjective àgbò ‘big’ in example (31) is used predicatively it will be with no prefix as
seen in (43) and when mómó ‘old’ is used predicatively it occurs with the prefix e- as
seen in (44).
43) Nùú !lε yε àgbò.
man DEF be big
‘The man is big’
44) Shíá lε é -fèé é -mómó.
house DEF PERF –do NOM-old
‘The house has become old’
3.2.1.6 Expressing the Comparative
Adjective elements in languages like English can be inflected to indicate comparative or
the superlative. In Ewe for instance the suffix /-tɔ/ KIND/TYPE is attached to the
adjective and can be interpreted as the comparative (Ameka 2003), just like English using
the bound morpheme –er to express comparative. When a word serves as a PC it is highly
likely to be found in comparative structure and also superlative constructions.
In Ga, the adjective is not inflected for comparison. The comparative is expressed
through periphrastic means. The comparative employs the use of the nominal form of the
adjective or the verb form if the adjective has its equivalence in a construction. This is
exemplified below (45-48).
45) Sε í nε -ε yε é -mómó fè énε
chair DET-DEF be NOM-old exceed one
‘This chair is older that one’
46) Wòlò nε -ε yε àgbò fè énε .
book DET -DEF be big surpass that
‘This book is bigger than that one.’
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47) Yòó !lε yε légélégé fè nùú !lε .
woman DEF be slim surpass man DEF
‘The woman is slimmer than the man.’
48) Wòlò díŋ lε yε fε tε fε tε fè wòlò tsùr lε .
book black DEF be light surpass book red. DEF
‘The black book is lighter than the red book.’
From the above examples (45-48) the forms of deep level adjectives occur in
comparative constructions with no change in form. However, unlike English, there is no
bound morpheme to indicate the comparative. Ga expresses the comparative with the use
of fè ‘surpass/exceed’. In example (47-48), reduplicants adjectives occur in comparative
structure with the use of the fè ‘surpass’. The example (49) below, is unacceptable and
example (50) is acceptable to the native speaker.
* 49) Yei lε yε kpitibiikpitibii fe hii lε
50) Yèí !lε yε kpìtí-bíì fè hìí lε .
women DEF be short-PL surpass men DEF
‘The women are shorter than the men.‘
3.2.1.7 Superlative
The superlative is expressed in Ga, through the use of the morphemes fè ‘surpass’ and fέέ
‘all’ occurring in the construction. The examples below in (51-53) illustrate these.
51) Yòó ! lε yε bíbìóó fè (amε) fε ε
woman DEF be small surpass (3PL) all
‘The woman is the smallest of (them) all.’
52) Yòó ! lε é -fèé blóbló fè ényε mímε i lε fε ε .
woman DEF PERF-become lanky surpass sibilings DEF all
‘The woman is the most lanky among her siblings.’
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53) Nyε kɔ mí lε yε fùlùfùlù fè fε ε .
yesterday kenkey DEF be powdery surpass all.
‘Yesterday’s kenkey is the most crumbly of all.’
The adjectives in the examples (51-53) remain in the same forms when they are used
to express the superlative in Ga. They have not been prefixed with e- . The fact is that
they do not take the prefix in nominalized forms. When it is an adjective that can take the
nominaliser prefix like mómó ‘old’ to become emómó ‘the old one’, then the nominalized
one would be employed in the superlative construction.
The adjectives derived from verbs hardly occur in a superlative construction. The
noun forms can occur in the superlative. However, it is more common to use the verb
forms. It can therefore be concluded that only noun forms or verbal equivalents of the
adjectives can occur in sentences expressing comparison, in addition to the morpheme fè
‘surpass/exceed for comparative and fè and fέέ for the superlative.
3.2.1.8 Semantic Types
In examining the semantic classifications proposed by Dixon (2004, 2006), Ga deep level
adjectives can be found in the following groups
Dimension Adjectives
This type of adjectives describes the size and shape of nouns. Examples of these
found in Ga are:
54) wùlù ‘huge’ bíbìóó ‘small’
lε lε óó ‘narrow’ àgbò ‘big’
kúkù ‘short’ kàkàdáŋ ŋ ‘long’
légélégé ‘thin/slim’ blóbló ‘slim’
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Most of the dimension adjectives in (54) are from the deep level adjective group. The
notion of animacy is sometimes applied in the use of these Dimension adjectives. For
instance, kàkàdáŋ ŋ ‘long’ is for inanimate things and àgbò ‘big’ for both animate and
inanimate. They generally do not take the nominaliser prefix and are mostly polysyllabic.
Value Adjectives
This type of adjectives is mostly used to show how good or bad an entity is. Examples
are illustrated below in (55).
55) fólò ‘empty’ fáléfálé ‘neat’ tsr՜ólóó ‘watery’
fὲέfὲó ‘beautiful’ kpákpá ‘good’ kp t kp t ‘dirty’
fɔ ŋ ‘bad’ táŋ ‘ugly’ kp t ‘nasty’
The Value adjectives in (55) above normally do not show animate distinctions and
can generally be attached with the nominaliser prefix.
Age Adjectives
This type of adjective indicated whether the noun has the feature of either oldness or
newness. Below are examples in (56).
56) hèè ‘new’ mómó ‘old’ ts b ts b ‘frail’
The first two deep level adjectives found in (56) can be nominalized and do not
show any animate distinctions when employed in constructions. They can be marked
overtly with the plural suffix /–i/ to agree with the head noun when the head noun is
plural. The last example in (56) above in the column exhibits the opposite of the first two
that is the it is attached with the e-prefix when it is used in nominal form.
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Physical Property Adjectives
Nouns that are described with physical property adjectives usually indicate their
roundness, softness or hardness. Examples are in (57) below.
57) i) lúkútúú ‘round’ iv) bɔ dɔ ɔ ‘soft’
ii) tr ótr ó ‘smooth’ v) fε tε fε tε ‘thin’
iii) kóklóó ‘round’ vi) kèkètèè ‘hard’
These Physical Property adjectives normally remain the same in the nominal forms
when they serve as complements.
Colour Adjectives
The colour adjectives from the deep level class are normally borrowed ones, as
illustrated in (58). This was revealed when the toy task was employed to seek how the
different colours are said in Ga. Apart from red, black and white for which the Ga
equivalents were mentioned, the participants of the toy task used English terms for the
rest of the colours.
58) i) ts r ‘red’ iii) ‘díŋ՝ ‘black’
ii) yέŋ ‘white’
iv) bluu ‘blue’ vii) grin ‘green
vi)oringi ‘orange’ viii) violeti ‘violet
For some of these borrowed words, there are indigenous equivalents, but they are
hardly used. For instance, the Ga word for the colour blue is akase but it is not often used
by speakers. A pensioner who was asked to describe a violet cup for me, did not use the
English term ‘violet’ but used the Ga term afaseo ‘violet’ in his description.
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3.3 Derived Adjectives in Ga
Apart from the deep level adjectives in Ga, adjectives can also be derived from other
word classes. The ways of derivation vary but the most common one is done through
affixation. The different word classes that are used to derive the adjectives are mostly the
major categories. The major word class categories are nouns, verbs and adverbs.
3.3.1 Adjectives Derived from Nouns
Nouns in Ga could be grouped into four major types. These are proper nouns, common
nouns, abstract nouns and collective nouns. Nouns in Ga are marked morphologically for
plural and are mostly found in subject position and they also serve as complements of
verbs in sentence structures. Ga has no noun class system and does not show any animate
agreement between the nouns and their modifiers. Below are examples in (59) of
adjectives derived from nouns.
59) Noun Process Adjective
i) nù ‘water’ nu –i nu- i nùìnùì ‘watery’
ii) kpàà ‘rope’ kpaa+i kpaa+i kpàìkpàì ‘stringy’
iii) tε ‘stone’ tε + i tε +i tε ítε í ‘stony’
iv) kpɔ ‘lump; kpɔ+i +kpɔ+i kpɔ íkpɔ í ‘lumpy’
v) tsò ‘stick’ tso+i + tso+i tsèìtsèì ‘stringy’
vi) ŋmèì ‘thorn’ ŋmei +ŋmei ŋmèìŋmèì ‘thorny’
vii) ŋòò’ salt’ ŋoo +ŋoo ŋòòŋòò ‘salty’
viii) shíá ‘sand‘ shia + shia shíáshíá ‘sandy’
ix) kòtsá ‘sponge’ kotsa +kotsa kòtsákòtsá ‘spongy’
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x) ŋmɔ tɔ ‘mud’ ŋmɔtɔ +ŋmɔtɔ ŋmɔ tɔ ŋmɔ tɔ ‘muddy’
It must be noted that in forming the plural for some nouns there is a vowel change
from o to e in the word especially when the word contains tsò. The plural suffix –i is then
added to arrive at the plural as in (59v).
Below are constructions (60- 62) that contain some of the adjectives derived from
nouns.
60) E - hòó wónù nùìnùì.
3SG-cook soup watery
‘She prepared watery soup.’
61) Aku shí fùfùí kpɔ kpɔ í.
Aku pound fufu lumpy
‘Aku pounded lumpy fufu.’
62) Ŋm ε nε mi-yà-hé òmɔ ŋòòŋòò kò.
today ISG-go-buy rice salty certain
‘Today I bought some salty rice.’
The adjectives derived through nouns undergo a process of reduplication. This was
noted by Dakubu (2002 :44) when she was discussing reduplication. She further iterates
that the tonal pattern does not change. In 59(i-vi), the nouns are first pluralized by
suffixing the nouns with the plural affix -i. The plural forms of the nouns are then
reduplicated to derive the adjectives. The process can be summarized and said to be
(Noun + plural suffix) + noun plural→Adjective and it is similar to Akan reduplication
process (Osam,1999, 2003).
The nouns in 59(vii –x) are not marked overtly to indicate number agreement but are
reduplicated to simply derive the adjectives. In (60-62) the adjectives derived from the
nouns are the bolded words.
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This process of forming adjectives from nouns in Ga is dissimilar to Ewe but similar
to Akan (Amfo et al 2007). Ewe uses the process of adding a noun plus an adjective to
form a compound in its derivation process of adjectives. Adjectives can be formed in
Ewe by reduplication of verbs and not reduplication of nouns.
The formation of plural nouns in Ga is mostly through suffixation. The plural marker
has allomorphs. Examples in (63) below are nouns and their plural forms.
63) Singular Plural
i) wòlò ‘book’ wòjì ‘ books’
ii) sε í ‘chair’ sε íì ‘chairs
iii) tsù ‘house’ tsùì ‘houses
iv) tsò ‘tree’ tsèì ’trees’
v) shínàà ‘door’ shínàì ‘doors
vi) àshìnáó ‘bead’ àshìnáóbíì’
vii) wàó ‘finger’ wàóbíì ‘fingers’
vii) gbɔ mɔ ‘person gb mε ì ‘persons’
From the noun plural forms in (63) above, the plural suffixes are /–i, -ji. –bii/.
Several reasons have been given by Ga scholar (Ablorh-Odjidja 1961:12-20) on the
conditioning of the noun plural suffix, but there have always been exceptions to this
claim. I agree to a large extent with his claims but will examine that again further in
chapter six, which discusses nouns that denote PCs.
The adjectives derived from nouns have the same forms when used attributively
with either singular or plural nouns.
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64) Singular Plural
i) nùìnùì ‘watery’ nùìnùì ‘watery
ii) shíáshíá ‘sandy’ shíáshíá ‘sandy’
iii) tε ítε í ‘rocky’ tε ítε í ‘rocky’
iv) ŋmèìŋmèì ‘thorny’ ŋmèìŋmèì ‘thorny’
v) kpɔ íkpɔ í ‘lumpy’ kpɔ íkpɔ í ‘lumpy’
vi) tsèìtsèì ‘stringy’ tsèìtsèì ‘spongy’
vii) ŋòòŋòò ‘salty’ ŋòòŋòò ‘salty’
Below are some examples in constructions.
Singular:
65) W -ts shìkp ŋ tε í-tε í lε n .
1PL-pass land rock-RED DEF on
‘We passed on a rocky land.’
Plural:
66) W -ts shìkp -jì tε í-tε í lε à-n .
1PL-pass land -PL rock-RED DEF PRF-on
‘We passed on rocky lands.’
Singular:
67) Mε ε síklìtε ŋòòŋòò nε ?
what toffee salty-RED this?
‘What salty toffee is this?’
Plural:
68) Mε ε síklìtε -ì ŋòòŋòò nε ?
what toffee-PL salty-RED this?
‘What salty toffees are these?’
In illustration (65) the head noun shikpɔ՜ŋ ‘ground/floor’ is singular and the adjective
tέítέí ‘rocky’ occur in its original form and when the noun is plural shìkpɔ՜ji ‘grounds’ in
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(66) the adjective tέítέí ‘rocky’ remains in the same form as no affix is attached to it like
the noun to indicate number agreement.
3.3.2 Nominalisation of Adjectives Derived from Nouns
The adjectives whose sources are nouns remain in the same forms in the nouns/nominal
forms. Their distributional and inflectional properties( affixes they take) in a sentence
give us the clue that they are nouns. The nominalised forms can serve as the head of the
NP, can occur as subjects and can occur with the modifiers like determiners and definite
article that are found in the Nominal Phrase (NP). It can be concluded that the
nominaliser morpheme realized on such adjectives is a zero morph. Below are the
examples in (69) and the processes involved.
69) Adjective Noun form
i) nùìnùì ‘watery’ nùìnùì ‘the watery one’
ii) shíáshíá ‘sandy’ shíáshíá the sandy one’
iii) tε ítε í ‘rocky’ tε ítε í ‘the rocky one’
i) ŋmèìŋmèì ‘thorny’ ŋmèìŋmèì ‘the thorny one’
ii) kpɔ íkpɔ í ‘lumpy’ kpɔ íkpɔ í ‘the lumpy one’
iii) tsèìtsèì ‘stringy’ tsèìtsèì ‘the spongy one’
iv) ŋòòŋòò ‘salty’ ŋòòŋòò ‘the salty one
Below are examples in constructions in (70).
70) a. È-shwε kókó nùìnùì lε pε .
3SG-left porridge watery DEF only
‘It is left with the watery porridge only.’
The nominal use is illustrated in (70b)
70
b. Hε ε , e-shwε nùìnùì lε pε .
really 3SG-left watery DEF only
‘Really it is left with the only watery one.’
A scenario can also be assumed where the sentence below in (71) can be uttered.
Two friends went out to buy popcorn. One friend asked the other, which kind of popcorn
she should get for the other - the salty popcorn or the sugar one? The friend answered
and said the sentence in (71).
71) Ŋòò-ŋòò lε ŋ .
salty-RED DEF be sweet
‘The salty one is sweet.’
In (71) the answer implies that the friend prefers the salty one. He said ŋòòŋòò
without mentioning the noun popcorn. It is generally common to employ the nominal
form of adjectives when the interlocuters are aware of the topic under discussion, and Ga
speakers also do that in conversation.
These adjectives can be reduplicated sometimes to show intensity and emphasis.
Below is a reduplicated adjective derived from noun in construction (72).
72) Dùàdé tsèìtsèì-tsèìtsèì nε
cassava spongy-RED PART
‘This is really spongy cassava.’
3.3.3 Syntactic properties of Adjectives Derived from Nouns
Examine the constructions below.
73) Kókó kpɔ íkpɔ í lε é - tà
porridge lumpy DEF PERF-finish
‘The lumpy porridge is finished.
71
74) Àtómò tsèìtsèì yε tsε n sí lε mlì.
potatoes stringy be saucepan DEF inside
‘There are some stringy potatoes in the saucepan.’
75) E-hòó wònú nùìnùì.
3SG –cook-PST soup watery
‘She cooked some watery soup.’
From the above sentences (73-75) the adjectives derived from nouns serve as
attributes like the other adjectives discussed already. However, they occur in the same
forms when used attributively with both singular and plural nouns. They seem also to
occur with uncountable nouns in most cases.
The adjectives that have their sources from nouns occur predicatively in the same
forms as complements of verbs. Examples below illustrate the use of this type of
adjectives (76-77).
76) Kókó lε yε kpɔ íkpɔ í.
porridge DEF posses lumpy
‘The porridge has a lot of lumps.
77) Òmɔ lε yε shíáshíá.
rice DEF possess sandy
‘The rice has some sand in it.’
In the illustrations in (76) and (77) above the adjectives kpɔ՜i՜kpɔ՜i ‘lumpy’ and
shíáshíá ‘sandy’ used predicatively have not been modified in any form. These adjective
can also occur in verbless sentencesi in Ga as demonstrated in (78-79) below.
78) Dùàdé tsèìtsèì nì
cassava spongy PART
‘This is spongy cassava.’
79) Tsèì-tsèì s ήή nε
tree-RED plenty PARTἡ
‘These are spongy ones.’
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In (78) and (79) the sentences are made up of NP and particles; the adjective in (78)
(bold) serves as modifier for the head noun and in (79) the adjective serves as the head
noun and subject of the sentence.
These adjectives derived from nouns can appear in comparative constructions in the
same forms with the use of fè in the comparative as shown below and to express the
superlative with fè and fέέ. The adjectives are in bold.
80) Wón !lε yε ŋòò-ŋòò fè wónù fε ε ní mì -yé.
soup DEF be salt-RED surpass soup all REL 1SG-ate
‘This soup is the most salty of all soup that I have eaten.’
81) Bàn kú nε ε yε kpɔ íkpɔ í fè nyε bàn kú lε
banku this be lumpy surpass yesterday banku DEF.
‘This banku has more lumps than yesterday’s banku.’
82) Bàn kú nε lε é-fi kpɔ fè nyε bàn kú lε.
banku DET DEF PERF-tie knot surpass yesterday banku DEF
‘This banku has more lumps in it than yesterday’s banku.’
In (80), the form of adjectives derived from nouns were accepted by a native-speaker I
interviewed, but after interviewing other elderly women, I realized that there are
instances where the nouns from which the adjectives are derived are what occur in the
comparison constructions as in (82) that is a verb with that noun as it complement is what
was used ‘-fi kpɔ ’ where kpɔ ‘knot’ is the noun from which the adjective in (81) is
derived.
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3.3.4 Semantic Types
In examining the semantic class where most of these adjectives derived from nouns could
fall in Ga, Value was identified for some while most of them express Physical property.
See examples in (83).
83) mújìmújì ‘dirty’ (Value)
Physical property:
84)
i) nùìnùì ‘watery’ iv) kpɔ íkpɔ í ‘lumpy’
ii) shíáshíá ‘sandy’ v) tε ítε í ‘rocky’
iii) ŋmèìŋmèì ‘thorny’ vi) kótsákótsá ‘spongy’
3.4 Adjectives Derived from Verbs
Another class of derived adjectives to be examined is those from verbs. This derivation
process is normally through affixation. Amfo et al (2007) noted that Ga derives adjectives
from verbs using the suffix –ŋ and sometimes –ru. However, upon further investigation
and data gathered, it was revealed that the suffix –i and –ra could be used in addition to
the suffixes Amfo et al (2007) mentioned. Reduplication of some verbs is also a process
used to derive adjectives in Ga as also noted by Dakubu (2002) and Otoo (2005). Since
the affixes used are more than one, each suffix is chosen based on the verb in question.
Below are examples (85) of adjectives derived from the verbs through suffixation.
85) Verb Affix Adjective
i) gbí ‘to dry’ -ŋ gbíŋ ‘dry’
ii) dí ‘to blacken’ -ŋ díŋ ‘black’
iii) yε ‘to whiten’ -ŋ yε ŋ ‘white’
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iv) shà ‘to rot’ -ra shàrà ‘rotten’
v) tsù ‘to redden’ -ru tsùrù. ‘red’
vi) lε ε ‘to widen’ kεtεε lε kε tε ε ‘wide’
vii) kpɔ tɔ ‘to rot’ -i kpɔ tɔ í ‘rotten’
viii) kpɔ՝fu՝ ‘to maltreat’ -u kpɔ fùù ‘bloated’
The process of deriving adjectives from verbs involves the suffixation of bound
morphemes to the root verbs. The suffixation of the verbs in order to derive the adjectives
in Ga has not been studied to know the conditions under which a particular suffix is
chosen. It can be seen from the above examples that verbs that end in front vowels take
the suffix –ŋ generally, and those verbs that have final high back vowels take the suffix -
ru. However, it must be noted that for the verb lὲέ ‘to be wide’ it has a special affix
kεtεε’ which is peculiar to only this verb in deriving an adjective. The allomorph is
therefore lexically conditioned. The back open-mid rounded vowel / / takes the _i suffix
and the low vowel takes the -ra suffix. To sum up briefly the process used in deriving
adjectives from verbs is Verb + suffix → Adjective. All the above verbs (85i-v) are
monosyllabic (one syllable word)) and 85 (vi-viii) are disyllabic words.
Reduplication is another process used to derive adjectives from some verbs in Ga.
Such verbs cannot be suffixed only to derive adjectives. That is to say a verb can go
through the two processes to arrive at an adjective category. The process may be one of
the two processes or both processes. This process is similar to one of the Ewe processes
in deriving adjectives from verbs as mentioned by Osam (2003:174). These verbs are not
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necessarily intransitive, there are transitive ones as well. Instances of these Ga adjectives
are given below in (86).
86) Verb Adjective
i) nyáŋѐ ‘to be disgusting’ nyáŋèm nyáŋèm ‘disgusting’
ii) kw ‘to be deep’ kw ŋ kw ŋ ‘deep’
iii) bódà ‘to bend’ bódàìbódàì ‘crooked/mangled’
iv) gbá ‘to tear’ gbálàìgbálàì ‘torn’
v) tse ‘to tear ‘ tsèrε itsèrε ì ‘tattered’ tsέrìtsέrέì
vi) kpl ‘to scrape’ kpl ìkpl ì ‘untidy’
vii) sòrò ‘to differ’ sòròsòrò ‘different’
viii) nyáfí ‘to despise’ nyáfínyáfí ‘fretful’
ix) fítsírí ‘to pry into’ fítsírífítsírí ‘inquisitive’
x) kótó ‘to bend over kótókótó ‘old and bent’
xi) kp t ‘to pollute’ kp t kp t ‘dirty’
From (86) above, the process for the derivation of the adjectives from the verbs
involves the reduplication of the verbs. The reduplication processes used to derive these
adjectives differ. It is mainly of two forms. First there are those verbs that are suffixed
before they are reduplicated to derive the adjectives. Those that are suffixed do not use
the same suffix though. In example (86i) for instance the verb nyágè ‘ to disgust’ is first
nominalised with the suffix -m which results in the noun nyágèm , then the noun form
is reduplicated to arrive at the adjective. On the other hand, other verbs such as those in
(86ii–v) are first pluralized or put in the distributive/iterative forms. For instance gbá ‘to
tear’ is suffixed with -la to be gbálá then is reduplicated and suffixed with the -i to arrive
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at the adjective gbáláigbálái ‘torn’. The distributive/iterative suffix for verbs is not only
-la but there are others like -rε as in (86v).
The other verbs in (86vi- xi) are simply reduplicated to arrive at the adjectives. No
suffixation is made.
3.4.1 Number Agreement
The verbal adjectives can also be suffixed with the plural suffix to inflect for number.
These are realized below.
87) Singular Plural English gloss
i) gbíŋ gbíji ‘dry’
ii) díŋ díji ‘black’
iii) yε ŋ yε ji ‘white’
iv) tsùrù tsúji ‘red’
v) shàrà shárai ‘rotten’
vi) lε kε tε ε lὲkὲtὲlὲkέtέέ ‘wide’
It can be noted that the adjective in (90vi) marks for number through reduplication.
It is an exception in this of type adjectives derived from verbs. All the rest of the verbs in
(87) show number agreement through suffixation.
Some of the adjectives derived from verbs are used in the constructions below (88-
91).
88) E -yé blòdò gbíŋ
1SG-eat bread dry
‘He ate dry bread.’
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89) E -yé blòdò gbí-jì.
1SG-eat bread dry-PL
‘He ate dry bread.’
90) E -tsé màmá tsúrú lε .
3SG-tear cloth red DEF
‘He tore the red cloth.’
91) E-tsérε màmá-ì tsú-ji lε .
3SG-tear cloth-PL red-PL DEF
‘He tore the red clothes.’
In (88) above the noun blo՝do՝ ‘bread’ is modified by gbíŋ ‘dry’ in the singular
form. In (89) it is realized that the plural form of the adjective gbíjì ‘dry’ is used but
the noun blo՝do՝ ‘bread’ has remained in the same form. This is because the word ‘bread’
does not change its form to inflect for plural as it is an uncountable noun. It remains the
same whether singular or plural and this happens a lot in Ga especially with food items.
If the noun were to be tsò ‘tree’ which is being modified by gbíŋ the noun will be tsèì
‘trees’ to agree with the adjective. In (90) the noun màmá ‘cloth’ is pluralized in (91)
màmái ‘clothes’, the adjective form tsùrù ‘red also shows number agreement with the
noun màmái ‘clothes’ in (91), that is tsùji ‘red’.
The other group of adjectives that are derived from verbs through reduplication
does not inflect for number. Such adjectives remain in the same forms whether the nouns
they modify are singular or plural.
92)
Singular Gloss Plural Gloss
i) nyáfínyáfí ‘fretful’ nyáfínyáfí ‘fretful’
ii) nyáŋèm nyáŋèm ‘disgusting’ nyáŋèm nyáŋèm ‘ disgusting’
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iii) kw ŋ kw ŋ ‘deep’ kw ŋ kw ŋ ‘deep’
iv) sòròsòrò ‘different’ sòròsòrò ‘different’
v) bódàìbódàì ‘crooked’ bódàìbódàì ‘crooked’
vi) gbálàìgbálàì ‘torn’ gbálàìgbálàì ‘torn’
vii) tserε ìtserε ì ‘tattered’ tserε ìtserε ì ‘torn’
viii) kp t kp t ‘dirty’ kp t kp t ‘dirty’
ix) kp ՝f kp ՝f ’ bloated kp ՝f kp ՝f ‘bloated
x) kpl ikpl ì ‘untidy’ kpl ìkpl ì ‘untidy’
Some of the adjectives in (92) are used in sentences for further illustration.
Singular Form:
93) Mi -sùm - àtàdé tserεì-tserεì.
1SG -like –NEG dress torn-RED
‘I don’t like torn dress.’
94) Bú kw ŋ -kw ŋ yε gbε lε n .
hole deep-RED be road DEF on
‘A deep hole is on the road.’
Plural Form:
95) Mi – sùm - àtàdé-i tserεì-tserεì.
1SG- like –NEG dress-PL torn-RED
‘I don’t like torn dresses.’
96) Bú -i kw ŋ -kw ŋ yε gbε lε n .
hole-PL deep-RED be road DEF on
‘Deep holes are on the road./There are deep holes on the road.’
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In the illustrations in (93) and (94) the nouns àtàd ‘dress’ and bú ‘hole’ are in the
singular forms and the forms of the adjectives are tserέi-tse εi ‘tattered’ kw ŋ kw ŋ
‘deep’ respectively. When the nouns are plural in (95) and (96) the forms of the
adjectives tserεi-tserεi ‘ tattered’ kw ŋ kw ŋ ‘deep’remain in the same forms.
3.4.2 Nominalisation of Adjectives from Verbs
Adjectives derived from verbs can also be prefixed with the e- or the zero allomorph to
arrive at their nominal forms. Below are examples in (97).
97)
Adjective Process Noun
i) gbíŋ ‘dry’ é-+gbíŋ egbíŋ ‘the dry one’
ii) díŋ ‘black’ é- + díŋ edíŋ ‘the black one’
iii) yε ŋ ‘white’ é- +yε ŋ eyέŋ ‘the white one’
iv) tsùrù ‘red’ é-+tsùrù ets r ‘the red one’
v) shàrà ‘rotten’ shara shàrà ‘the rotten one’
vi) lε kε tε ε ‘wide’ lε kε tε ε lὲkὲtὲὲ ‘the wide one’
vii) kp t í ‘rotten’ kp t í kp t i ‘the rotten one’
From the above in (97) the zero morph is realized on the adjectives in (97v-vii). It
will be ungrammatical/ unacceptable to attach the prefix to them. The prefix is however
attached to the ones in (97i-iv) which is acceptable.
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The other types of adjectives derived from verbs through reduplication do not also
take the e- prefix. They remain in the same form on the surface. Below in (98) are
instances.
98) Adjective English Noun English
i) nyáfínyáfí ‘fretful’ nyáfínyáfí ‘fretful one’
ii) nyáŋèm nyáŋèm ‘disgusting’ nyáŋèm nyáŋèm ‘disgusting one’
iii) kw ŋ kw ŋ ‘deep’ kw ŋ kw ŋ ‘deep one’
iv) sòròsòrò ‘different’ sòròsòrò ‘different one’
v) bódàìbódàì ‘crooked’ bódàìbódàì ‘crooked one’
vi) gbálàigbálài ‘torn’ gbálàìgbálàì ‘torn one’
vii) tsérε ìtserε ì ‘tattered’ tserεitsérεi ‘tattered one’
vii) kp t kp t ‘dirty’ kp t kp t ‘dirty one’
ix) kp fukp fu ‘bloated’ kp fukp fu ‘boated one’
x) kpl kpl i ‘untidy’ kpl kpl ì ‘untidy one’
Examples in (98) indicate the adjectives in their nominalised forms. The clue is that
the nominalised form is the head of the NP as well as the subject and that it occurs with
the noun modifiers, lέ ‘definite article’ and pέ ‘only’. If it were not the nominal form it
cannot occur with the noun modifiers and be grammatical.
99) Nyáfí-nyáfí lε pε bá.
Small-small DEF only came
‘Only the fretful one came.’
More examples of such adjectives and their nominal forms are in (100- 102)
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Noun modified by Adjective:
100) Gbékε nyáfí-nyáfí kò é - hò
child small-small certain PERF-pass
‘The fretful child has passed.’
Nominal form of adjective:
101) Nyáfí-nyáfí lε e - hò ékóŋ ŋ .
fretful-RED DEF PERF-pass again
‘The fretful one has passed again.’
Nominal form of adjective bódàibódài ‘crooked’ used in sentence (105) below.
102) Nε gbε bódàì -bódàì lε yɔ ɔ ?
where crooked-RED DEF is
‘Where is the crooked one?’
(101) and (102) will be completely unacceptable to the native speaker when they are
written with the e- attached to them even in the spoken form. These adjectives, when
nominalized can be modified by other adjectives for example.
103) Bódàìbódàì mómó l é -f
bent old DEF PERF-wet
‘The old crooked one is wet.’
In illustration (103), the adjective mómó ‘old’ modifies the head noun bódàìbódàì
‘crooked’
3.4.3 Syntactic Properties
These adjectives derived from verbs can be used attributively as well as predicatively.
Below are examples showing both their attributive and predicative uses. Most of these
adjectives occur with the prefix e- when they serve as predicatives or complements of
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verbs. These therefore become nominals. There are however a few that remain in the
same form. Examples in (104- 109) illustrate their attributive use.
104) Aku kè mì lòò gbíŋ nyε .
Aku give 1SG fish dry yesterday.
‘Aku gave me some dry fish yesterday.’
105) Àtàdé yε ŋ lε é -gbá .
dress white DEF PERF-tear
‘The white dress is torn.’
106) Mì-hé màmá díŋ .
1SG- buy cloth black
‘I bought a black cloth.’
107) É -kúdɔ - ɔ tsɔ nè tsùrù kò.
3SG-drive-HAB car red certain.
‘ He drives a red car.’
108) É - gbèé bú kwɔ ŋ kwɔ ŋ lε mlì.
3SG –fall pit deep DEF inside
‘S/He fell into a deep pit.’
109) Yòó !lε shà màmá tsérε ìtsérε ì lε
woman DEF burn cloth torn DEF
‘The woman burnt the torn cloth.’
In examples (104-109) the adjectives used are those derived through affixation gbíŋ
‘dry’, yέŋ՜ ‘white’, díŋ ‘black’, tsùrù ‘red’ and those in examples (108) and (109) are
those derived through reduplication kwɔ՝ŋ՝kwɔ՝ŋ՝ ‘deep’, ts rὲtsérὲi ‘tattered’. These can
also be used attributively and some are inflected for number to agree with the head nouns
they modify. Examples (110-112) illustrate.
110) Aku kè mì lò-ì gbí-ji nyε .
Aku give 1SG fish-PL dry-PL yesterday.
‘Aku gave me some dry fish yesterday.’
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111) Àtàdé-ì yε -jì lε é -gbàla.
dress-PL white-PL DEF PERF-tear
‘The white dresses are torn.’
112) Mi- hé màmá-ì dí-ji.
1SG- buy cloth-PL black-PL
‘I bought black clothes.’
It must be noted that in the process of marking the plural morphologically, the
adjective suffix is removed and the plural markers are attached as in gbíji ‘dry’, yέji ‘
white’ díji ‘black’.
Considering the adjectives whose sources are verbs, they occur as complements in
nominal forms as illustrated example (113-116). It must be noted that adjectives that can
be nominalised with the e-prefix occur in the nominal forms when used as complements
of copular verbs in (113) and (114) and those that are not prefixed occur in the same
forms as in (115) and (116).
113) Lòó ! lε yε é -gbíŋ
fish DEF possess NOM-dry.
‘The fish is dry.’
114) Àtàdé lε yε é -tsùrù.
dress DEF posess NOM-red
‘The dress is red.’
115) Bú lε yε kwɔ ŋ kwɔ ŋ .
pit DEF possess deep.
‘The pit is deep.’
116) Shíá lε yε lε kε tε ε .
house DEF possess wide.
‘The house is wide.
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It is ungrammatical to use these adjectives that are derived from these verbs in
predicative position as shown in (113-114). Though these constructions are uttered, it is
more common to find speakers using their verbal equivalents.
For instance, it is more common to hear example (117) and (118) instead of (113) and
(114) respectively.
117) Lòó ! lε é -! gbí .
fish DEF PERF-dry
‘The fish is dry.’
118) Bú lε mlì kwɔ .
hole DEF inside be deep
‘The hole is deep.’
It seems that these types of adjectives derived from verbs are restricted in a way, all
are not nominalised to be in the predicative position as adjectives do. The verbal
equivalents are more commonly used since nominal forms are absent. Where there are no
verbal equivalents, the nominal forms are used predicatively.
119) a.Yòómó ! lε àméò lε é-kpɔ tɔ fè yòó ! lε àméò
old lady DEF tomatoes DEF PERF-rot surpass woman DEF ameo.
‘The old lady’s tomatoes are more rotten than the woman’s tomatoes.’
The construction above (119a) shows the verb form kpɔ tɔ ‘to rot’ from which the
adjective kpɔ tɔ i ‘rotten’ is derived used in a comparative construction. The adjective can
also be used as below
b. Yòómó ! lε àméò lε yε kpɔ tɔ i fè yòó ! lε àméò
old lady DEF tomatoes DEF pssess rotten surpass woman DEF ameo.
‘The old lady’s tomatoes are more rotten than the woman’s tomatoes.’
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3.4.4 Dixon’s Semantic Classes
Adjectives derived from verbs can normally be found in the Value (120), Dimension
(121), Colour (122) groups as shown below.
120) tsérε tsérε ì ‘tattered’ kpɔ tɔ i ‘rotten
121) kwɔ ŋ kwɔ ŋ ‘deep’ lε kε tε ε ‘wide’
122) ts r ‘red’ yέŋ ‘white’
3.4.5 Another Semantic Class Identified in the Colour Class
There are mainly three basic colour terms in Ga that are derived from verbs. There are
two deep level ones eŋɔli ‘green’ which has another alternative lexeme in Ga baa ŋmɔŋ
literally meaning ‘fresh leaf’. One colour wuɔfɔ ‘yellow’ is a compound word
consisting of wuɔ ‘hen’ + fɔ ‘oil’ and also asrasu ‘brown’ consists of asra + su ‘snuff +
colour’. The others that I gathered were all from borrowed terms as this was confirmed
by employing the toy task where the participant used the borrowed terms. Below are the
three derived ones:
123) díŋ ‘black’ yε ŋ ‘white tsùrù ‘red
3.5 Adjectives Derived from Adverbs
It must be noted also that there are adverbs that function also as adjectives. These few
words cut across the two major categories. The label given to these lexical items are both
the adjective and the adverb in the Ga dictionary and those are examined in this chapter
as well. These adjectives do not go through any process to be derived and I believe this
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can be conversion. I guess the usage or distributive pattern determines which category
they fall into a particular construction. These are exemplified in (124) below.
124) i) blε òò ‘slow’
ii) gìdìgìdì ‘boisterious
iii) gb ŋ gb ŋ ‘fat and sluggish
iv) fáléfálé ‘neat’
v) t tr ‘ flat’
vi) kpóó ‘quiet mannered’
vii) kpéŋ ‘brittle’
viii) vìì ‘dull’
Let’s examine the constructions below in (125-128).
125) É -t mì kε e-wìém blε òò lε .
3SG-tired 1SG and 3SG-speech slow DEF.
‘His slow speech bored me’
126) Àbìfáó lε wám ՝ blε òò / -wìé blε òò.
child DEF crawl slow/ 3SG –speak slowly
‘The child crawled slowly.’/he spoke slowly’.
127) Nùú gìdìgìdì lε yí lε .
man bosterious DEF beat-PST 3SG
‘The boisterous man beat him.’
128) Nùú ! lε yì lε gìdìgìdì.
man DEF beat-PST 3SG carelessly
‘The man beat him carelessly.’
From the above examples the words in (125) and (127) blὲòò ‘slow’ and gìdìgdì
‘boisterous’ have been used attributively for the nouns ‘child’ and ‘man’. They serve as
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adjectives due to their syntactic occurrence in the construction. In examples (126) and
(128), the words have been used as adverbs as they modify or indicate the manner in
which the actions took place. The manner in which the child crawled/spoke and the
manner in which the man beat the person are denoted by the words blὲòò ‘slow’ and
gìdìgidì ‘boisterous’ and therefore are adverbs in those instances.
These adjectives that also function as adverbs are very restricted, in that they do not
collocate with just any noun, but specific ones. Also, though they appear as complements
of the verbs in the illustrations below, their analyses depend on the verbs used. In Ga, the
verb yὲ means ‘to have’ or ‘to possess’. When the meaning ‘to have’ is considered, then
the adjectives occurring in the complement positions are nouns/ nominal forms in
examples (129) and (130). On the other hand, if I employ the meaning ‘to be’ for the
verb yὲ then they are adverbs in the positions in the sentences. The semantics of the verb
plays a vital role in this instance.
129) Nùú ! lε yε blε òò.
man DEF be slow
‘The man is slow.’
130) Yòó !lε yε gbɔ ŋ gbɔ ŋ .
woman DEF be fat.
‘The woman is fat.’
These adjectives that can also be adverbs through conversion normally remain in
the same forms when they occur with plural nouns. They also normally are not attached
with the prefix e- to serve as head nouns. They can occur in constructions that express
degree in the same forms.
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From this category of adjectives gathered so far, the only semantic type found was
the speed type.
Speed Adjectives
These describe the slowness or fastness of entities denoted by the nouns. The
examples are listed below.
131) blε òò ‘slow’ gìdìgìdì ‘rough’ kpóó ‘quiet mannered’
3.6 Chapter Summary
In summary, the chapter examined adjectives that serve as PC items in Ga. It was realized
that Ga has a lot of adjectives which consist of both deep level adjectives and derived
adjectives. The stock of adjectives in Ga can be increased through derivation from nouns,
verbs, and adverbs. Adjectives from nouns are derived mainly through reduplication.
Verb-like adjectives, if I could use that term from Dixon (2001) , are derived either
through suffixation or reduplication. The adjectives from adverbs are not derived but
could be placed in both syntactic categories based on their distributional features in the
sentences.
The morphological properties of adjectives in Ga revealed that deep level adjectives
and verb-like adjectives derived through suffixation can be inflected for number
/agreement with the nouns they modify. Most of verb-like adjectives derived through
reduplication, do not inflect for number with the nouns they occur with. However, there
are exceptions with the adjectives derived from nouns, and adverbs not being marked
overtly but they agree semantically to show number agreement. The Ga adjectives can be
nominalised by prefixing with e- or by a zero morph. Adjectives derived from nouns
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normally are not prefixed with e-. Adjectives can also be reduplicated to show intensity,
with the exception of those derived from nouns.
Syntactically, the Ga adjective may be used predicatively depending on the source.
Some are often nominalised when they occur in predicative positions, whereas others
remain in the same forms. The Ga adjectives serve only as attributes just like Ewe
adjectives which only serve as attributives. They occur after the nouns they modify in
attributive position. A periphrastic construction is used to express the comparative with
the use of the morpheme fè ‘surpass’ in addition to the nominal form of the adjective.
The forms found in the comparative construction to express degree may be the same
forms as the adjectives or may be prefixed with e-. When there are verb equivalents they
could also be used. In the superlative, the morpheme fè ‘surpass or exceed’ and fέέ ‘all’
are used in the structure to express the superlative with the nominal form of the adjective
occurring in between the morphemes fè and fέέ. The verbal equivalent of the adjective
can be used in such constructions, if available, to occur in comparative construction.
From the discussions made so far six semantic types of adjectives out of the thirteen
proposed by Dixon’s (2004, 2005) classification were identified in Ga.
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Endnotes
i Ga has sentences that consist of particles which occur sentence intitial or final and NPs.
For full discussion see Dakubu 2003
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CHAPTER FOUR
SEQUENCING OF ADJECTIVES IN GA
4.0 Introduction
The phenomenon of using PC words to describe nouns is not uncommon in the world’s
languages. Adjectives which serve as one of the syntactic categories which modify nouns
are not arranged haphazardly. There is an order which is preferred by the native-
speakers, especially when several adjectives are used in attributive position. There may
be languages which may not have a very strict order but these languages may have the
most preferred order. English, for instance, has a strict order of adjectives and also has
prenominal and central adjectives (Teodorescu, 2006). Scholars have proposed preferred
ordering of adjectives, among who are Sproat and Shih(1991) cited by Teodorescu (2006)
for Chinese, their order being Quality-Size-Shape-Colour-Provenance. Cinque(1994)
gives the order Possess- Speaker Oriented-Subject Oriented-Manner/Thematic. The order
evaluative-size-shape-condition-Human-Propensity-Age-Colour-Origin-Material-
attributive noun is given by Mckinney-Bocks (2010). The orderings proposed by these
scholars were normally based on how they grouped or divided the PC items found in the
languages, mostly English, they were investigating. Dixon (1982) whose classification is
being employed in this work, gives the following order for English: Value-Dimension-
Physical Property-Speed-Human Propensity-Age-Colour. None of these orderings were
said to be universal for all languages and it will be appropriate to investigate a language
before giving any order that may be preferred in that language.
Teodorescu (2006) did a semantic analysis of adjective order restrictions in
English and argued that there are exceptions to the ordering as different sequencing may
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yield different truth conditions. In his investigation he noted some instances where
adjective ordering is not restricted. The first instance was multiple adjectives that bear
comma intonation where sequencing is unrestricted, that is, when the multiple adjectives
are separated by commas any order is possible. Examples are shown below in (1a-b).
1) a. She loves all those wonderful, orange, oriental ivories.
a. She loves all those wonderful, oriental, orange ivories.
b. She loves all those oriental, wonderful, orange ivories.
In example (1a) above the order of occurrence is Quality – Colour –Provenance.
Once the comma is placed, the ordering of the adjectives is unrestricted, as noted by
Teodorescu (2006). Thus (1b) and (1c) can be written due to the comma between the
multiple adjectives employed.
The second instance where adjective ordering is unrestricted is focusing as noted
by Cinque (2005b). He noted that when the speaker is focusing on a particular PC item
the order does not follow the order known in that particular language, for instance.
2) a. small black purse.
If the speaker wants to focus on size then size (small) is placed before colour (black) as in
(2a) or when the speaker’s focus is on colour then it will occur as in (2b) below.
b). black small purse.
where colour comes before size. (Cinque 2005b)
Another instance where adjectives are freely ordered, citing Sproat &Shih (1991:565) is
when operator adjectives are used. The operator adjectives Sproat& Shih(1991) discussed
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were the words ‘former’ and ‘alleged’. The examples given in Teodorescu (2006: 401)
are in (3).
3) a. a famous former actor
b. a former famous actor
c. a famous alleged actor
d. an alleged famous actor.
He noted that two operator adjectives can also occur and their order is also free as below
e. a former alleged actor.
Citing Sproat &Shih (1991) again Teodoscure (2006) also mentioned that adjectives
that are homophonous with reduced relatives are also ordered freely. The example given
was in Mandarin Chinese as below in (4).
4) a. hao -de yaun -de panzi. (quality-shape)
good –DE round-DE plate
b. yaun-de hao -de panzi. (shape-quality)
nice DE good-DE plate
‘nice round plate’
(Sproat & Shih 1991:565)
The final situation where adjective ordering is also unrestricted as discussed by
Teodoscure (2006) is when there is indefinite superlative. In this instance, ambiguity may
occur and must be taken care of. However, if it is a definite superlative it must follow the
restricted order. Consider example (5) below.
5) This class has a shortest Italian student.
which can be interpreted as
shortest student from Italy is in the class or Italian shortest student. If the
adjectives were plain the ordering would have been restricted as well.
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In example (6) the order is restricted because it is a definite superlative
6) The Dean praised the shortest Italian student.
it will be incorrect to say as it is definite.
*The dean praised the Italian shortest student.
In a study by Malouf (undated), he iterated that sometimes some ordering of PC
items are wrongly arranged but it is done purposely to convey an unintended meaning to
the hearer.
Many studies have been carried out on adjectives in languages across the world,
(Bhat 1994, Osam 1999, Adjei 2007, Dixon 1977, 1982, 2004, Naden 2007, Dainti 2007,
Ahranjani 2011, Hansen 2013) just to mention a few. However, the ordering of multiple
adjectives has not received much attention. Pokua (2003) and (Pokua et al 2007) have
investigated the order of adjectives in Akan; Dakubu (2000) mentioned briefly adjectives
in Ga but much detail was not given. The chapter investigates the ordering of several
adjectives serving as attributes for nouns in Ga.
The adjectives that would be examined will be from Dixon’s semantic
classification of adjectives (1982, 2004). The adjectives would be sampled and some
selected for the purpose of this work, especially when all the classifications are not filled
with adjective category in Ga but other word classes can occur in some of the slots.
Semantic classification of PCs that adjectives can play that role in Ga is shown below
for the purpose of the analysis, as the (2004) extended one may not have all of the slots
filled with adjectives but other syntactic categories as mentioned earlier. In the (1982)
classification, Dixon proposed seven classes and in the recent one he proposed thirteen as
mentioned in chapter three. From the study in Ga so far, it has been realized that six of
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these classes can be filled with adjectives. The six are what is listed below with
examples. It is from these six classes that the selected adjectives were used to ascertain
the order of adjectives in Ga. The selection was also based on listening to people and
realizing what they normally describe in terms of when they are talking about an entity to
another person.
Class English Ga
Dimension eg. big, small large àgbò, bibioo, lεkεtεε
Physical property eg. hard, soft, kèkètèè, bͻ dͻ ͻ
Colour eg. red, black, green tsùrù, díŋ, éŋͻ lí
Age eg. new, old hèè, mómó
Speed eg. fast, sluggy gìdìgìdì, gbͻ ŋ gbͻ ŋ
Value eg. good, bad kpákpá, shàrà
From the above six semantic classes it was noted that there are Ga equivalents.
Though what may occur sometimes in the Speed class may also be an adverb through
conversion that cannot be ruled out, for example gìdìgìdì ‘fast’, and gbɔ ŋ gb ŋ ‘sluggy’.
Apart from that all the other slots can be filled with adjectives in Ga. The Human
Propensity class has nouns that can fill that slot. This would be investigated further in the
next chapter where nouns used as PC items would be examined. Osam (1999) calls such
nouns that filled the Human Propensity slot as nominal adjectives. Examples for Human
Propensity type in Ga are àwùŋàyèl ՝ ‘jealous person’, àníháól ՝ ‘lazy person’. The
adjectives sampled and used in the questionnaire consist of both deep level and derived
ones but no nouns or verbs that can play adjectival role were put in the analyses.
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A few works that have investigated adjective sequencing in Ghanaian languages
include Danti (2007), Pokua (2003), Adjei (2007) and Pokua et al (2007). Danti (2007)
noted that in Kasem, Dimension adjectives occur at the first position and Value adjectives
normally occur last. However, he noted that when there is Colour and Physical Property
adjectives in the list of adjectives used to modify the noun, Colour precedes the Physical
property. Danti further stated that when Kasem adjectives are in sequence, truncation
occurs, as in example (7).
7) Ka - kamun-nazwon-dedͻrͻ tu ywo.
woman-big -black - tall came here
‘A big tall black woman came here.’
(Danti 2007:122)
Danti (2007) said also that when there is the need to emphasize, the words ye
‘is’ or dage ‘is not’ which are copular verbs are employed, as in example (8) and( 9). In
(8) there is no emphasis but in (9) there is emphasis and therefore the copular ye is used
in the construction.
8) Nͻn –kamun –kukula kam.
person –big – short the
‘The big short person.’
9) Nͻn –kamunu kom ye o ye kukula to.
person- big the COP and s/he is short
‘ The fat short man.’ (Danti 2007: 122)
Danti finally concluded that there was no strict ordering of adjectives in the
internal structure of Kasem, but the sequencing is semantic that is what is seen as
important by the speaker is what occurs first. Adjei, (2007) in her studies of adjectives in
Siyase, noted that when there is an adjective from the Age class it tends to occur in first
position. The preferred order of adjectives in Siyase depends largely on what the speaker
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sees as most important. Adjei also observed that ordering does not depend on the
semantic types of the adjectives.
The examples which were given were two adjectives being used to modify a
noun. Pokua et al (2007) investigated the sequencing of adjectives in Akan and realized
that Age and Colour adjectives appear closer to the noun. They further noted that when
Colour or Dimension adjectives appear in a noun phrase any of them can occur first and
Human propensity adjectives occur farther away from the noun. Also when Physical
Property and Colour adjectives are present, there is the tendency for Colour to occur
before Physical Property in most cases.
4.1 Sequencing of Adjectives in Some Ga literature
The tendency to use several adjectives to modify nouns in Ga is uncommon. Most
speakers hardly use two or three to do the modification. This was confirmed when I
employed the toy task. Participants used an adjective, followed by a relative clause or
vice versa. In the Ga books/literature I examined, the adjectives used were mostly one,
then verbs that denote adjectival meaning or are PC words are employed to show
attributive functions. The sentences that contain adjectives are mostly short in the recent
literature books for schools for instance Yòò kpákpá nì ‘she is a good woman’. When
another attribute has to be used to describe the same woman it will follow in another
short sentence. However, there were few instances where two adjectives have been used
to modify nouns, and in few cases, three were found. The most common adjectives found
in both the literature and Ga textbooks was the adjective kpákpá ‘good’ which was used
alone to serve as a modifier. The attributive use of adjectives was mostly found and the
predicative use normally has the verbal equivalent of the adjective or appeared as the
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complement of the verb in nominal form. It must be noted that examples cited from
books and other sources are tone-marked throughout this study as there were n tone
marks on them(convention in writing Ga). In Prov 31:21 two adjectives were employed
in attributive position as shown in (10a) and in Ababio (1999:2) a verb denoting PC and
an adjective were used in the attributive position as shown below in (10b).
10) a. … éjàákέ shíáŋ bíì lε fε ε b mͻ -ͻ màmá tsù-jì fέέfέ -ji…
.....because house children DEF all wear-HAB cloth red-PL beautiful-PL..
‘For all of them are clothed in scarlet.’
(Prov 31:21)
b. ….náà àkpàkpá tsò ní é -yìbíì é -tsù hὲὲ fέέfέó’
... here pawpaw tree that 3SG-fruits PERF-ripe ADV beautiful
‘ Here is a pawpaw tree that has very riped beautiful fruits.’
(Ababio 1999: 50)
In (10a) the two adjectives used are tsùjì ‘red’(pl) and fέέfέji ‘beautiful’(pl). The Colour
adjective occurs before the Value one.
It is seen that in example (10b) the first PC word used is the verb tsù ‘to be red’
which is in the perfect tense, followed by an adverb hὲὲ ‘very’ and then an adjective
fέέfέó ‘beautiful’. The verb is from the Colour group, and fέέfέó ‘beautiful’ is from the
Value group.
Dakubu (2000) notes that when two or three Ga adjectives occur in a sequence, the
last one is normally prefixed with e- and this was confirmed when I employed the toy
task. Participants in most cases added the prefix e- to the last adjectives especially for the
primary/basic colours. Sometimes the adjective is placed first then a relative clause
follows to modify the head noun. For instance in the Ga Bible, Genesis 41:18, the PC
words were employed to serve as attributive which were fέ fέji ‘beautiful’ (plural) then a
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relative clause is used to continue the description that the cows were fat . The relative
clause is ní àmὲ shwìshwìì … ‘that were fat…’). The verb shwì ‘to be fat’ is employed
in this instance and was put in the distributive iterative form. The verse is below in (11).
11) “…… nì tsìnáyèì fέέfέ -jì kpàwò ní àmὲ- shwìshwìì
“…….and cows beautiful-PL seven REL 3PL be fat
d k d k fà kpò…”
ADV came out …”
‘There came up seven cows sleek and fat..’
The Ga textbooks reveal that most often when the adjective and relative clause or
verb are employed to serve as modifiers, the adjective occurs closer to the noun and then
PC verb is used in a relative clause to continue the modification of the noun under
consideration. Is this still the norm? This is what the researcher aims to investigate
whether it is the same in recent times or there are changes.
Instances of the adjective ordering were found in some few Ga books. These gave
evidence that Gas have been using multiple adjectives to modify nouns. The sequencing
of these multiple adjectives was examined. Most of those found in the Ga books were two
adjectives used as modifiers in attributive position.
Let’s examine some examples from Ababio (1975).
12) E -dzì sám fèé wùlù kpànàà.
3SG-COP key important great
‘It is an important great key.’
(Ababio 1975: 9)
13) ... kὲ ágbὲn kóòt díŋ kàkàdáŋ ŋ kò ní e -wò -ͻ
...and also coat black long certain REL 3SG –wear-HAB
hèwͻ lέ………
because of the long black coat that he always wear ……..
(Ababio 1975:17)
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14) ‘...náà òblányò fέ fέ kpàkpàtàà kò ní mìì -pl é
‘...here youth handsome strong certain REL PROG-struggle
yὲ s ó lέ ’.
in snow ’
‘…here was a handsome strong gentleman struggling in the snow.’
In example (12) the order is Dimension adjective wùlù ‘important’ followed by the
Value adjective kpànàà ‘great’. In the next example (13) the adjectives are from Colour
and Dimension classes and the order in which they occurred is Colour díŋ ‘black’ before
Dimension kàkàdáŋ ŋ ‘long’.
Another sequence of two adjectives found in Ababio (1975) was fέέfέó ‘beautiful’ a
Value adjective followed by Dimension adjective kpàkpàtàà ‘strong’ in (14).
There is the sequence of Value adjective followed by a Physical Property adjective as
illustrated in (15).
15) Yòò nε -ε kpὲ bín fέέfέ t t r kò.
woman DET-DEF carry at back child beautiful fat a
‘That woman was carrying at her back a beautiful fat child.’
(Ababio 1975:57)
There is an instance of three adjectives serving as attributes for a noun. See example (16)
below.
16) ….náà nùù àgbò t tr é -díŋ d k d k kò dámͻ
….here man big fat NOM-black ADV certain stand
shì è -è -flͻ e -hè
down 3SG -PROG -turn 3SG-body
‘Here was a very big fat black man who was standing there looking around.’
Ababio (1975:50)
In the demonstration in (16), the adjectives are from the Dimension, Colour and
Value. The Dimension adjective, àgbò ‘big’ occurred first followed by Dimension
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Physical Property adjective t tr ‘very fat’ then Colour type occurred last díŋ ‘black’.
The Colour adjective has been prefixed with e- as noted by Dakubu (2000) but when we
compare the example in (13) the Colour adjective was not prefixed because it was not
placed last. In using the toy task this e-prefix was realized in most cases that the
participant mentions a colour adjective last but the prefix hardly occurred when the
adjective occurred first.
The demonstration of another ordering of three adjectives from other semantic
classes was also identified and this is shown below in (17).
17) ‘…..e -nà nùù àgbò t tr fέέfέ kò ní mìì -kpéléké shì…’
‘…3SG-saw man big fat handsome a REL PROG -go down….
‘…… he saw a big fat handsome man who was going down…..’
(Ababio 1975:84)
In (17) the adjectives are from the classes of Dimension, Physical Property and
Value. The Dimension adjective àgbò ‘big’ was the first to appear closer to the noun,
followed by the Physical Property type t tr ‘fat’ and fέέfέó ‘handsome’, the Value
type was placed farther from the noun.
Examples of two adjectives from the same semantic type were also found and below
are examples in (18) and also in the New Ga Bible as in (19).
18) Bélέ mí -tsͻ ͻ nέέ fàà lε kε tε ε à b kò yε gbὲtéŋ ní àbáàfò.
CONJ 1SG-teach DEM river wide big certain is midway REL cross
‘Meanwhile as there is a big large river to be crossed midway’.
(Engmann 2002 :24)
19) Nì bú wùlù kw ŋ kw ŋ lε híŋmέí fε ε f έ…’
and pit large deep DEF eyes all hatch
‘ ..all the springs of the great deep burst forth..’
(Genesis 7:11)
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In (18) the two Dimension adjectives lὲkὲtὲε ‘wide’ and àgbò ‘big’ were used to
serve as attributes for the noun fàà ‘river’. The Dimension type indicating width was
placed closer to the noun and the type showing size came second. In (19) size was
placed before depth which are all adjectives from the Dimension class. I came across
another example in Amartey (1985) which is illustrated in (20) below.
20) …..àmὲ-nànàà ŋmͻ -jì wù -jì s wàŋ ŋ -s wàŋ ŋ .’
….1PL -see farm-PL large-PL vast-RED
‘….they saw large vast farms’
(Amartey 1985: 24)
In (20) the Dimension adjectives showing size and shape were employed. The
adjectives agree in number with the noun ŋm jì ‘farms, which is plural. The adjective
closer to the noun wùjì ‘large’ has been suffixed with a plural suffix –ji and the other
adjective shwàŋ ŋ shwàŋ ŋ ‘vast’ shows number agreement through reduplication of the
adjective as it happens sometimes in Ga for some adjectives.
However, there were instances where there was a conjunction between the two
adjectives which serve as attributes as found in Amartey (1985) below.
21) ….gbͻ mὲì éjwέ lέ a -téŋ t tr kε kò ji mͻ nì kὲ
‘…persons four DEF PREF-middle fat CONJ huge COP one who
wìémͻ lέ ŋmὲ shì’
speech put down’
‘…one of the four persons who was fat and huge was the one who spoke’
(Amartey 1985:19)
Another demonstration was also found in Ga Bible.
22) ’… e -ji gbͻ mͻ kpákpá kὲ àl ’.
‘….3SG COP man good CONJ upright
‘..he was a good and upright man’
(Luke 28: 50)
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There were also instances of modification which were in the predicative forms. For
instance in Ababio (1999:50) the following was detected:
23) ….náà àkpàkpá tsò ní e -yìbìi e -ts hὲὲ fέέfέó
….here pawpaw tree REL 3SG-friut PERF-be ripe INT beautiful.
‘Here was a pawpaw tree that has its fruits very riped and beautiful’
The first PC item in (23) is in the verb form etsù ‘ was riped/redden’ which had the
perfect prefix attached to it and the second is fέέfέó ‘beautiful’. These have been used
predicatively. The order is Colour adjective occurring before the Value adjective. The
example below also comes from Ababio (1999:53).
24) E -l n , e -jwèŋ mͻ ml ì kw nì e -lè sànèyélí.
3SG-know thing, 3SG-brain inside deep and 3SG-know matter.
‘He is intelligent, wise and knows how to deal with issues.’
In example (24) the example shows verbs that are employed to denote PCs in Ga lè níí
and kwɔ .
In Ababio (1975:42) another predicative use encountered is seen below.
25) E -kwͻ gòdzòò nì e -dí-ͻ d k d k tàmͻ gbͻ .
3SG- be tall huge and 3SG- be black –HAB ADV like stranger
‘He is huge and very dark/black like stranger.’
In example (25) the order of arrangement of the PC items is: Dimension type
which is a verb kw ‘to be tall’ then an adjective gòd òò ‘huge’ used for emphasis and
followed by a verb which indicates colour dì ‘to be black/darken’ which occurs with an
adverb dúkúdúkú which showed the intensity of blackness.
With the above sequencing of PC items found in the literature, the researcher
decided to go to the field and explore whether the same arrangements of multiple
adjectives pertain in this contemporary era or there are changes. The researcher designed
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a questionnaire and distributed them to native speakers to find out what is happening in
recent times in the event that speaker has multiple adjectives (maximum of three) to
serve as an attribute or in predicative position. A questionnaire was designed to ascertain
the sequencing of the adjectives.
4.2 Data collection
4.2.1 Questionnaireii
A questionnaire, which had four sections was given out to ascertain native speakers’
ideas of sequencing of adjectives in attributive and predicative positions in the event of
ordering multiple adjectives.
4.2.2 Subjects
The total number of questionnaires distributed was 100. Fifteen were not returned
by respondents and six were answered wrongly as the respondents only selected the ones
completely acceptable to them. Twenty of the questionnaires were not answered fully so
were not analysed as part of the data, for instance a respondent ranked some of the
questions and left some others. The total number of questionnaires analysed was fifty –
nine (59) in total. These 59 were answered well. The respondents of the questionnaires
were native speakers of Ga. Native here has been used to mean that the respondents have
one of the parents being a Ga and has resided in Accra for at least ten years. The
respondents were selected from Ga Mashi (James Town, Chorkor, Gbese and Korle
Gona) and Osu. The Ga Mashi group consisted of two sets, teachers in the Ga Mashie
area who have been teaching Ga and non- teachers in the Ga Mashi area who were met
and given the questionnaires in their homes to answer. The Osu group was made up the
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Help Age Ghana members and the Boys Club members (Social club). The last group
consisted of students who had come to study Ga and they were in Level 300 in the
University of Education, Winneba. Four of the respondents did not give any response
as to the variety of Ga spoken, eighteen of the respondents spoke the Osu variety , two
spoke the Teshie/Nugua type, La variety was spoken by two, Ga Mashie type was
spoken by twenty eight respondents and five spoke others like Kpone. Variety is being
used here to refer to where the respondent resides. The multilingual information
examined revealed that five spoke both Twi and Fante, one respondent spoke Twi, Fante
and Hausa, seven spoke Fante, thirty-seven spoke Twi, one spoke no additional language
to Ga and five did not indicate any response for that on their questionnaires. The age
range revealed that five were between the ages of 18-23, thirteen were between the
ages of 24-29, ten were between 30-36, seven were in the range of 37-42, eleven were
between ages 43-49 and those who were fifty and above were thirteen. The educational
background of the respondents revealed that most of them had not ended at the primary
level, twenty had secondary education, twenty-eight of respondents have been educated
to the tertiary level, four had teachers training, two said they had other forms of
education, two had no education and three of the respondents did not respond to that on
the questionnaires. The educational level in Ga revealed that fifteen learnt Ga up to the
primary level, seventeen had studied up to the secondary level, four had studied it up to
the teacher training , thirteen had up to the tertiary, one had other formal education in
Ga , five had none and four did not indicate the formal level they had reached. Forty –
nine of the respondents were from Greater Accra, eight were from other regions though
they live in Accra and two did not give any response.
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Test I
The questionnaire had four sections. In section 1 the respondents were required to
give a short bio data about themselves and in section 2 rank adjectives that were
sequenced in attributive position. These were all in the Ga language and it was read for
those who found it difficult to read the Ga. The reading had no effect on their choices or
selection as it was to help them only recognise some few words and for correct
pronounciation. Section 3 had English sentences to be translated into Ga and section 4
has some phrases also to be translated into Ga.
4.2.3 Design
The participants were first briefed about what was required of them and it was
exemplified by asking a participant to describe an object seen around the place orally.
After that the questionnaires were administered to participants. There were a set of
constructions in the questionnaire each with multiple adjectives and the respondents were
asked to rank the sentences given in each question. There was the use of three adjectives
serving as attributes for nouns from the different semantic classes. The rankings were on
the scale
0 – completely unacceptable 1- highly unacceptable 2-Quite unacceptable
3- quite acceptable 4- highly acceptable 5-completely acceptable
The method of ranking was adopted from Pokua (2003) The ranking was arranged
in descending order in the table used( scale 5-1). It must be noted that the ranking in
Pokua (2003) did not include ‘no response’ on the questionnaire. ‘No response’ was
included in the analysis to cater for the very few questionnaires that had been answered
but a single permutation has been left in order to obtain a true picture. However it was
107
realized that when respondents chose one, they believe others were possible. The data
gathered were from various sources as mentioned earlier. The reason for this was to get a
fair and true picture of the required information so as not to base the findings on one
sided- opinion. The analysis was based on the native speaker’s intuitive judgments. The
total number of respondents who gave a specific order was calculated and put in
percentages in excel. The ordering with the highest score or percentage was seen as the
acceptable or preferred.
In section 3 of the questionnaire(refer to Appendix 1) there were English sentences
that had to be translated into Ga. That tested mostly predicative function of the adjective.
There were 6 questions in section 1, 20 in section 2, 17 in section 3 and 6 in section 4.
An example of a question in section 2 is as follows.
26) Ehe adeka tsiŋmoo agbo momo ko. ‘I bought a heavy big old box’.
Ehe adeka momo tsiŋmoo agbo ko. ‘I bought an old heavy big box’.
Ehe adeka agbo tsiŋmoo momo ko. ‘I bought a big heavy old box’.
Ehe adeka agbo momo tsiŋmoo ko. ‘I bought a big old heavy box’.
Ehe adeka momo agbo tsiŋmoo ko. ‘I bought an old big heavy box’.
The respondent was expected to write out a number against each sentence, indicating the
order of preference. Below is an example.
27) Ehe adeka tsiŋmoo agbo momo ko. 1
Ehe adeka momo tsiŋmoo agbo ko. 4
Ehe adeka agbo tsiŋmoo momo ko. 3
Ehe adeka agbo momo tsiŋmoo ko. 0
Ehe adeka momo agbo tsiŋmoo ko. 2
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Samples of ranking were done orally for respondents to understand what was
exactly required of them, and for the other sections, samples were done orally as well.
This was done for respondents to know that the translation was not verbatim or should
not be written as the question is arranged but they are to write a free translation of the
sentences in Ga. The aim was to get the rankings and calculated them to find the most
acceptable one for the respondents. The questionnaire is in Appendix 1.
It must be noted that there is a limitation to the permutation of these adjectives as
three combinations may give you six different sets of permutation. Combination of two
adjectives from the same class plus another from a different class results in three sets of
permutation. Having several permutations made the respondents confused of the right
ordering as they claim it is uncommon these days to used three straight adjectives and
therefore the researcher decided to limit the permutations to four for this work.
Some of the sentences were left out when the same semantic class of the adjectives
has been used already. Two examples of each semantic class was intended to be used
but the questionnaire was bulky and therefore the researcher selected one sample of
those occuring twice.
4.2.4 Results
The tables that follow show the outcome of the analysis of Section 2 of the
questionnaire which explored the most preferred order of adjectives in attributive
positions based on the responses received. In employing FFG, the outcomes from the data
is described as they occur without strictly imposing any rule or rules.
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4.3 Adjectives in Attributive Position
The adjectives sampled were abbreviated by just using the first sound written in
upper case to represent them in the sentences and tables, for instance Dimension type was
represented with D, Value with V, etc.
4.3.1 Sequencing of two adjectives
Most of the sentences in the questionnaire had three adjectives modifying a noun.
However there were two questions that tested the sequence of two adjectives which
produced the following results.
28) a. Tsò fεέfέ kàkàdáŋ ŋ lε é -kú.
tree beautiful long DEF PERF-break
V D
‘The beautiful long tree broke. ‘
b. Tsò kàkàdáŋ ŋ fεέfέ lε é -kù.
tree long beautiful DEF PERF-break
D V
‘The long beautiful tree broke.’
Table 4.1: Two adjectives from the Semantic Group of
Dimension (D) and Value (V)
Level of acceptability V –D
Freq %
D –V
Freq %
Completely acceptable 16 27.1 25 42.4
Highly acceptable 14 23.7 12 20.3
Quite acceptable 10 16.9 12 20.3
Quite unacceptable 5 8.5 7 11.9
Highly unacceptable 6 10.2 2 3.4
Completely unacceptable 8 13.6 1 1.7
No response 0 0 0 0
Total 59 100 59 100
From Table 4.1, 25 respondents out of the total of 59 which represented 42.4%
preferred Dimension (D) adjective occurring before Value (V) adjective. Sixteen
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representing (27.1%) of the respondents preferred Value (V) before Dimension (D).
For total aggregate on the acceptability scale for Value before Dimension adjectives
(V-D). 40 out of 59 preferred the order V-D, while 49 out of 59 preferred the order D-
V. It could be concluded that the speakers preferred the D-V order when the two
adjectives are from the semantic class Dimension and Value.
Dimension class and Age class adjectives tested are seen in illustration (29a-b).
29) a. Àtàdé hèè àgbό !lε é -fͻ .
dress new big DEF PERF- wet.
A D
‘The new big dress is wet.’
b. Àtàdé àgbò éhèé !lε é -fᴐ .
dress big new DEF PERF-wet.
D A
‘The big new dress is wet.’
Table 4.2: Two Adjectives from Dimension(D) and Age (A)
Level of acceptability
A –D
Freq %
D –A
Freq %
Completely acceptable 30 50.8 6 10.2
Highly acceptable 14 23.7 8 13.6
Quite acceptable 7 11.9 13 22.0
Quite unacceptable 6 10.2 5 8.5
Highly unacceptable 0 0 14 23.7
Completely unacceptable 1 1.7 8 13.6
No response 1 1.7 5 8.5
Total 59 100.0 59 100.0
A critical examination of Table 4.2 indicates that respondents prefer Age
adjectives before Dimension adjectives. The scores for the A-D order exceed the order D-
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A in most situations especially on the levels of completely acceptable, and highly
acceptable.
4.3.2 Sequencing of three adjectives
Now let’s examine the sequencing of adjectives from the classes of Physical Property
(PP), -Dimension (D) –Age (A) as found in the sentences in (30).
30) a. -hé àdékà tsìŋm àgbò mómó kò.
3SG-buy box heavy big old certain
PP D A
‘ S/he bought a heavy big old box. ‘
b. -hé àdékà mómó tsìŋm àgbò kò.
3SG- buy box old heavy big certain
A PP D
‘S/he bought an old heavy big box.’
c. -hé àdékà àgbò tsìŋm mómó kó.
3SG- buy box big heavy old certain
D PP A
‘S/he bought a big heavy old box. ‘
d. -hé àdékà mómó àgbò tsìŋm kó.
3SG-buy box old big heavy certain
A D PP
‘S/he bought an old big heavy box.’
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Table 4.3: Adjectives from the Adjective Semantic Class of
Physical Property (PP), Dimension (D) and Age (A)
Level of acceptability
PP-D A PP-A-D A-D-PP D-PP-A
Freq % Freq % Freq % Freq % %
Completely acceptable 12 20.3 8 13.6 16 27.1 5 8.5 8.5
Highly acceptable 17 28.8 21 35.6 12 20.3 18 30.5 30.5
Quite acceptable 16 27.1 10 16.9 19 32.2 20 33.9 33.9
Quite unacceptable 8 13.6 12 20.3 6 10.2 9 15.3 15.3
Highly unacceptable 3 5.1 5 8.5 3 5.1 6 10.2 10.2
Completely
unacceptable
3 5.1 3 5.1 3 5.1 1 1.7 1.7
No response 0 0.0 0 0.0 0 0.0 0 0 0.0
Total 59 100.0 59 100.0 59 100.0 59 100 100.0
From Table 4.3 the total aggregate on the unacceptability levels are PP-D-A
14(23.7%), PP A-D 20 (33.9%), A-D-PP 12 (20.4%) and D-PP- A 16(27.1%). On the
level of completely acceptable the ordering PP- D-A scored 12 (20.3%), PP –A –D
scored 8 (13.6%), A –D -PP scored 16 (27.1%) and D- PP –A scored 5( 8.5%).
Judging from the total aggregate of acceptability levels A-D-PP ordering is the most
preferred one.
The ordering of the adjectives from the Physical Property, (PP) Dimension (D)
Colour (C) are now examined in the sentences in (31a-31d) with the summary of
responses in Table 4.4.
31) a. E -hé báàgì tsìŋm wùlù díŋ kò.
3SG-buy bag heavy large black certain
PP D C
‘S/he bought a heavy large black bag.’
b. E -hé báàgì tsìŋmòò díŋ wùlù kò.
3SG- buy bag heavy black large certain
PP C D
‘S/he bought a heavy black large bag.’
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c. E -hé báàgì díŋ wùlù tsìŋm kò.
3SG- buy bag black large heavy certain
C D PP
‘S/he bought a black large heavy bag.’
d. E -hé báàgì wùlù tsìŋm díŋ kò.
3SG –buy bag large heavy black certain
D PP C
‘S/he bought a large heavy black bag.’
Table 4.4: Adjectives from the Physical Property (PP), Colour (C)
and Dimension (D) Semantic Classes
Level of acceptability
PP-D-C C-PP-D D-C-PP C-D-PP
Freq % Freq % Freq % Freq % %
Completely acceptable 10 16.9 6 10.2 18 30.5 8 13.6 13.6
Highly acceptable 7 11.9 13 22.0 7 11.9 23 39.0 39.0
Quite acceptable 20 33.9 11 18.6 12 20.3 13 22.0 22.0
Quite unacceptable 7 11.9 16 27.1 9 15.3 7 11.9 11.9
Highly unacceptable 6 10.2 9 15.3 12 20.3 5 8.5 8.5
Completely
unacceptable
9 15.3 4 6.8 1 1.7 3 5.1 5.1
No response 0 0.0 0 0.0 0 0.0 0 0 0.0
Total 59 100.0 59 100.0 59 100.0 59 100 100.0
The total aggregate on the level of acceptability levels for the ordering are PP-D-C
37 (52,7% ) , C-PP-D 30(50.8% ) D- C-PP 37( 62.7% ) and C-D-PP 44(74.65). There
was not much difference between the order of PP-D-C and C-PP-D in terms of total
aggregate but on the completely acceptable level D-C-PP scored 18 out of 59 whiles PP-
D- C scored 10. However the most preferred order is C-D-PP as it has the least score for
aggregate on unacceptability level.
In example (16) above the order D-PP-C occurred with the colour nominalized,
which was also found when the toy task was employed. The sequence order , however,
differs from the results in table 4.4 as the participants preffered C-D-PP.
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In this section, I examine the ordering of adjectives from the Colour (C), Value (V)
and Dimension (D) groups. The table in 5 shows the responses in descending order on the
scale 5 to 0 for the sentences in (32).
32) a. M i-nà akùtú kpákpá bíbìóó tsùrù kò.
1SG -see orange good small red certain.
V D C
‘I saw a good small red orange.’
b. Mi -nà akùtú bíbìóó tsùrù kpákpá kò.
3SG -see orange small red good certain
D C V
‘ I saw a small red good orange.’
c. Mi -nà akùtú tsùrù kpákpá bíbìóó kò.
1SG –see orange red good small certain.
C V D
‘ I saw a red good small orange.’
d. Mi -nà akùtuú kpákpá tsùrù bíbìóó kò.
1SG- see orange good red small certain
V C D
‘ I saw a certain good red small orange.’
The ordering of adjectives from the Value (V), Dimension (D) and Colour(C )
groups are examined in table 5 with their frequencies.
Table 4.5: Adjectives from the Value (V), Dimension (D) and Colour (C)
Level of acceptability
V-D-C D-C-V C-V-D V-C-D
Freq % Freq % Freq % Freq % %
Completely acceptable 15 25.4 9 15.3 20 33.9 10 16.9 16.9
Highly acceptable 14 23.7 9 15.3 9 15.3 19 32.2 32.2
Quite acceptable 16 27.1 9 15.3 7 11.9 15 25.4 25.4
Quite unacceptable 6 10.2 15 25.4 9 15.3 9 15.3 15.3
Highly unacceptable 4 6.8 11 18.6 12 20.3 3 5.1 5.1
Completely
unacceptable
4 6.8 6 10.2 2 3.4 3 5.1 5.1
No response 0 0.0 0 0.0 0 0.0 0 0 0.0
Total 59 100.0 59 100.0 59 100.0 59 100 100.0
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A cursory look at the Table 4.5 seem that the most preferred order is C-V-D as it
has the highest frequency of 20 (33.9%) on the completely acceptable level, however a
careful examination reveals V-D-C is the most preferred order as it has the lowest
score on the aggregate of the unacceptability level. The order V-C-D is also preferred
since the difference between it and V-D-C at the quite acceptable level is 1. The least
preferred order then is D-C-V where Value is far from the noun.
I now examine the ordering of adjectives from the Physical Property (PP), Colour
C) Value (V) and this is represented in Table 4.6.
33) a. Mi -hé màmá átá átá táŋtáŋ yε ŋ kò.
1SG –buy cloth light ugly white certain
PP V C
‘I bought light ugly white cloth.’
b. Mi -hé màmá táŋtáŋ átáhátá yε ŋ kò.
1SG- buy cloth ugly light white certain
V PP C
‘ I bought a certain ugly light white cloth.’
c. Mi -hé màmá yε ŋ hátáhátá táŋtáŋ kò.
ISG-buy cloth white light ugly certain.
C PP V
‘I bought a certain white light ugly cloth.’
d. Mi -hé màmá yε ŋ táŋtáŋ átáhátá kò.
1SG-buy cloth white ugly light certain
C V PP
‘I bought a certain light white ugly cloth.’
Table 4.6 shows the analysis of adjectives from the Physical Property (P), Value (V) and
Colour (C) groups and their responses.
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Table4.6: Physical Property (PP), Value (V) and Colour (C) Adjectives
Level of acceptability
PP-V- C V-PP-C C-PP-V C-V-PP
Freq % Freq % Freq % Freq % %
Completely acceptable 8 13.6 16 27.1 23 39.0 7 11.9 11.9
Highly acceptable 17 28.8 9 15.3 11 18.6 22 37.3 37.3
Quite acceptable 7 11.9 9 15.3 13 22.0 11 18.6 18.6
Quite unacceptable 10 16.9 18 30.5 7 11.9 8 13.6 13.6
Highly unacceptable 10 16.9 4 6.8 2 3.4 6 10.2 10.2
Completely
unacceptable
7 11.9 3 5.1 3 5.1 5 8.5 8.5
No response 0 0.0 0 0.0 0 0.0 0 0 0.0
Total 59 100.0 59 100.0 59 100.0 59 100 100.0
In examining Table 4.6 on the level of completely acceptable PP-V-C scored 8
(13.6%), V-PP-C scored 16 ( 27.1%), C-PP-V scored 23 (39%) and C-V-PP scored 7
(11.9%). On the level of quite acceptable , the scores were PP-V-C 7 (11.9%), V-PP-C 9
(15.3%), C-PP-V 13 (22%) and C-V-PP had 11 (18.6%). It seems that the most
preferred order from the respondents is when Colour (C) occurs first followed by PP and
Value last (C-PP-V).
In Table 4.7 below, I examine the sequencing of adjectives from the classes of
Colour (C) Age (A) and Value (V).
34) a. E -wò àtàdé yε ŋ mómó fέεfέ kò.
3SG- wear dress white old beautiful certain
C A V
‘S/he wore a white old beautiful dress.’
b. E -wò àtàdé mómó yε ŋ fεέfέ kò.
3SG- wear dress old white beautiful certain
A C V
‘S/he wore an old white beautiful dress.’
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c. E -wò àtàdé mómó fεέfέ yε ŋ kò.
3SG- wear dress old beautiful white certain
A V C
‘S/he wore an old beautiful white dress. ‘
d. E -wò àtàdé fεέfέ mómó yε ŋ kò.
3SG-wear dress beautiful old white certain
V A C
‘S/he wore a beautiful old white dress.’
Table 4.7: Adjectives from Colour (C) Age (A) and Value (V) Semantic Classes
Level of
acceptability
C-A-V A-C-V A-V-C V-A-C
Freq % Freq % Freq % Freq % %
Completely
acceptable
29 49.2 13 22.0 18 30.5 4 6.8 6.8
Highly acceptable 12 20.3 25 42.4 17 28.8 14 23.7 23.7
Quite acceptable 9 15.3 11 18.6 6 10.2 11 18.6 18.6
Quite unacceptable 4 6.8 4 6.8 13 22.0 17 28.8 28.8
Highly unacceptable 3 5.1 1 1.7 2 3.4 5 8.5 8.5
Completely
unacceptable
2 3.4 4 6.8 3 5.1 8 13.6 13.6
No response 0 0.0 1 1.7 0 0.0 0 0 0.0
Total 59 100.0 59 100.0 59 100.0 59 00.0 100.0
Table 4.7 shows the ordering levels for Colour, Age and Value. Table 4.7 indicates
the levels as follows: completely unacceptable C-A-V( 2), A-C-V (4), A-V-C (3) and V-
A-C (8) with C-A-V having the least score. On the level of completely acceptable the
scores were C-A-V (29), A-C-V (13), A-V-C (18) and V-A-C (4). With the exception of
one person not indicating any response for A-C-V order the difference between C-A-V
and A-C-V was not highly significant. It seems that when the adjectives are from the
class of Colour, Age and Value, respondents prefer Colour to occur first or second rather
than occurring farther from the noun. In comparing the example in (10a) and (10b) ,
colour was prefereed to occur first when sequenced with other adjectives or even when
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the verb used denotes Colour, it occurs first as seen in (10b). This was confirmed from
the results from participants that they prefer Colour first.
Table in 4.8 shows the acceptability levels in the sequencing of adjectives from the
classes of Physical Property (PP) Age (A) and Colour (C). The sentences that were
ranked are seen in (35a-d).
35) a. Mi -nà sàà b d hèè yε ŋ kò.
1SG –see bed soft new white certain
PP A C
‘I saw a soft new bed.’
b. M i-nà sàà b d yε ŋ hèè kò.
1SG-see bed soft white new certain
PP C A
‘I saw a soft white new bed.’
c. Mi -nà sàà hèè b d yε ŋ kò.
1SG –see bed new soft white certain
A PP C
‘I saw a new soft white bed.’
d. Mi -nà sàà hèè yε ŋ b d kò.
1SG- see bed new white soft certain
A C PP
‘I saw a new white soft bed.’
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Table 4.8: Analysis the Ordering of Adjectives from the Semantic Class of Physical
Property (PP), Age (A) and Colour (C)
Level of acceptability
PP-A-C PP-C-A A-PP-C A-C-PP
Freq % Freq % Freq % Freq % %
Completely acceptable 6 10.2 6 10.2 22 37.3 14 23.7 23.7
Highly acceptable 15 25.4 14 23.7 9 15.3 18 30.5 30.5
Quite acceptable 13 22.0 22 37.3 13 22.0 15 25.4 25.4
Quite unacceptable 8 13.6 13 22.0 5 8.5 4 6.8 6.8
Highly unacceptable 7 11.9 2 3.4 5 8.5 5 8.5 8.5
Completely
unacceptable
7 11.9 2 3.4 5 8.5 3 5.1 5.1
No response 3 5.1 0 0.0 0 0.0 0 0 0.0
Total 59 100.0 59 100.0 59 100.0 59 100.0 100.0
The adjective classes examined from Dixon’s semantic class in Table 4.8 were
Physical Property (PP), Colour (C ) and Age (A). On the level of complete acceptability;
PP-A-C and PP-C-A orderings have the same score of 6 (10.2%) and on the level of
highly unacceptable there is not much difference; A-PP-C and A-C-PP have the same
score of 5 (8.5%). Three respondents did not indicate their acceptability opinion on the
questionnaire that had the ordering of PP-A- C, it seems that the preferred order when
PP, A, C adjectives occur with a noun is the A-C-PP order. The A-C-PP order seems
most preferred as it has the lowest aggregate score on the unacceptability level. The
second preferred order is A-P-C.
Table 4.9 below examines the adjective ordering from Value (V) Age (A) and
Physical Property (PP). Sentences in (36a –d) show the different orders tested from these
classes.
36) a. Mi -hé lòò gbíŋ mómó kèkètèè kò.
3SG-buy fish dry old hard certain
V A PP
‘I bought some dry old hard fish.’
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b. Mi -hé lòò gbíŋ kèkètèè mómó kò.
1SG-buy fish dry hard old certain
V PP A
‘I bought some dry hard old fish.’
c. Mi -hé lòò mómó kèkètèè gbíŋ ko.
1SG-buy fish old hard dry certain
A PP V
‘I bought some old hard dry fish.’
d. Mi -hé lòò kèkètèè gbíŋ mómó kò.
ISG –buy fish hard dry old certain
PP V A
‘I bought some hard dry old fish.’
Table 4.9: Value (V), Age (A) and Physical Property (PP) Adjectives
Level of acceptability
V-A-PP V-PP-A A-PP-V PP-A-V
Freq % Freq % Freq % Freq % %
Completely acceptable 12 20.3 19 32.2 10 16.9 7 11.9 11.9
Highly acceptable 10 16.9 15 25.4 15 25.4 13 22.0 22.0
Quite acceptable 14 23.7 9 15.3 9 15.3 11 18.6 18.6
Quite unacceptable 5 8.5 10 16.9 10 16.9 9 15.3 15.3
Highly unacceptable 10 16.9 3 5.1 6 10.2 11 18.5 18.6
Completely
unacceptable
5 8.5 3 5.1 6 10.2 5 8.5 8.5
No response 3 5.1 0 0.0 3 5.1 3 5.1 5.1
Total 59 100.0 59 100.0 59 100.0 59 100.0 100.0
In examining Table 4.9, the ordering V-PP-A and A PP-V have the same score on
the highly acceptable level and quite unacceptable level. On the level of no response V-A
–PP and PP-A-V had the same score of 3 (5.1%). The total aggregate for the orders are
as follows V-A-PP 36 (60.9% ), V-PP-A 43 (72.9% ), A-PP-V 34 (57.6%) and PP-A-V
31(52.5%). Judging from the total aggregate on the acceptability levels the most preferred
order is V-PP-A.
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The Dimension (D) Age (A) and Colour (C) adjectives are found in example (37a-
d) with their orderings.
37) a. Wòlò hèè bíbìóó díŋ lε é -làájé.
book new small black DEF PERF-lost
A D C
‘ The new small black book is lost.’
b. Wòlò hèè díŋ biíbìóó lε é -làájé
book new black small DEF PERF- lost.
A C D
‘The new black small book is lost.’
c. Wòlò bíbìóó díŋ hèè lε é -làájé.
book small black new DEF PERF-lost.
D C A
‘The small black new book is lost.’
d. Wòlò díŋ hèè bíbìóó lε é -làájé
book black new small DEF PERF-lost.
C A D
‘The black new small book is lost.’
Table 4. 10: Adjectives from the Semantic class of
Dimension (D) Age (A) and Colour (C)
Level of acceptability
A-D-C A-C-D D-C-A C-A-D
Freq % Freq % Freq % Freq % %
Completely acceptable 17 28.8 27 45.8 13 22.0 11 18.6 18.6
Highly acceptable 20 33.9 16 27.1 9 15.3 12 20.3 20.3
Quite acceptable 12 20.3 8 13.6 17 28.8 11 18.6 18.6
Quite unacceptable 9 15.3 7 11.9 13 22.0 4 6.8 6.8
Highly unacceptable 1 1.7 1 1.7 3 5.1 12 20.3 20.3
Completely
unacceptable
0 0.0 0 0.0 4 6.8 8 13.6 13.6
No response 0 0.0 0 0.0 0 0.0 1 1.7 1.7
Total 59 100.0 59 100.0 59 100.0 59 100.0 100.0
On the level of completely unacceptable, the orderings A-D-C and A-C-D had the
same score of 0 (0%). D-C-A has 4(6.8%) and C—A-D has 8 (13.6%). 27 out of 59
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respondents judged the order of A-C-D completely acceptable, with the second highest of
completely acceptable being the order A-D-C. D-C-A order had 17 (28.8%) on the ‘quite
acceptable’ level. The difference between the A-D-C and A-C-D orders which is 2 is not
very significant; both orders are preferred but A-C-D order seems to be most preferred by
the respondents. The order preferred by the participants is similar to the example in (13)
where Colour was also found to occur before dimension when sequenced though in (37)
these two adjectives occur with another one from Age class. .
4.3.3 Adjectives from same Semantic Class Plus Another
It is possible for two adjectives from the same semantic class plus another one from
another semantic class to be used to modify a noun. This was found in some of the Ga
literature read such as Ababio (1999). With such ordering, the permutation results in
three different orders. The questionnaire sampled only two and examined them. The
examples in (38a-c) indicate these.
38) a. E -tá gbὲ lε lε óó kàkàdáŋ ŋ hèè kò nɔ .
3SG-sit path narrow long new certain on
D D A
‘He is sitting on a narrow long new path.’
b. E -tá gbὲ lε lε óó hèè kàkàdáŋ ŋ kò nɔ .
3SG-sit path narrow new long certain on
D A D
‘He is sitting on a narrow new long path.’
c. E -tá gbὲ hèè lε lε óó kàkàdáŋ ŋ kò nɔ .
3SG-sit path new narrow long certain on
A D D
‘He is sitting on a new narrow long path.’
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Table 4.11:Two Adjectives from the Dimension (D) and one
from the Age (A) Group
Level of acceptability
D-D-A D-A-D A-D-D
Freq % Freq % Freq %
Completely acceptable 14 23.7 14 23.7 10 16.9
Highly acceptable 13 22.0 8 13.6 16 27.1
Quite acceptable 6 10.2 5 8.5 13 22.0
Quite unacceptable 4 6.8 18 30.5 9 15.3
Highly unacceptable 12 20.3 9 15.3 6 10.2
Completely unacceptable 10 16.9 5 8.5 5 8.5
No response 0 0.0 0 0.0 0 0.0
Total 59 100.0 59 100.0 59 100.0
Table 4.11 reveals that the scores for the ordering D-D-A and D- A-D on the
completely acceptable level were the same 4(23.7%) out of the 59 respondents, whereas
the scores were the same for the ordering D-A-D and A-D-D on the completely
unacceptable level 5 (8.5%). Though D-D-A and D-A-D had scores higher than A-D-D
order it seems respondents prefer mostly the A-D-D ordering as it scored higher on the
highly and quite acceptable levels which made the total aggregate higher than the other
two orderings of D-D-A and D-A-D .
It was realized that when two Dimension adjectives are sequenced with or without
another adjective from a different class, often, the shape adjective occurs before the size
adjective. This was seen in the examples taken from the books stated above in examples
(18), (19) and (20). This order of shape before size was confirmed by the participants as
seen in Table 4.11
The examples in (39) also show two adjectives from the Dimension (D) class and
one from Colour (C).
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39) a. Nùù díŋ kpìtíóó t ՝tr՝ lε é -bà.
man black short fat DEF PERF-come
C D D
‘The black short fat man has come.’
b. Nùù kpìtíóó díŋ t ՝tr՝ lε é -bà.
man short black fat DEF PERF-come
D C D
‘The short dark fat man has come.’
c. Nùù t ՝tr՝ kpìtíóó díŋ lε é-bà.
man fat short black DEF PERF-come.
D D C
‘The fat short dark man has come.’
Table 4.12: Two Adjectives from the Dimension Class (D)
and one from Colour Class (C)
Level of acceptability
C-D-D D-C-D D-D-C
Freq % Freq % Freq %
Completely acceptable 14 23.7 24 40.7 6 10.2
Highly acceptable 17 28.8 14 23.7 19 32.2
Quite acceptable 14 23.7 11 18.6 11 18.6
Quite unacceptable 10 16.9 6 10.2 13 22.0
Highly unacceptable 3 5.1 3 5.1 7 11.9
Completely unacceptable 1 1.7 1 1.7 3 5.1
No response 0 0.0 0 0.0 0 0.0
Total 59 100.0 59 100.0 59 100.0
The ordering of D-C-D and D-D-C had the same score on the level of quite
acceptable of 11 and C-D-D and D-C-D orders had the same score of 1 on the completely
unacceptable level. The most preferred order seems to be D-C-D, it scored the highest
on the completely acceptable level 24 (40.7%) and has the least in terms of total
aggregate on the unacceptability levels.
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4.3.4 Plural Nouns with Adjectives
In example 40 plural nouns were used with the adjectives from just a few sampled
adjective classes to find out if there is any significant difference between plural and
singular nouns when they occur with multiple adjectives. The examples are from the
Colour (C) –Dimension (D) and Age(A) groups. In (40) adjectives from the Dimension,
Colour, and Age groups were tested and in (41) Value (V) , Age (A) and Colour (C)
were examined with plural nouns.
40) a. Yè -ì àgbò-ì dí -jì kpiti -bíí.
woman-PL big -PL black-PL short-PL
D C D
‘big dark short women’
b. Yè -i kpiti -bíí àgbò -i dí -jì lε .
woman-PL short-PL big -PL black-PL DEF
D D C
‘short big dark women’
c. Yè -i dí -jì kpiti-bíí àgbò -i lε .
woman-PL black-PL short-PL big –PL DEF
C D D
‘dark short big women’
Table 4.13: Two Adjectives from Dimension (D) and one from Colour (C)
Level of acceptability
C-D-D D-C-D D-D-C
Freq % Freq % Freq %
Completely acceptable 10 16.9 16 27.1 6 10.2
Highly acceptable 23 39.0 12 20.3 16 27.1
Quite acceptable 19 32.2 9 15.3 8 13.6
Quite unacceptable 3 5.1 5 8.5 9 15.3
Highly unacceptable 3 5.1 14 23.7 4 6.8
Completely unacceptable 1 1.7 3 5.1 16 27.1
No response 0 0.0 0 0.0 0 0.0
Total 59 100.0 59 100.0 59 100.0
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In spite of the order D-C-D having the highest score on the completely acceptable
level , the most preferred order is C-D-D . This is as a result of examining the total
aggregate on the acceptability level where C-D-D had 52, D-C-D 33, and D-D-C 30.
It is interesting to note that with the adjective agreeing with the plural noun the
preferred order differs. In singular D-C-D was mostly preferred. In the like manner
examples 19) and 20) which were from the book, aslo had shape occurring before size
when two dimension adjectives were sequenced alone or with another adjective from
another class wa confirmed by the participants.
The illustration in (41) shows adjectives from the Age (A) Dimension ( D) and
Colour (C) groups.
41) a. Àtàdé-i hè -ì àgbò-ì tsù-jì.
dress-PL new–PL big -PL red-PL
A D C
‘new big red dresses’
b. Àtàdé -i àgbò-ì hè -i tsù-jì.
dress-PL big -PL new-PL red-PL
D A C
‘big new red dresses’
c. Àtàdé -i tsù-jì àgbò-ì hè-ì.
dress-PL red-PL big-PL new-PL.
C D A
‘red big new dresses’
d. Àtàdé-i tsù-jì hè -i àgbò-ì.
dress-PL red-PL new–PL big -PL
C A D
‘red new dresses’
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Table 4.14: Age, Dimension and Colour Adjectives with a Plural Noun
Level of acceptability
A-D-C D-A-C C-D-A C-A-D
Freq % Freq % Freq % Freq % %
Completely acceptable 5 8.5 10 16.9 5 8.5 12 20.3 20.3
Highly acceptable 15 25.4 7 11.9 11 18.6 11 18.6 18.6
Quite acceptable 6 10.2 8 13.6 12 20.3 12 20.3 20.3
Quite unacceptable 16 27.1 14 23.7 13 22.0 4 6.8 6.8
Highly unacceptable 3 5.1 13 22.0 8 13.6 9 15.3 15.3
Completely unacceptable 12 20.3 7 11.9 10 16.9 9 15.3 15.3
No response 2 3.4 0 0.0 0 0.0 2 3.4 3.4
Total 59 100.0 59 100.0 59 100.0 59 100.0 100.0
Table 4.14 reveals the same frequency score for A-D-C and C-D-A orders on the
completely acceptable level; however on the level of ‘highly acceptable’ A-D-C order
scores more than C-D-A order and on the level of ‘quite acceptable’ C-D-A scores
twice the score of A-D-C. A critical look reveals that the most preferred order is C-A-D
as it has the highest score on the completely acceptable level and also the highest
score in terms of total aggregate on the acceptability levels.
In example (41a-d), the results confirmed that colour adjectives were preferred to
occur first when sequenced with one or two adjectives which was seen in examples (10)
and (13) above.
The examples in (42) show adjectives from the semantic classes of Age (A)
Physical Property PP and Colour (C).
42) a. Màmá-i hè -i fέέfέ -jì dí -jì.
cloth -PL new-PL beautiful –PL black- PL
A V C
‘new beautiful black clothes’
b. Màmá-i fέέfέ -jì hè -ì dí -jiì.
cloth-PL beautiful –PL new-PL black-PL
V A C
‘beautiful new black clothes’
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c. Màmá-i dí -jì fέέfέ -jì hè -ì.
cloth-PL black-PL beautiful–PL new-PL
C V A
‘black beautiful new clothes’
Table 4.15: Age, Value and Colour Adjectives
Level of acceptability
A-V-C V-A-C C-V-A
Freq % Freq % Freq %
Completely acceptable 10 16.9 7 11.9 9 15.3
Highly acceptable 13 22.0 9 15.3 11 18.6
Quite acceptable 18 30.5 14 23.7 10 16.9
Quite unacceptable 8 13.6 20 33.9 10 16.9
Highly unacceptable 4 6.8 2 3.4 7 11.9
Completely unacceptable 5 8.5 6 10.2 11 18.6
No response 1 1.7 1 1.7 1 1.7
Total 59 100.0 59 100.0 59 100.0
Table 4.15 reveals that the score for ‘no response’ was the same for all the orders
(i.e 1.7%). In examining the acceptability levels for the order A-V-C scored the highest
on all the levels, and on the level of unacceptability it also has the least score.
Respondents seem to prefer the order A-V-C most compared to the two orders V-A-C
and C–V-A.
4.4 Adjectives in Predicative Position
The section three on the questionnaire had some few sentences that tested how adjectives
in predicative positions in English are expressed in Ga. There were six sentences which
were in English and the respondents wrote the Ga equivalents. This was mainly to test
how predicative positions filled by adjectives are expressed in Ga. Do they occur as the
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same in English or not. In employing the FFG what was found was expressed as such as
the framework allows you to describe what actually pertains from the data. Exceptions
could be expected as nothing restricts the analysis. The data served as the sole guide in
the analysis.
4.4.1 Results
The test to find out how adjectives faired in predicative positions yielded the following
which are displayed in the tables. The English sentences in the questionnaire are placed
first and the Ga equivalents are placed and then tabulated with the number of respondents
who write each equivalents and the highest scored one seen as the most preferred.
An English sentence on the questionnaire:
43) The boy is dark and tall.
This sentence in (43) yielded four different realizations in Ga and below are the
constructions with the number of respondents tabulated and put in percentages.
a. Gbékέnùú ! lέ kw nì é - dí - .
child boy DEF be tall CONJ 3SG- be black-HAB
‘The child is tall and black’.
b. Gbékέnùú !lε dí- nì é -kw .
child boy DEF be black-HAB CONJ- 3SG-tall
‘The child is dark and tall.’
c. Gbékέ lε kàkàdáŋ ŋ díŋ nì.
child DEF long black PART
‘The child is tall and dark.’/he is a tall dark child’.
d. Gbékέ lε díŋ kàkàdáŋ ŋ nì.
child DEF black long PART
‘The child is dark and tall.’
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Table 4.16:Predicative (Dimension and Colour)
Respondents options Frequency Percentage
A 27 45.8
B 20 33.9
C 5 8.5
D 3 5.1
Total 59 100
Table 4.16 shows that 27 out 59 respondents (i.e 45.8%) constructed the sentence
in a. In (a) the PC items dark and tall have been replaced by verbs as compared to the
English where they (PCs) are from the adjective class. The occurrence of a PC in (a) is
the verb kw ‘be tall’ which shows the PC item from the Dimension class precedes the
verb dí ‘be black’ from the Colour class. The sentence in (b) is vice versa of (a) and
20 out of 59 respondents gave that construction. In (c) and( d) the respondents used
adjectives just like the English examples and (c) has the dimension type of adjective
kàkàdáŋ ŋ ‘long/tall’ occurring before the color adjective díŋ ‘black’. The reverse order
is seen in d. Two (2) respondents wrote down the construction in (c) and 3 respondents
representing 5.1% constructed (d). It can be concluded that the use of verbs to denote
the PC item where it is exist is preferred by the Ga. In contrast, to example (13) which
was from the book, Dimension adjective occurred before Colour when verbs were
employed as seen the data in example (43). Participants preferred to mention the
dimension verb first as it had the highest score.
The sentence in (44) was another one on the questionnaire that sought to find out
the predicative use of the adjective.
44) The building is new.
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Ga
a. Tsú !lε yε é -hèè.
building DEF has NOM-new
‘The building is new.’
b. Tsú !lε hèè.
building DEF new
‘The new building.’
c. Shíá !lέ é -hèè ni.
house DEF NOM-new PART
‘The house is new/the house is a new one.’
d. Tsù hèè lέ.
building new DEF
‘The new building’
e. Tsù hèè nε .
building new PART
‘That building is new’/that is a new building.
f. Tsù é-hèè nε .
building NOM-new PART
‘That is a new building’
Table 4.17: Age in Predicative position
Respondent options Frequency Percentage
A 24 40.7
B 2 3.4
C 5 8.5
D 11 18.6
E 13 22.0
F 2 3.4
Total 59 100
The sentence in (44) yelded six different Ga translations. In Table 4.17 the
construction in (a) was provided by 24 out 59 respondents (40.9%) had the PC item hee
‘new’ prefixed with e- which nominalises the PC item. In (b) the prefix e- is absent and
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that was constructed by 2 respondents. In (c) the prefix is present on the PC item to
nominalise the PC item and this was by 5 respondents (8.5%) . In (c) a verbless sentence
is employed by 8.5% of the respondents. In (d) the respondent s which total 11 used a
phrase to put the idea across and in (e) and (f ) the respondents employed verbless
structures as well. 12 out of 59 respondents put down (e) and 2 put down (f). In (f) the e-
prefix is seen again. This adjective’new’ which is from the Age class has no verbal
equivalent.
The next sentence which was also to check on predication is seen in (45).
45) The bucket is big and blue.
From the English sentence, seven constructions were realized:
a. Gògá lε yε bluu nì è -dà.
bucket DEF has blue CONJ 3SG-be big
‘The bucket is blue and its big.’
b. Gògá lε dà nì bluu nì.
bucket DEF big CONJ blue PART
‘The bucket is big and blue.’
c. Gògá bluu àgbó !lε
bucket blue big DEF
‘The blue big bucket’
d. Gògá àgbò bluu lε .
bucket big blue DEF
‘The big blue bucket’
e. Gògá bluu lε dà.
bucket blue DEF be big
‘The blue bucket is big.’
f. Gògá àgbò nì é -daà
bucket big CONJ 3SG-be big
‘The bucket is big and its big.’
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g. Gògá lέ dà nì é -yε bluu
bucket DEF be big CONJ 3SG be blue
‘The bucket is big and it is blue.’
Table 4.18: Colour and Dimension in Predication
Respondent Options Frequency Percentage
A 8 13.6
B 6 10.2
C 5 8.5
D 9 15.3
E 11 18.6
F 4 6.8
G 16 27.1
Total 59 100
Table 4.18, example (g) had the highest score of 16 out of 59, representing 27.1% . In (g)
the verb denoting PC item which is Dimension type dà ‘be big’ occurred before the
Colour type appeared in adjective form bluu ‘blue’. The second highest score was (e)
written by 11 respondents (18.6%). It is the opposite form of the (g) where Colour
occurred before Dimension. 4 out of the 59 respondents representing 6.8% had the least
score with the order Dimension preceding another Dimension type. Constructions (c) and
(d) had the adjectives used, in (c) Colour type bluu ‘blue’ occurred before Dimension
type àgbò ‘big’ and the vice versa occurred in (d). Even though (b) is similar to (g)
respondents preferred to utter (g) than (b).
The preferred order by participants from the English example in (45) which is (g)
differs from what was written in the book as seen in example (13) where Dimension
occurred before Colour. The difference in sequence order may be due to the use of a verb
denoting Dimension.
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46) The books are heavy and old.
a. Wò -jí !lε yε tsìŋm é -mómó lε .
book-PL DEF be heavy NOM-old DEF
‘The books are heavy and old.’
b. Wò -ji ! lε yε tsìí nì é -yὲ é -mómó.
book-PL DEF be heavy CONJ 3SG- be NOM –old
‘The books are heavy and they are old.’
c. Wò -ji !lε tsìí nì éfѐѐ é -mómó.
book-PL DEF heavy CONJ become NOM-old
‘The books are heavy and they have become old.’
d. Wò -ji !lε -gb nì tsìíi.
book-PL DEF PERF be old CONJ heavy
‘The books are old and heavy.’
e. Wò -ji ! lε é - b nì é -tsìí.
book-PL DEF PERF old CONJ PERF- heavy
‘The books are old and are heavy.’
f. Wò -ji mémé-ji lε tsìítsìí.
book-PL old -PL DEF heavy
‘The old books are heavy.’
Table 4.19: Age and Physical Property Adjectives
Respondent options Frequency Percentage
A 4 6.8
B 12 20.3
C 6 10.2
D 10 16.9
E 7 11.9
F 9 15.3
G 11 18.6
Total 59 100
Table 4.19 shows PC items from the classes of Physical Property and Age. Twelve
(12) respondents out of 59 (20.3%) preferred to place the verb tsìí ‘be heavy’ the Physical
Property before the adjective mómó ‘old’ Age type as represented in (b). Construction (g)
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had the adjective méméji ‘old’ (PL) occurring first as an attribute then the Age verb is
found in the predicate and that was preferred by 11 respondents (i.e 18.6%). Though
there are verb equivalents for both adjectives employed in the sentence the preferred one
chosen by the respondents (b) consists of the adjective and the verb. (b) and (c) are the
same except the verbs used yὲ ‘has/posses in( c) and fèè ‘has become’. Construction (a)
which employed adjectives had the least score of 6.8%.
4.5 Summary and Generalisations
The chapter investigated the sequencing of adjectives in attributive position. A brief
examination was made for two adjectives in attributive positions and the sequencing of
three adjectives samples were investigated into much more details.
In Table 4.1 two adjectives from the semantic class of Dimension and Value were
sequenced and it was revealed that respondents most preferred the order of Dimension
before Value. In Table 4.2 Age adjectives were preferred to occur first followed by
Dimension when the two semantic types were sequenced.
In Table 4.3 the sequencing of three adjectives from the semantic classes of
Physical Property, Dimension and Age were examined. From the scores obtained,
respondents preferred most the order of Age followed by Dimension and the Physical
Property.
In Table 4.4 after the examination of Dimension, Colour and Physical Property
adjectives, it came to light that the most preferred order was Colour, Dimension and
Physical Property.
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Table 4.5 involved the sequencing of Colour , Dimension and Value , the most
preferred order was Value , Dimension and Colour.
Table 4.6 involved the sequencing of Physical Property, Value and Colour
adjectives and the most preferred order was seen to be Colour Physical Property and
Value.
In Table 4.7 the order Colour Age and Value were found to be the most preferred
when these three were sequenced.
Table 4.8 examined the sequencing of three adjectives from Physical Property,
Colour and Age group and the scores revealed that the most preferred order was
Physical Property followed by Age and then Colour.
Table 4.9 scores revealed that respondents most preferred Value followed by
Physical Property and Age when these three were involved.
Table 4.10 investigated the sequencing of Dimension, Age and Colour adjectives
and respondents preferred most the order is Age occurring first , followed by Colour
and then Dimension.
The work also examined two adjectives from the same semantic class plus one other
from another semantic class. Two Dimension adjectives were sequenced with one Age
adjective in Table 4.11. The scores revealed that the respondents preferred Age
followed by the two Dimension adjectives.
Table 4.12 examined two Dimension adjectives plus one Colour adjective and the
scores revealed that respondents preferred the Colour adjective between the two
Dimension adjectives.
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The work further investigated adjectives that occur with plural nouns. These
adjectives normally agree with the noun in number. This was examined in Table 4.13
where two adjectives from the same Dimension class and one Colour type were analysed.
It was interesting to note that in the singular the order Dimension, Colour then Dimension
was the most preferred but in the plural the order changed to be Colour followed by the
two Dimension adjectives.
The Age, Dimension and Colour adjectives sequenced with plural nouns reveal that
respondents preferred Dimension last preceded by Age which is preceded by Colour (i.e
D-A-C). This was in Table 4.14.
The last Table 4.15 on attribution, which examined the order Age, Colour and
Value, showed that the most preferred order with the plural nouns is Age, Value and
Colour.
Tables 4.16- 4.19 examined adjectives in predicative positions. The constructions
which had adjectives in predicative positions on the questionnaire were translated into
Ga. The results revealed that most of the respondents used the verbal equivalents of the
adjectives that had them and then those with no verbal equivalents, their Ga renditions
are employed. The constructions therefore differ from the English as these may not
necessarily be used predicatively in Ga. Whenever the verbal equivalents are present,
respondents prefer to employ them first before the non-verbal equivalents (that the
adjectives then follow).
An attempt to bring out some preferred generalisations, these could be mentioned:
Colour adjectives hardly occur in the middle when sequenced with two other
adjectives.
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Dimension adjectives hardly occur first when sequenced
Age adjectives are mostly first or second in multiple use of adjectives.
When the noun is in the plural and two adjectives from the same semantic group is
employed, the two adjectives from the same semantic class occur after each other.
When two verbs denoting Dimension and Colour are employed in multiple use, the
verb denoting Dimension is preferred to occur before the verb denoting Colour.
When the two PCs used consist of a verb and an adjective, speakers prefer the verb
to occur before the adjective.
When two adjectives from the same class are sequenced shape normally occur
before size dimensional adjectives.
4.6 Chapter Summary
From the scores given by respondents Dimension adjectives can occur at the initial
position, medial position or final position when sequenced with other adjectives. Value
adjectives were mostly found to occur closer to the noun or last in the attributive position.
Colour adjectives also occurred closer to the noun or found at the final positions in most
cases. The Colour adjectives occurred only in middle position when they are sequenced
with two adjectives from the same semantic class.
In examining how adjectives are used to express the predicative function in Ga, it was
realized that verbal equivalents of the adjectives are preferred to the adjectives
themselves. Most often, the adjectives are used only when the verbal equivalent is not
existent. In cases where the adjectives are used they occur in the same forms or are
prefixed with the nominaliser prefix e-
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Endnotes
ii In the questionnaire, for those that have more than four permutations, only four were
used. In section 2 there were some that occurred twice in terms of the semantic
classification, and only one of them was for the analysis. Section 3 where translations
were done, those constructions that have adjectives in predicative position were analysed.
The very last questions(7) of sequencing was not used in this analysis.
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CHAPTER FIVE
USING GA VERBS TO DENOTE PROPERTY CONCEPTS
5.0 Introduction
This chapter examines verbs that can be used to denote property concepts (PCs) or
express adjectival meanings. Some languages denote PCs using verbs, but verbs that may
denote PCs may differ from verbs that do not express PCs in terms of inflections or
complement options taken. The adjective class, for instance, in Semelai are derived from
a sub-class of verbs due to their morphosyntactic properties (Kruspe 2006). Dixon (2006:
15) notes that when adjectives and verbs appear in the intransitive predicate position
there are criteria for distinguishing the two syntactic categories and these include
different possibilities within the predicate slot; different transitivity possibilities; their
modification for NP may vary in comparative constructions, and lastly they may have
different ways for forming adverbs.
Dixon (2006:14) refers to adjectives that function as intransitive predicate as verb-
like adjectives. He claims that these are verbs which take all or some of the verb
inflections in that language. Sometimes the verbs that denote PCs may have
corresponding adjective forms, for instance, in Igbo (Dixon 2006: 19). Backhouse (2006)
classified adjectives which express adjectival meanings in Japanese into two categories;
inflected adjectives and uninflected adjectives. The inflected adjectives are similar to
verbs in Japanese due to their morphological and syntactic properties. He analysed them
as a subclass of verbs with adjective-like content. This phenomenon of verbs being used
to express PCs occurs in Ga. The features of these types of verbs will be discussed to
find out whether they are a special category or not, and if they have special
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morphosyntactic properties different from verbs that are not used to express PCs. The
verbs to be discussed are main verbs, not the preverbs found in Ga as noted by Dakubu
(2004:95). The preverbs as normally do not take inflections and are attached to the main
verbs. The Ga preverbs(kε, ka, and ba/ya) are reduced verbs which may mark polarity,
deixis or license a particular object.
5.1 What is a verb?
The syntactic categories of words in a language are based upon their morphological and
syntactic distribution ( Carnie 2013:47). The inflections that are common to the word
class are exhibited and these define the words clearly. Verbs in traditional grammar have
been defined to be action words or doing words. Rauh (2010:17) cited Davidson (1874)
as defining a verb as “an indeclineable word indicating time, person and number and
showing activity or passivity. The verb has eight accidents: Mood, Disposition, Voices,
Species, Form, Number, Tense, and Person conjugation”. Depending on the language
under consideration, not all the accidents may be marked directly on the verb. Matthews
(2007:427) defines a verb as:
“one of a class of lexical units whose characteristic syntactic role is as a
predicate or predicator and which is characteristically that of words
denoting actions or processes: eg run, make, melt”
Matthews therefore sees a verb as word that denotes processes or actions in languages.
This is the category of word class being examined. Verbs normally take arguments such
as Noun Phrases and other Phrases from any of the syntactic categories. The arguments
are required by the verbs for the meaning to be clear and complete. A verb in this work is
the word that heads the VP and can be inflected to show tense or aspect or mood.
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5.2 Sources of Verbs
Languages may have derived and non-derived verbs. For instance in English the adjective
‘thick’ can be suffixed with /–en/ to derive a verb “thicken”. There are non- derived verbs
like to come, to write,to read etc in English. Most verbs in Ga are not derived from other
sources. Verbs can be monosyllabic, disyllabic or polysyllabic etc. They also carry
tones which may have low, high, low and high, and high -high. The following are
examples of verbs in Ga.
1) a. yè ‘eat’ bà ‘come’
nã ‘to get’ jà ‘to share
Examples of monosyllabic verbs which have low tone are as follows:
b. kè to give present’ kpà ‘to stop’
kε ‘to lift’ jù ‘to steal’
bà ‘to beg’ fò ‘to cut’
nù ‘to hear’
high tone verbs:
nú ‘to hear’ fó to cry
dú ‘to plant bí ‘to ask’
disyllabic verbs in 1c)
c. bɔ í ‘to begin’ wàjé ‘to harden’
kàsé ‘to learn’ fíté ‘to spoil’
málé ‘to lie’ yɔ sé ‘observe’
Polysyllabic words in 1d).
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d. fílíkí ‘to fly’ dídáá ‘to stagger’
Dakubu (1970, 2002) notes that the simple verbal group in Ga consists of an
independent verb stem preceded by a pronoun. There are eleven affixes which are
attached to verb stems. The affixes may indicate tense, aspect or polarity. Dakubu (2003,
2004) further classifies the Ga verb stems into two classes namely class I and class II.
Verbal stems in Class I are those with initial high tone, polysyllabic stems with low tone
throughout and a group of twelve monosyllabic low-toned stems. Monosyllabic low-
toned and all polysyllabic stems having initial low tone followed by a high belong to
Class II set of verbs in Ga. Below in (2) are examples of class 1 verbs and class II verbsiii.
2) Class I verbs Class II verbs
i) bí ‘ask’ bà ‘to beg’
ii) gbá ‘split’ gbè ‘to kill’
iii) jε kε ‘be far’ jwà ‘to break’
iv) gbѐlѐ ‘to open’ hìε ‘to keep/hold’
iv) gbí ‘to dry’ jàjé ‘to straighten’
5.3 Inflectional Morphology for Ga Verbs
The verbs in Ga can be inflected to show tense. Aarts (2011) stated that languages often
use the grammatical system of tense to express time. An event grammatically encodes
that the reported event occurred at some time in the past. English, for instance, has two
grammatical tenses that is the present and past. Aspect can also be marked on the verb.
Aspect is a grammatical device that is used to make reference to the way a particular
event unfolds in time. This is normally through affixes. Ga verbs with high tones
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normally take prefixes and suffixes. Below is a paradigm of verbs in Ga with a high tone
from the class one type and also verb type two in (3a-b)
Verb Type I
3) a. bi ‘to ask’
Perfect :Aku é-!bí Past: Aku bí.
Aku PERF-ask Aku ask.PST
‘Aku has asked.’ ‘Aku asked.’
Progressive: Aku mìì-bí. Habitual: Aku bí-ɔ .
Aku PROG-ask Aku ask-HAB
‘Aku is asking’. ‘Aku asks.’
Subjunctive: Aku á -bí. Future : Aku bàá-bí.
Aku SBJV-ask Aku FUT-ask
‘Aku should ask’. ‘Aku will ask’.
Imperative: bi ‘you (SG) ask
Nyεbia ‘ you (PL) ask’
Negative: Perfect:
Aku bí-íí Ayi sànè. Aku bí-kó mí sa è.
Aku ask-NEG Ayi sane. Aku ask-NEG 3SG matter
‘Aku did not ask Ayi about the matter.’ ‘Aku has not asked me about the matter’
Future: Imperative
Aku bí-ŋ lὲ. Kàá-bí nyέ-ká-bia
Aku ask-NEG 3SG NEG –ask 2PL- NEG- ask-SUF
‘Aku will not ask him.’ Do not ask you should not ask
b. Verb type 2
Perfect: Aku é-kè mí wòlò. Past: Aku ké mí wòlò.
Aku PERF-present 1SG book Aku present.PST 1SG book
‘Aku has presented a book to me’. ‘Aku presented a book to me’.
Progressive: Aku mìì-kè mí wòlò. Habitual: Aku kè -ɔ mí wòlò.
Aku PROG-present 1SGbook Aku present –HAB 1SG book
‘Aku is presenting a book to me’. ‘Aku presents a book to me’.
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Subjunctive: Aku á-!kè mí wòlò. Future: Aku bàá-kè mí wòlò.
Aku SBJV-present 1SG book Aku FUT-present 1SG book
‘Aku ought to present a book to me’. ‘Aku will present a book to me’.
Negative:
Tete é -ké -éé níí. Tete é -ké -ŋ níí.
Tete NEG-present-NEG 3SG Tete NEG-give- NEG thing
‘Tete did not ask him.’ ‘Tete will not give anything.’
Tete é -ké -ko níí.
Tete NEG-present-NEG 3SG
‘Tete has not ask him.’
In (3a) the verb type 1 shows a paradigm where suffixes /–ko /and /–vv/ are used for
negation and prefixes /mii-/, /a-/ and /e-/ are used for the progressive, subjunctive,
imperative and perfect. For verb type two in (3b) the discontinuous morphemes e-ko, e-
vv. e-ŋ are used for negation, prefixes for progressive, future, subjunctive and imperative.
It must be noted that in the negative the distinction gets lost between past, progressive
and habitual in terms of time as the negative form is the same in all three.
A kind of grammatical information about verbs is the regularly derived forms which
are the iterative, distributive, gerundive and agentive. A derivation is said to be regular if
it is one of the types below (Dakubu 2009).
Verbs can be put in the iterative by suffixing the verb stem with /–mɔ/ or the verb
stem with LV (liquid and vowel) suffix where the V is the copy of the vowel in the
stem. For instance, jàlà ‘divide’ is the iterative from the verb stem jà to divide /share’
Check examples (4) and (5).
4) Yòó !lέ ŋmà wòlò.
woman DEF wrote book.
‘The women wrote a book’.
5) Yè -í !lε ŋmà -là wò -jì.
woman-PL DEF write - ITR book-PL
‘The woman wrote books/letters.
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Ga verbs can be reduplicated to indicate distributive. In the distributive form,
second occurrence of the stem has low tone rising to high tone on the lengthening
of the last vowel. For example ti ‘thicken becomes tìtíi 'thicken’. A distributive
iterative can also be derived by reduplicating the iterative that is suffixed, for
instance, kùmɔ՜kùmɔ՜ ‘break’. Verbs that are in the distributive have the pluralizing
suffix /–i/ which in pronunciation has a lower tone than the end of the
reduplicated stem.
A Ga gerund consists of a low toned verb stem plus –V suffix, the V is a copy of
the vowel in the stem, for instance, shwà ‘to boast’ has the gerund shwàà
‘boasting’ and bà ‘come’ bàà ‘coming’. It could also be a low toned stem plus
the suffix –lV with no tone change or it can also be / -mɔ/ added to the verb stem
dúmɔ ‘planting’.
The agentive noun is formed by attaching the /–lɔ/ suffix added to the verb stem
for example wì lɔ ‘speaker’ from the verb wì ‘to speak’. Below are examples in
(6-14) showing verbs in distributive or iterative forms in sentences.
6) Yè -í !lέ ŋmà wòlò.
woman-PL DEF wrote book.
‘The women wrote a book’.
7) Yòó !lε ŋmà -là wò -jì.
woman DEF write - ITR book-PL
‘The woman wrote books/letters’.
8) Ábìfáó lε wɔ .
child DEF sleep
‘The child slept’.
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9) Ábìfá-bìì lε wɔ wɔ -í.
child-PL DEF sleep- DISTR. ITR
‘The children slept’.
10) Nùú ! lε yé fúfúì.
man DEF eat.PST fufu
‘The man ate some fufu.’
11) Nùú !lε yéyé-ì nìì
man DEF eat -DIST.ITR things
‘The man ate different kinds of food’.
12) Híí !lε yé -yé -ì nìì.
man DEF eat-DIST-PL things
‘The men ate different types of food.’
13) Wòló ! lε tsé.
book DEF tear.AOR
‘The book got torn’.
14) Wò -jí ! lε tsérε.
book-PL DEF tear-ITR
‘The books got torn.’
In examples (6), (8), (10), and (13) the verbs are in their simplest forms but in (7) and
(14) the verbs are in the iterative forms with a plural subject yèì ‘women’ and wòjì
‘book’ respectively. The illustration in (7) has the verb in the iterative with the singular
subject yòò ‘woman’. The iterative normally has some sort of number agreement with
either the object or the subject but must necessarily agree in number with the object. In
(9) the verb is in the distributive form. In (11) and (12) the verb forms are the distributive
iterative and these must agree in number with the objects.
A predicate basically refers to the action or event, state or process that is expressed in
any given sentence. This is designated by the Ga verb. Verbs serve as the head of VP and
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occur in the predicate. This means that the head of the predicate is the VP. Syntactically
verbs in Ga occur after the subject in an SVO sentence order.
5.4 Derivational Morphology of Ga verbs.
Ga verbs can be nominalised through affixation. The affixes are generally suffixes which
may be /-lɔ ,-mɔ, -lε , -li/ and some few verbs are nominalised by adding a copy of their
final vowel of the stems. Depending on the verbs under consideration one of these
suffixes would be attached. Verbs having high tone and polysyllabic verbs are those
attached with the suffix /-m / and low toned verbs usually take a copy of the vowels.
Illustrations are in (15).
15) Verb Nominal Verb Nominal
i) tsɔ ɔ ‘to teach’ tsɔ ɔ lɔ ‘teacher’ wíê ‘to speak’ wìélɔ ‘speaker/talkative’
ii) tsɔ sé ‘to train’ tsɔ sémɔ ‘training’ dú ‘plant’ dúmɔ ‘planting’
iii)wɔ ‘sleep’ wɔ ɔ ‘sleeping’ tù ‘jump’ tùù ‘jumping’
iv) yè ‘eat’ yeli ‘eating’ fá ‘be enough’ fálε ‘sufficiency’
The suffix /-lɔ/ normally forms the agentive for the action. The addition of the /-mɔ/
suffix derives the action undertaken and /-lε/ also gives the nominal form of the verb. The
suffix/- li/ which occurs only in ye ‘to eat’ also gives the action.
5.5 Transitivity of verbs/ complement options for verbs
A study by Adjei 1999:4 reveals that in Ga “.....some verbs take no complement, some
take one and others take two, based on this, three classes of verbs are distinguished”.
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Ga verbs can therefore be said to be of three types: transitive, intransitive, and
ditransitive. Transitive verbs may have optional adverbs modifying the verbs in the
clause and transitive verbs take the arguments of subject and object. Some verbs may
also require two objects. Due to the difficulty in categorising some of the Ga verbs (due
to their complement options) it is suitable to categorise the verbs into two: transitive and
intransitive. This division which differs from Adjei (1999), sub- divides transitivity into
monotransitive and ditransitive.
The complement options for verbs are discussed in this section. The first to be
discussed are those verbs that do not subcategorise for any complement. These verbs will
therefore be placed in the intransitive category. There may be adverbs modifying them.
Below are examples in (16-20).
16) Tòó !lέ gbó.
goat DEF die.PST
‘The goat died.’
17) Kòòlὸó !lε gbó nyε .
animal DEF die yesterday
‘The animal died yesterday’.
18) Àbìfáó lε wɔ .
child DEF sleep.
‘The child slept ’.
19) Àbìfáó lέ wɔ vìì.
child DEF sleep soundly
‘The child slept soundly’
20) Wònú !lε tswà kɔ՝tɔ՝kɔ՝tɔ՝.
soup DEF boil IDEO
‘The soup boiled’.
In (17), (19) and (20) the verbs have adverbs modifying them which are nyὲ ‘yesterday’
vìì ‘soundly’ and kɔ՝tɔ՝kɔ՝tɔ՝ (an ideophone).
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There are verbs that subcategorise for one complement. This may be of two types:
there are those verbs that inherently occur with their complements and those that occur
with complements not specified by the verb. This is what Adjei (1999:62) also noted and
wrote that “.... some transitive verbs have their meanings specified in them and others
have their meanings specified outside them”. Sampson (2011:40) in his study grouped
these Ga verbs as regular inherent complement verbs and irregular inherent complement
verbs. Below are illustrations (21-26).
21) Ajele yé níyènìì.
Ajele eat.PST food
‘Ajele ate the food’.
22) Kojo gwàò gbékε lε .
Kojo beat.PST child DEF
‘Kojo beat the child’.
23) Gbèé lε kpé wú lε fε ε .
dog DEF chew bone DEF all
‘The dog chewed the bone’.
24) Ama tá shi.
Ama sit ICV
‘Ama is sitting down’.
25) Ama tà mí dε .
Ama shook 1SG palm
‘Ama shook my hand’.
26) Nùú !lε é -gbè nìì nàà.
man DEF PERF–finish things ICV
‘The man has finished with the stuff.’/’The man has completed the task.’
In example (21-23) the verbs do not have their complement specified in them with the
exception of those in (24-26). It is only possible to utter these sentences in (21-23)
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without the objects or complement in instances where interlocutors are aware of the issue
discussed. For instance (27) could be a response to a question Nam ye om ? ‘Who ate
the rice’
27) Adjele yé.
Ajele ate.
The complement options are generally NPs as noted above. There are also verbs that take
nominalized verbs as objects or VPs which relate to stages of activities as their
complements (Dakubu 2007) such as (28a) and (28b).
28) a. E՝-bɔ՜ì shwέ-mɔ՝. b. E՝ -tèè wòlò kánè-mɔ՝
3SG-begin play-NOM 3SG-go book read-NOM
‘He began playing’. ‘He went to read’.
Verbs can also take two complements. These verbs strictly subcategorise for two objects
syntactically for meaning to be complete. Below are some illustrations in (29-30).
29) Yòó ! lε há nùú ! lε shíká.
woman DEF give.PST man DEF money.
‘The woman gave the man money’.
30) Adole màjé Adote wòlò.
Adole send.PST Adote book
‘Adole sent Adote a book.’
31) Nùú !lέ é -kè kásèlɔ lε àtàdé.
man DEF PERF-give student DEF dress.
‘The man has presented a dress to the student.’
In (29) the objects are nùú !lέ ‘man’ and shìká ‘money and these are complements of the
verb há ‘to give’. Adote ‘Adote’ and wòlò’book’ in (30) serve as objects for the verb
màje ‘to send’ and kásèlɔ՝ ‘student’ and àtàdé ‘dress’ serve as complements in (31) for
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the verb kè ‘to give’ respectively. This type of verbs in (28-30) can be placed in the
ditransitive class.
There are verbs that also can take one complement or no complement at all for the
sentences to be syntactically and semantically correct. These verbs can therefore be used
transitively or intransitively. Below are instances in (32-34).
32) a. Tsó !lε kù.
tree DEF break
‘The tree/stick broke.’
b. Yòó ! lε kù tsó !lε .
woman DEF break.PST tree DEF
‘The woman broke the stick.’
33) a.Glàsé lέ jwà.
glass DEF break.
‘The glass broke’
33) b. Nùú !lε jwà glàsé lε .
Man DEF break glass DEF
‘The man broke the glass.’
In (32a) the verb kù ‘break has been used intransitively, the subject tsó! lέ ‘the tree’
which is the theme is found in subject position whereas in (32b) the same verb has been
used transitively and tsó !lέ the tree becomes the patient and the subject position in (31b)
has the agent yòó !lέ ‘the woman’. In the same vein, the verb jwà ‘to break’ has also
been used intransitively and the subject position is filled by the patient/theme glàsé lέ ‘the
glass’. In (33b), the patient/theme in (33a) is found in object position, as the verb jwà has
been used transitively and has an agent nùú !lέ ‘the man’. These kinds of verbs, that is,
those that can be used both transitively and intransively, can be put in a group.
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There is another group of verbs that can take either one or two complements. Below are
instances of these types.
34) Kásèlɔ lε ŋmà wòlò.
student DEF wrote book.
‘The student wrote a book.’
35) Tsɔ՝ɔ՜lɔ՜ lε ŋmà kásèlɔ lέ wòlò.
teacher DEF write.PST student DEF book
‘The teacher wrote a letter to the student.’
36) Nùú ! lε tswà tù.
man DEF shoot.PST gun
‘The man fired a gun.’
37) Nùú !lε tswà kòòlòó lε tù.
man DEF shoot .PST animal DEF gun.
‘The man shot the animal.’
38) Màmí lε fà nùú !lε shìká.
mother DEF borrow man DEF money
‘The mother borrowed the man money.’
39) Màmí lε fà shìká.
mother DEF borrowed money.
‘The mother borrowed some money.’
There are verbs also that take clauses as complements. The complements of these verbs
are introduced by the complementizer àkέ ‘that’. It is sometimes possible for the
complementizer to be left out, like the sentence in (40) where the complementizer may
appear or not. These are demonstrated below.
40) Yòó !lε kε ε (àkε ) é -bàá -bá wɔ .
woman DEF say.PST COMP 3SG - FUT - come tomorrow
‘The woman said that she will come tomorrow’.
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41) Nùú !lε jwε ŋ ákε yòó ! lε é -tèé.
Man DEF think.PST COMP woman DEF PERF-go
The man thought the woman had left.
42) Ajele súsú ákε nùú ! lε é -wɔ .
Ajele think.PST COMP man DEF PERF-sleep.
Ajele thought that the man is asleep.
In (41) and (42) the complementizer cannot be left, out unlike (40).
5. 6 Verbs that express property concepts in Ga
In this section the verbs that denote PCs are examined in detail vis- a-vis their
morphological, syntactic and semantic features.
Kruspe (2006:305) remarks in his study on adjectives in Semelai, a Southern Aslian
language, that there is no major word class of adjectives but what is rather present is a
subclass of verbals which behave more like verbs. La Polla (2006: 320) notes in his
analysis of Qiang that the words used to express the concept of adjective are a subtype of
verbs. They further remarked that these verbs can modify nouns directly and these verbs
have special reduplication forms. PC words in a south- western Tai language, Lao, are
stative verbs with special characteristics that they do not share with active verbs and also
some verbs of state change Enfield (2006:328). Like Semelia, Qiang and Lao, some Ga
verbs can also be associated with the concept of expressing PCs, though the adjective
class exists in Ga as a distinct syntactic category. The verbs that mostly translate into
adjectives in English are stative verbs and change of state verbs as remarked by Sampson
(2011:40). Some of the stative verbs are dà to be big’and change of state verbs include
gbɔ՝ ‘ to be old’ kpɔ՜tɔ՜ ‘ to rot’ and tsù ‘to be red’
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In order for one to identify verbs that can be PCs in a language it would be good to
follow a well laid procedure. The work at this point employs Elders et al (2008)
questionnaire for quality verbs which was used by them to test PC verbs in some African
languages. PC verbs were also referred to as quality verbs in Elders et al’s work. The
questionnaire developed by them served as a typological/oriented tool to help determine
the existence and language specific features of quality verbs. They developed this
questionnaire when they saw that some words that were used to express PCs were verbal
in nature. Moreover they also observed that there exist differences in the verbal behaviour
of quality verbs in some of the languages. They examined thirteen African languages
which were from three of the major Africa Phyla (Niger-Congo, Nilo-Saharan and
Afroasiatic). They noted that quality verbs in Bambara, a Mande language, have overt
markings while in other languages quality verbs have grammatical restrictions as
identified in Wolof. Lastly, it was further claimed by them that some quality verbs can be
described only in semantic terms.
The questionnaire was in two parts, Part A and Part B. The first part was the Formal
Criteriaiv and the second part was Semantic criteriav. The questionnaire was structured
such that the language specific analysis of word classes began from the formal criteria.
The formal criteria do comprehensive morphosyntactic analysis by examining the
inflectional and derivational behaviour, the combinatories, syntagmatic restrictions, main
or exclusive occurrence in syntactic slots etc of the lexical items under consideration
(Sasse 1993:560-561). It is better to apply the formal criteria before the semantic criteria.
The semantic criteria examined in detail the treatment of semantic and grammatical
categories that are associated with verbs prototypically. The quality of verbs in terms of
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temporal reference, temporal reference of temporal adjuncts, the internal temporal
structure , state and boundedness, the combination with change of state, modality, voice,
special semantic effects and lexical semantic classes.
5.6.1 Application of the questionnaire
In order to investigate the quality verbs in Ga, I applied Elders et al (2008) questionnaire
to find the PC verbs /quality verbs. The formal criteria were applied first then the
semantic criteria.
5.6.1.1The formal criteria
The formal criteria examined issues that find whether there are markings on the verbs
used to denote PCs and how similar /dissimilar they are from other verbs. The
questionnaire is divided into sections, Section A1 deals with examining tense, aspect,
mood and person, derivational and quality of verbs. All these issues in secion A1 of the
formal criteria check for overt markings on the verbs. On the other hand covert markings
are examined in section A2 and section A3 investigates the relationship between quality
verbs and other forms of qualification. Sometimes the issues being investigated overlap
and therefore they may not be repeated. Moreover not every single issue under each
section is examined.
The first was to find out if there exist special overt markings that define the quality verbs
class. Let’s test this in Ga using two verb types the stative and non stative types.
44) Yòó !lε é -dà.
Woman DEF PERF-be big
‘The woman has grown big’.
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45) Yòó !lε mìì -dà.
Woman DEF PROG–grow
‘The woman is growing’.
46) Yòó !lε mìì - yè nìì.
woman DEF PROG- eat thing
‘The woman is eating something’.
47) Adole é -tèѐ súkúú.
Adole PERF-go school
‘Adole has gone to school’.
From the examples (44-47) there are no special overt markers for quality verbs. The first
two (44) and (45) contain the stative verbs dà ‘be ‘big’ which is quality verb and has
been prefixed with e- and mii- just like the last two verbs. Therefore they have neither
special inflectional nor derivational markers different from non-PC verb.
The next is to find how Tense Aspect Mood (TAM) markers are marked on quality
verbs. The verbs in Ga can be inflected to show tense. According to Arin (2003:2), most
researches on tense have been influenced by the work of Reichenbach (1947) who
introduced speech time, event time and reference time. Arin went further and stated
Comrie’s (1985:9) definition of tense as ‘tense is gramaticalised expression of location in
time’. This means that languages that have grammatical means to express location of a
situation in time also have tense. Aarts (2011) stated that languages often use the
grammatical system of tense to express time. He went further to add that an event
grammatically encodes that the reported event occurred at some time in the past. For
instance, English has two grammatical tenses that is the present and past. Hacquard
(2002:3) remarked that tense’s role is to relate the time of an event with respect to a time
of reference usually the time of speech. From the above definitions of tense, it is clear
that languages express the time of an event grammatically, mostly by the use of affixes.
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However certain languages have been said to be tenseless as they have no formal way of
expressing tense morphologically. An example of a tenseless language is Mandarin
Chinese which expresses time relative to utterance by temporal adverbs like zuotian
‘yesterday’, quman ‘last year and mingtian ‘tomorrow’(Arin 2003).
Unlike English that has two tenses, Ga has three; present, past and future. In Ga tense
is usually marked with affixes. Examples below show some stative verbs that are marked
to show the past and present as well as the future.
48) Lòó !lε gbí nyε .
fish DEF be.dry yesterday
‘The fish got dried up yesterday.’
49) Kòὸlòó lε gírì-ͻ՝ dáá.
animal DEF be wild-HAB always
‘The animal grows wild every day.’
50) Shìá lε jε kε wàà.
house DEF far INT
‘The house is very far.’
Future:
51) a. tàdé lέ àá-kwá. b. Atade lε bàá-kwá.
dress DEF IND FUT-fade dress DEF FUT-fade
‘The dress may fade’. ‘The dress will fade.’
In the examples (48) and (50), the past, which is indicating tense in Ga, normally has a
null affix, what will translate or correspond as present in English is marked with
/-ɔ/ (which also shows habitual) in Ga as seen in (49) and the future is marked with the
affix /baa-/ and /aa-/ as seen in (51a) and (51b). The /baa-/ prefix shows definite future
whiles the/ aa-/ shows the indefinite future. The Ga quality verbs can be marked to show
tense just like an active verb.
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According to Arin (2003:18) aspect was first introduced into English in the middle of
the 18th century from loan translation from Russian vid ‘view’. It was noted by Arin
further that the most popular definition for aspect is by Comrie (1976:3) which is ‘aspects
are different ways of viewing the internal temporal constituency of a situation’. Aspect is
therefore a grammatical device that is used to make reference to the way a particular
event unfolds in time. This is normally through affixes. Ga verbs with high tones
normally take prefixes and suffixes. In examining aspect for PC or quality verbs in Ga, it
was realised that three aspects can be marked on the verbs which are habitual,
progressive and perfect, unlike Chinese in which four aspectual categories can be
expressed namely perfect, imperfective, experiential and delimitative. (Arin 2003:18).
The habitual affix, as noted in Ga, has two allomorphs /-a/ and /- ɔ/. The /-a/ is suffixed
to verbs that have their final vowels as /a/ and the /- / to all other vowels found at the
final position. Instances are shown below.
52) Nú ! lε mlì é -jɔ tsɔ.
water DEF inside PERF-cold INT
‘The water is too cold.’
53) Àtàdé lε é -!kwá tsɔ.
dress DEF PERF- fade INT
‘The dress is too faded.’
54) Kòὸlóó lε gírì-ɔ .
animal DEF to be wild-HAB
‘The animal grows wild.’
55) Gbékε bìí dà-à.
child-PL be big-HAB
‘Children grow’
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56) Yòó lε mìì -gbɔ .
woman DEF PROG- be old
‘The woman is getting old.’
57) Flɔ lε mìì -shà.
stew D EF PROG-spoil
‘The stew is getting spoilt.’
In examples (52) and (53) the verbs jɔ ‘be cold’ and kwá ‘to fade’ have been put in the
perfect aspect by prefixing the perfect prefix e՜-՝. The perfect prefix has a high tone
followed by a floating low tone. In examples (54) and (55) the quality verbs gírì ‘to be
wild’ and dà ‘to be big’ have been put in the habitual forms. The dà has been attached
with the /-a/ suffix whiles gírì ‘be wild’ has the /-ɔ/ suffix. Gbɔ ‘be old’ and shá ‘get
spoilt’ are the quality verbs in (56) and (57) and have been put in the progressive aspect
by prefixing with /mii-/.
The next to be investigated is mood. Mood in grammar is the quality of a verb that
conveys the writer’s attitude towards a subject. Similarly it is a way of using a verb to
show the attitude of the speaker toward what he is saying. This means it is the form taken
by the verb to show how it should be regarded, for example, as a fact, a command, a wish
or an uncertainty.
Mood, as noted in Ga, is expressed by attaching affixes generally. Four types of
mood are realised in Ga which are indicative, interrogative, imperative and subjunctive.
The indicative, imperative and subjunctive moods in Ga are expressed morphologically
through affixation. However with the interrogatives, free morphemes or tonation pattern
are used to show them as in examples (58) and (59).
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58) Mέnì o-yѐ?
what 2SG eat
‘What did you eat’
59) Nám bà?.
who came
‘Who came’.
The words mέnì’ what’ and námɔ՝ ‘who’ are used to express the interrogative. There are
other words as well in Ga that are used but I will not delve into them that, as they are
normally at the initial position of the construction. The indicative markers are affixes as
illustrated in (60-62) below where the indicative markers are /mii-/ and /baa-/.
60) Ajele mìì -yè ómɔ .
Ajele PROG-eat rice
‘Ajele is eating rice.
61) Nùú !lε bàá -fíté níbìì lε .
man DEF FUT-spoil things DEF
‘The man will spoil the things’
62) A՝tàdé lέ mìì-yέ.
dress DEF PROG- be white
‘The dress is white’.
PC verbs may or may not occur in the imperative. In Ga, some of the verbs can be
used imperatively whereas others cannot. The imperative for verbs are formed in Ga
through the high floating tone, by the affix high tone and , by suffixing the final vowel of
the verb and by attaching /-m / to the verb, depending on the number (singular or plural).
Examples of PC verbs that are used imperatively are below and are very few.
63) Dàá ‘(you SG ) grow up’ tɔ ɔ ‘ (you SG) get satisfied’
Fítémɔ lε ‘(you SG ) spoil it’
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There are those which cannot be used imperatively especially verbs that denote colour as
in (64).
64) yε ‘be white’ tsù ‘be red’ jòò ‘be bitter’
hì ‘be good’ jà ‘be just’ kwá ‘fade’
But we can say di fioo mɔ or há nì edi fioo ‘let it blacken a little more’ in certain
instances when maybe an hairdresser is dying someone’s hair.
In terms of the subjunctive mood most of the PC verbs can be used to expressed it as
examples (65-67) below show.
65) Bànkú lε á -wà.
banku DEF SBJV-be hard
‘The banku ought to be hard’.
66) kùtú lε á -hì.
orange DEF SBJV-be good
‘The orange should be good’
67) Wónú !lε á -ŋɔ ɔ .
soup DEF SBJV-be sweet
‘The soup would be sweet’.
Tense Aspect and Mood (TAM) features can be treated together and can have negativity
using the appropriate affix depending on the class of the verb.
Habitual:
68) Nú !lε mli jɔ - ɔ tsɔ .
water DEF inside cold-HAB INT
‘The water is too cold.’
Progressive:
69) Nú !lε mlì mìì -jɔ tsɔ .
water DEF inside PROG-cold INT
‘The water is getting too cold.’
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Past:
70) Nú !lε mlì jɔ tsɔ .
water DEF inside cold INT
‘The water got too cold.’
Perfect:
71) Nú !lε mlì é -jɔ tsɔ .
water DEF inside PERF-cold INT
‘The water has become too cold.’
Subjunctive:
72) Nú !lε mlì á -jɔ
water DEF inside SBJV-cold
‘The water should be very cold.’
Negative:
73) Nú !lε mlì é -jɔ -kó tsɔ .
water DEF inside NEG-cold-NEG INT
‘The water is has not become very cold.’
Subjunctive:
74) Nú !lε mlì áká -jɔ tsɔ .
water DEF inside NEG-cold INT
‘The water should not be very cold.’
Future:
75) Nú !lε mlì é-jɔ -ŋ tsɔ .
water DEF inside NEG-cold INT
‘The water will not be very cold.’
The verb jɔ ‘be cold’ which is a class II verb in Ga make use of circumfix or the
discontinuous morpheme in expressing negativity/to get the negative form and the
prefixes and suffixes for the positive. It is seen that the prefixes are used for the
subjunctive, perfect and progressive in (69), (71) and (72) while suffixes are used to show
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the habitual in (68) and this applies to both verb types identified in Ga. As already
mentioned the progressive , past and habitual distinctions get lost in the negative form as
they have the same form as in (73) because they collapse into one form .The future and
the subjunctive distinctions are however maintained in the negative as in (74) and (75).
This verb jɔ cannot occur in the imperative form therefore the imperative is not shown in
the examples. In example (68) and (69) the affixes which mark the habitual and
progressive aspect are at the same time marking the indicative mood and showing
positive polarity as well.
How are person markers also used with PC verbs?. Are they affixes or clitics or they
are free morphemes. In Kabyle, a Berber language, quality verbs have specific affixes in
the perfect or accompli when contrasted with other verbs (Elders et al 2008). Now let’s
find out if this pertains in Ga.
Some examples:
76) Nùú !lε é -gbɔ
man DEF PERF-old
‘The man is old’.
Replacing nùù‘man’ with pronoun.
77) É- -gbɔ
3SG.PERF-be.old
‘He is old’.
In (77) above the pronoun /e/ represents both the noun and the perfect marker. The
perfect which is /e-/ with high tone followed by a floating low tone has the e- removed
and the high tone placed on the subject pronoun and the low tone influences the tone of
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the verb . These quality verbs do not have any special marker for persons just like other
verbs as below.
78) Ajele é- -ŋmà nìì.
Ajele PERF -write thing
‘Ajele has written some things’.
79) É- ŋmà nìì.
3SG.PERF write thing
‘She has written some things’.
Though the verb is marked with perfect prefix the rendering is in the present but for
the non PC verb it is rendered in the perfect. Compare examples (76) and (78). It is
realised that the tense/aspect in which the verb is , marks the mood as well as the polarity
of the verb, for instance in example (73) above the affix e-ko marks the perfect, the
indicative mood and negative polarity. The affixes used therefore express aspect, mood
and polarity fused together.
There are PC verbs that have null subject or expletive in Ga. Like the one below has
its subject /experiencer occurring after them.
80) É- tɔ Ama
NULLPRO be.tired Ama
‘Ama is tired’.
In (80) the /e/ represents null subject and Ama is the experiencer in the sentence though
Ama occurs after the verb.
Though most of the verbs can all be conjugated there are restrictions as to the subject
in few instances of some of the PC verbs. It must be noted that most PC verbs are not put
in imperative forms like action verbs for example
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*81) jà ‘be just’ *jaa gbɔ ‘be old’ *gbͻͻ
But verbs like dà ‘be big’ could be placed in the imperative form, just like non PC verbs
most of which can occur in the imperative as in (82).
82) Non-Property Concepts Verbs in the Imperative
Verb
Imperative(singular)
Imperative (plural)
yè ‘to eat ye՜ ‘ you eat’ nyέye՜a ‘you eat’
n ‘to drink’ nùu՜ ‘you drink nyέn a ‘you drink’
wɔ ‘to sleep’ wɔ՜ ‘you sleep’ nyέwɔ՜a ‘you sleep’
tsí ‘ to push’ tsí ‘you push’ nyέtsía ‘you push’
t ‘to jump’ t ‘you jump’ nyέt a ‘you jump’
bó ‘to shout’ bóò ‘you shout’ nyέbóa ‘you shout’
The imperative in Ga is formed in several ways which include adding the final vowel of
the verb, marking of high tone on the verb (floating high tone) as already discussed.
Singular imperative allomorphs are floating high tone yé ‘ you eat’, vowel with high tone
daa ‘grow’ and the suffix -m feemͻ ‘you do’.
PC verbs in Ga are not derived from other word classes, unlike Kulango where PC
verbs are derived but are not productive. Though the verbs are not derived, they can have
nominal forms and some can have adjectives derived from them. PC verbs may be
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monosyllabic or disyllabic. And the tone may be high or low or low high. Instances are
below in (83).
83) i) jà ‘to be just’ tsù ‘to redden’
ii) dà ‘to be big’ y ‘to whiten’
iii) dí ‘to blacken’ gbɔ ‘to grow old’
iv) fɔ ‘to be wet’ kwá ‘to fade.
v) kpɔ !tɔ ‘to rot/to be rotten’ fíté ‘to spoil’
vi) bó!dá ‘to be crooked’
(84) shows nominalisation of PC verbs in Ga
Verb Nominal Form
i) dà ‘to grow/ be big’ dàlε՝ ‘growth
ii) tɔ ‘to be satisfied’ tɔ՝lε՝ ‘satisfaction’
iii) ŋɔ ɔ ‘to be sweet’ ŋɔ՝ɔ՜mɔ՝ ‘sweetness’
iv) gìrí ‘to be wild’ grímɔ՝ ‘wildness’
iv) wá ‘to be difficult’ wálε՝ ‘hardness’
v) hì ‘to be good’ hìlε՝ ‘goodness’
vi) gbɔ ‘to be old’ gbɔ՝lε՝ ‘oldness’
vii) jɔ ‘to be cold’ jɔ՝lε՝ ‘coldness’
viii) dɔ ‘to be hot’ dɔ՝lε՝ ‘hotness’
These PC verbs only occur in the verb slot and are normally intransitive. However they
also occur in relative clauses and most often those which have adjective equivalents may
also be used in object slots but put in nominal forms. Adverbs cannot be formed most
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often from these adjective-like verbs in Ga but they can be reduplicated like other verbs
which may be the distributive iterative.
The verbs discussed so far have been used in the predicative but when these verbs are
used to modify nouns they occur in relative clauses with the exception of those that may
have corresponding adjectives. The table 5.1 in example (85) shows verbs with their
adjective equivalents.
85) Verbs with corresponding adjectives
Table 5.1 Verbs with corresponding adjectives
Verb
English
Adjective
English
tsù
to be red
tsùrù
red
yε
to be white
yε ŋ
white
dí
to be black
díŋ
black
dà
to grow big
àgbò
big
dɔ
to be hot
klàklà
hot
The corresponding adjective of the verb in (86a) is found in (86b).
86) a. Màmá lέ tsù- b. Màmá tsùrú lε nε .
cloth-DEF be red-HAB cloth red DEF that
‘The cloth is red.’ ‘That is the red cloth.’
Though these PC verbs occur in the intranstive slots they may be used in constructions
and have objects as in (87a) and (87b).
87) a. Àtàdé lε kwá.
dress DEF fade
‘The dress got faded’
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b. Nú ! lε kwá níbìì lε fε ε .
water DEF fade things DEF all
‘The water made all the dresses fade.’
In terms of negation, Ga has the negation affix for class one type of verb and class
two type of verb. The class to which the PC verb belongs determines the negation affix it
will take or occur with. Refer to page (143) above.
PC verbs occur with adverbs or ideophones to show intensity. This was also noticed
in Kulango where intensifying ideophonic adverbs occur with the quality verb as seen
below in (88).
88) Te- ge hεnε hɔɔ bii kpiri kpii
Goat-CLFDEM.ANIM.SG,SBJ.ANIM.SG be black very black.very black
‘The goat is very black’.
(Elders et al 2008: 11)
Affixes that are used to derive adjectives from these quality verbs mostly do not
apply to other verbs; these affixes vary and some are lexically conditioned. In Bambara,
for instance, the suffix -man is only attached to quality verbs to derive adjectives, for
example grin ‘be heavy’ the adjective form is girin-man ‘heavy’. However it was noted
that this affix does not apply to all quality verbs in Bambara(Elders et al 2008).
Examples of adjectives derived from PC verbs in Ga are shown.
89)
Verb Affix Adjective
i) gbí ‘to be dry’ -ŋ gbíŋ ‘dry’
ii) dí ‘to be blacken’ -ŋ díŋ ‘black’
iii) yε ‘to whiten’ -ŋ yέŋ ‘white’
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iv) shà ‘to rot’ -ra shàrà ‘rotten’
v) tsù ‘to redden’ -ru tsùrù. ‘red’
vi) lε ε ‘be wide’ kεtεε lεkεtεε ‘wide’
vii) kpɔ tɔ ‘to rot’ -i kpɔtɔi ‘rotten’
viii) kpɔ fù ‘to maltreat’ -u kpɔfùù ‘bloated
(Refer to explanation in chapter three.)
The next section examines the relation between quality verbs and other forms of
qualification.
The first criterion is what functions do quality verbs play in terms of being
predicative. PC verbs serve as the head of the VP in most constructions with few
instances where they also take objects. They are mostly intransitive as already indicated.
Below are examples in Ga.
90) Wónú ! l jé fù.
soup DEF spring scent
‘The soup smelled’
91) Nùú ! lέ kwɔ՝.
man DEF be tall
‘The man is tall.’
It must be noted, however, that some of these PC verbs have their meanings specified in
them, that is, they are Inherent Complement Verbs (ICV) like the example (90) verb jè fù.
There are other verbs like yè àwúì ‘be mean/wicked’ and yè amiŋ ‘be unfair’. There is the
verb which takes an object lè níí ‘intelligent’.
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In terms of attribution , PC verbs cannot occur in the same forms except those that
can have adjectives derived from them. Sometimes, they rather occur before the nominal
head they are modifying. Those that do not have adjective forms or cannot have
adjectives derived from them but have to be used attributively, occur in relative clauses
introduced by the relativizer ni. That explains the ungrammaticality of (92b).
92) a. Tsòfá lέ jòó.
medicine DEF be bitter
‘The medicine is bitter’
b* Joo tsofa is ungrammatical and unacceptable
93) Níyènìì ní ŋɔ ɔ nε .
food REL be sweet PART
‘That is tasty food’.
Example (92a) can either be tsòfá ní jòó ‘the medicine which is bitter ‘using the
relativiser or tsòfá jòómɔjómɔ where the verb ‘to be bitter’ has been suffixed with the
nominalizer suffix /–mɔ/, then is reduplicated. That form can be used attributively. In (94)
the PC verb jà ‘be just’ has been nominalised to be jàlε՝ but occurs before the head noun
sànè ‘case’ to modify it. The nominalised form has therefore occurred before the head
noun and has played the role of an epithet. It does not occur in the adjective position
which is after the head noun.
94) Màn tsε lε yѐ jàlε sànѐ.
chief DEF eat just case
‘The chief dealt with the case justly.’
Cases of using PC verbs in apposition were not found in Ga.
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It must be noted that in listening to speeches on radio and conversations among
native- speakers they prefer to use the verbs that denote PC items often instead of their
adjective equivalents. In recent textbooks also the verb forms are used, otherwise, the
nominal forms are preferred.
Adjectives can occur in verbless constructions with particles in Ga; however PC
verbs cannot occur with these particles and therefore cannot be in these verblesss
constructions. Examples (95a) and (95b) show adjectives in verbless constructions.
95) a. Tsέnsì fólò nì.
saucepan empty PART
‘It is an empty saucepan’.
b. Blòdò b d nì.
bread soft PART
‘It is soft bread’.
When a PC verb has to be employed in a verbless construction, an adjective form of the
verb must be derived or the adjective equivalent of the verb can be used; where an
adjective is not existent, the verb will be in a relative clause form. Examples are as seen
below.
96) a. Nùù díŋ nì.
man black PART
‘He is a dark man.’
97) b. Amèò kp t i nì.
tomatoes rotten PART
‘These are rotten tomatoes’
96) c. Tsò àgbò nì.
Tree big PART
‘It is a big tree’.
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96) d. A tàdé ní é-f l nε .
dress REL PERF-be wet DEF PART
‘That is the dress that is wet’.
In (96a) and (96b) the adjectives used are derived from the PC verbs di ‘to blacken’ and
kp t ‘to rot’ and in (96c) the equivalent form of a PC verb dà ‘be big’ has been used. In
(96d) the attribution to the head noun àtàdé ‘dress’ has been employed in the form of a
relative clause as the PC verb fɔ ‘be wet’ has no adjective equivalent and an adjective
cannot be derived from it.
Verbs that do not denote PC items, however, do also occur in attributive function in the
form of relative clauses as in example (97).
97) Nùù ní w lε e -tèѐ.
man REL sleep DEF PERF –go
‘The man who slept has left’.
Syntactically, these verbs (quality verbs) can be process verbs in some languages as noted
by Elders et al (2008) when they examined quality verbs in some Niger Congo languages.
5.6.1.2 Semantic Criteria
Now in this section the second set of criteria used to examine quality verbs will be
employed. These are the semantic criteria which deal with issues like behaviour of PC
verbs in terms of their temporal reference, temporal reference of temporal adjuncts,
aspect, state and boundedness, their combinations with verb of change of state modality,
voice, special semantic effects and lexical semantic classes.
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In exploring the temporal reference it can be realised that most often is the present
time reference. Can PC verbs be used to express a particular time in the present? This is
for both types of verbs. Elders et al(2008) cited Welmers (1973 : 346-347) who observed
that in Niger Congo languages not everything referring to present time is expressed by
present or continuative expressions or constructions. Welmers (1973) investigation into
Yoruba claimed that a verb labelled past refers to the past for a dynamic verb, whereas a
stative verb labelled past obtains a present time reference. It was also observed in Mande
languages by Lupke (2005:65) that verbs that have zero aspect marking yield past
perfective for dynamic verbs and the same marking gives a present imperfective for
stative verbs. Example cited by Lupke (2005:65) are:
98) N faa n waa
ISG come 1SG cry
‘I came’ ‘I cried’
N tagan
1SG be tired
‘I am tired’
This situation can also be found in Ga where stative verbs denoting PC items
normally in the perfect may yield present time reference as compared to verbs not
denoting PC items. Whereas the perfect in Ga marks present, the perfect in Wolof shows
past for non stative or quality verbs but marks the present for quality verbs ( Loic Perrin
p.c).this is shown below:
99) Lekk naa Feebar naa
Eat 1SG.PRF be.ill 1SG. PRF
‘I have eaten/I ate.’ ‘I am ill.’
(Elders et al 2008: 15)
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The question is why the temporal reference for these quality verbs, is it because they
refer to temporal situations?. I think so because most often, it is a temporary situation.
What time reference does a quality verb yield when it has no TAM marker? In Ga it is
interpreted as the aorist or the past tense as seen below.
100) Wónú ! lε dɔ .
soup DEF be hot
‘The soup got hot’
101) Nú !lε mlí jɔ .
water DEF inside be cold
‘The water got cold’.
In a language where tense is absent, like Mandarin Chinese and Kabyle, how is tense
expressed? In Kabyle, it was claimed by Elders et al (2008) that present tense
interpretation is given to both stative and quality verbs that are in the perfective. It was
further established that the same TAM may be interpreted as past in a particular context
e.g narrative. (Elders et al 2008). It is noted in Ga that the default time reference for PC
verbs is present when the perfect is marked on the verb.
Quality verbs are generally intransitive. They can occur with adverbs / intensifiers, as
seen below:
102) Shìkpɔ ŋ lέ lε ε tsɔ .
ground DEF be wide INT
‘The ground is very wide’
103) Ákùtu lε ŋɔ ɔ wàà.
orange DEF be sweet INT
‘The orange is very sweet’.
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104) Ŋmε nε lo o ! lε hì.
today fish DEF be good
‘Today the fish is good’.
When they occur with intensifiers they can be in any of the TAM forms eg
105) Shìkpɔ ŋ lέ mìì- lε ε ts .
floor DEF PROG-be wide ADV
‘The floor is getting wide’.
106) Áku tu lε ba a -ŋɔ ɔ wàà.
orange DEF FUT ADV
‘The orange will be sweet’.
107) Ŋmε nε lo o !lε e - hì- ŋ.
today Fish DEF NEG FUT- be good-NEG
‘The fish will not be good today’
In (105) the affix n the verb marks progressive, indicative mood and positive polarity as
well , in (106) the verb indicates future , indicative mood and positive polarity and in
(107) the affix on the verb indicates future, indicative mood and negative polarity.
PC verbs can take affixes which are derivational as well as inflectional to show
number agreement with either the subject or the object in some instances. Refer to
example (89) for derivational affixes.
PC verbs in Ga do not only refer to a stable state but to change of state and sometimes
resultative state as well. It was observed in Jalonke, a Mande language, by Elders et al
(2008) that when quality verbs are not marked for aspect overtly they express a state but
when they are marked with the imperfective marker –ma they express a gradual entering
of state. It was further stated by them that when one wants to express and emphasize state
resulting from a change of state, an aspectual unmarked construction plus a postpositional
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phrase consisting of expletive pronoun and a general locative postposition is used.
Examples in Jalonke are below cited by Elders et al(2008).
108) Kreͻn-na melun
Pencil-DEF be pointed
‘The pencil is pointed.’
(Elders et al 2008:19)
109) Tum-εε melon-ma a xere nan na
Thorn DEF be.pointed-IPFV 3SG youth FOC with
‘It ‘s in its young age that a thorn become pointed.’
(Elders et al 2008:19)
The example in (108) has no aspect marking therefore denoting a state. Example
(109) shows gradual entering into state.
The example in (110) shows emphasis:
110) Kreͻn-na melun ε i
Pencil –DEF be.pointed 3SG at
‘The pencil has become pointed’ ( cf Lupke 2005:158-159 in Elders et al 2008)
In Ga, it is possible to have a PC verb and change of state verb in a construction.
When that occurs the PC verb is put in the nominal form through affixation. The
examples below show this phenomenon.
111) Nú !lε bɔ ì d - .
water DEF begin be hot.NOM
‘The water began to heat’.
112) Rɔ bá lέ bɔ ì bódá-m yε la lε mlì.
rubber DEF begin melt.NOM in fire DEF inside
‘The rubber began to melt in the fire’.
113) Sε í lε é -bɔ ì fíté -m .
chair DEF PERF-begin spoil-NOM
‘The chair has begun to spoil’.
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The nominalised forms of the PC verbs dɔ՝ ‘be hot’ bódá ‘to bend’ and fíté ‘to
spoil’ are used in the constructions (111-113) respectively.
Quality verbs were also examined to check if they can occur with change of state
verbs.The quality/ PC verbs do not occur with fee ‘become’ in Ga. When the verb fee is
used the PC verb cannot occur in complement position, the adjective/adjective
equivalence may be used and must undergo nominalisation as shown below.
114) Shìkpɔ ŋ lε é -lε ε /e -tsu .
ground DEF PERF–be.wide /PERF-be.red
‘The floor has began to widen/ to redden’.
115) Shìkpɔ ŋ é -fèé lε kὲtε ὲ /e-tsu -ru .
floor PERF–become wide NOM-be red-suf
‘The floor has become wide/red’.
In (114) the PC verbs lὲέ ‘to be wide’ and tsù ‘to be red’ have been employed and the
nominal forms are found in example (115)
Auxiliaries in English are mainly free morphemes that occur with verbs like ‘is and
are’. Such auxiliaries cannot occur with Ga PC verbs, rather affixes are realised that
when translated into English as auxiliaries are seen, as in (116 and 117)
116) Yòó ! lε bàá -dà.
woman DEF FUT-grow
‘The woman will grow’.
117) Yòó ! lε mìì-dà.
woman DEF PROG- grow
‘The woman is growing’.
Modality was also investigated to find if there are special modals for PC verbs.
Modals are used to express possibilities and necessities which can be captured formally
by involving ‘possible words’. There are types of modals according, to Tiee (1985:84),
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namely epistemic and deontic. He further states that the epistemic modal deals with
modes of knowing, and it expresses the speaker’s judgment of the probability about an
event when the situation happened. On the other hand, a deontic modal deals with modes
of obligation, that is to say, it is concerned with permission, obligation and forbiddance.
In addition, he stated that these two types are seen as the core types in the literature, but
there is the mention of types like evaluative modality which deals with the speaker’s
attitude towards an utterance for instance the speaker to say something is contrary to what
is expected. Asarina and Holt (2005:1), in their investigation of Tagalog modals based
on semantics, have these divisions: epistemic, and root modals. Root modals were
divided further into two deontic and dynamic modals. Deontic modals in Tagalog are
further divided into directed and non-directed. The directed deontic modal assigns
permission or obligation to the subject for example ‘You must do your homework’ whiles
the non directed does not assign any obligation to the subject like ‘The bread must be
eaten’( Asarina & Holt 2005) Modals may occur with PC verbs but they do not appear
like the ones in English. In English, the modals are normally root words like ‘may, might’
and they occur close to the verbs in the construction in which they occur as in (118)
below.
118) The man may travel on Monday.
In (118) the modal ‘may’ appears close to the verb ‘travel as it is a modal verb’. In Ga
modals may not be root words but consist of two words mainly as in (119).
119) Akέ + nì -ákέní
COMP + CONJ -maybe
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Kέjì + àáá-hì -kέááhì
If +SBJV-be good -maybe
Alééé + nɔ - àléénɔ՜
Know +POSTP -maybe/might
Ekò + lέ -ékòlέ
One+ DEF maybe/might
Kέkέ + nì - kέkέnì
Only + REL- may be
There is however one that can also be used to express a modal meaning but is made up of
two words and written as two separate words, unlike the ones in (119) esa ni ‘must’(sa is
a verb). It must be noted that these modals are adverbs in (119) and therefore do not
occur like modal verbs which occur close to the verbs in English.
Some of these Ga modals are used in sentence below.
120) Aléénɔ nùú !lε bàá -fà gbὲ.
MOD man DEF FUT-uproot road
‘Maybe the man will travel’/the man may travel.’
121) Kέàáhi ósɔ fó lε bàá-bá ŋmε nε .
MOD pastor DEF FUT-come today
‘The pastor may come today.’
122) Ekólέ nyɔ՝ŋmɔ՝ é -nε -ŋ ŋmὲnὲ.
MOD rain NEG-fall-NEG today
‘It might not rain today’
In (120-122) the modal adverbs occur at initial positions in the sentences, the verbs
are not close to the modal adverbs. The modals in Ga can therefore be said to appear at
initial positions as they hardly occur close to the verbs because they are adverbs. It must
be noted, ekólέ, may appear after the verb but may not take scope over the whole
sentence but what occurs after it. What may translate into a modal verb in Ga is the verb
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nyέ ‘can’. When this modal verb is used, the complement is a usually another clause or
sentence, and usually this verb can be conjugated in all tenses. For instance,
123) Kofi bàá-nyέ éwɔ՝
Kofi FUT –can 3SG-sleep
‘Kofi can sleep’
Most often the roles of the subject of PC verbs are actors or agents though other roles
can occur. In (124a) the stew is theme and in (124b) the woman is the agent.
124a) Flɔ lε é -shà b)Yòó !lέ yè níí.
stew DEF PERF–spoil woman DEFeat thing
‘The stew is spoilt.’ ‘The woman ate’
Voice for PC verbs was also dealt with. Passive voice is a voice that indicates the
subject is the patient or recipient of the action denoted by the verb (SIL 2004).
Furthermore the mediopassive was explained as a passive voice in which the verb has
stative meaning and the actor is not expressed. In English, most often, the subject in the
active becomes the object in a passive construction for example.
125) a. The man slapped the little girl. (Active voice)
b. The little girl was slapped by the man. (Passive voice)
c. The snake was killed. (mediopassive)/(Agentless passive)
There may be different ways of expressing the passive in languages not
necessarily the same way as English. Passive can be expressed in Ga mostly with the use
of the indefinite or impersonal pronoun which has a low tone /à/ and the verb conjugated.
Due to the fact that the perfect marker has a floating tone, when it combines with the
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indefinite/impersonal pronoun, the first tone which is the high tone docks on the
indefinite/impersonal pronoun and makes it high. The second tone influences the first
syllable of the verb tone and it is only in this instance that the impersonal pronoun carry a
high tone.
126) À -gbè gbèé.
INDEF-kill dog
‘The dog was killed.’
127) À - dɔ wónú ! lε .
INDEF-be.hot soup DEF
‘The soup was heated.’
128) À -gbá-a mama-i lε dáá.
INDEF-tear-HAB cloth-PL DEF daily
‘Clothes are torn daily.’
129) À - dí tsέnsí lε .
INDEF-be black saucepan DEF
‘The saucepan was blacken’.
From the examples in (126-129) the subjects in the sentences are indefinite pronouns
‘a’. A change in the tone of the indefinite pronoun brings the change in TAM features.
The indefinite pronoun can be translated either as singular or plural. For instance if the
sentences in (130) and (13) have high tones on the indefinite pronoun the English
rendition will differ as below. The subjunctive marker is similar to the impersonal
pronoun /a/ but has a high tone, care must be taken not to confuse or mix them up as they
that gives different rendition. Examples (130) and (131) buttress the difference between
the impersonal marker above and the subjunctive marker below.
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130) Á - dɔ՝ wón ! lέ.
INDEF-be.hot soup DEF
‘The soup should heated.’
131) Á - jɔ -ɔ kòkó lε hè.
INDEF- to cool-HAB porridge DEF body
‘The porridge should be cooled.’
Causatives can also contain PC verbs. In addition to the PC verb, há ‘to make/give’ in
a construction gives a causative construction syntactically. Examples are below
132) Yòó ! lε há bàn kú lε fú.
woman DEF make banku DEF be.mouldy
‘The woman made the banku go mouldy.’
133) Hùlú lε há àtàdé lε gbí.
sun DEF give dress DEF be.dry
‘The sun made the dress dry.’
In the structure the PC verb occurs as the second verb and the action verbs appear
first in the construction. In Kabyle, colour verbs make a distinction between imperfective
and a causative derivation as noted by Elders et al (2008:22). The example is below.
134) Zeggway-0
3 perferctive
‘It is/ was red.’
Ye-zzewey
‘He made it (become) red.’
The example in (134) consists of it plus the 3rd person causative perfective plus object
clitic. This can be expressed in Ga in the following example.
135) É - tsù - ɔ՝.
3SG -be.red-HAB
‘It is red/it was red’
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136) É - féè lε é -tsùrù /é -há nì é-fèè é -tsùrù.
3SG- make 3SG OBJ NOM-red /3SG- give CONJ 3SG-do NOM-red
‘He made it red/he made it become red.’
137) É - mìì -di lὲ.
3SG –PROG-blacken 3SG
‘S/he is making it black.’
In the construction (135) the colour verb ‘red’ is in the habitual and in (136) the
colour verb is in the nominal form. The derivation from tsù ‘be red’ to tsùrù ‘red’is
through affixation. However, the colour being in complement position has been prefixed
with e-, which is the nominal prefix, for adjectives. It will be incorrect to occur in the
adjective form in the complement position without the prefix e-.
In examining the lexical semantic classes that these PC verbs in Ga can be placed, the
following can be found.
138) Dimension: lὲέ ‘to be wide’, kwɔ ‘be tall’
Colour: tsù ‘to redden’, yέ ‘to be white’, dí ‘be black’
Value: hì ‘be good’
Age: gbɔ՝ ‘be old’
Physical Property: wà ‘be hard’, fɔ՝ ‘be wet’, tí ‘to be thick’
Human Propensity: yѐ àwúì ‘be mean’, yѐ àwùŋà ‘be jealous’ yѐ àmín ‘be unfair’
Similarity: tàmɔ՝ ‘like’
The verbs in Dimension and Colour classes above all have adjective equivalents
which are derived from these verbs. The verb in the Value class has no adjective
equivalent just like the Age class. The verbs found in the Human Propensity class can
have adjectival forms which are nominal derived from the verbs (nominal adjectives).
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Verbs that denote property concepts occur in periphrastic comparative constructions
such as the illustrations in (139-141).
139) Wòlò nε ε é -gbɔ fé wòlò nε ε
book DET PERF-old surpass book DET
‘This book is older than that book.’
nε ε consist of nε plus lε which has been written as one nε ε
140) Amèò nε ε é -kpɔ tɔ fé ákwàdú lε .
tomatoes DET PERF- rot surpass banana DEF
‘These mango is more rotten than the banana.’
141) Ómɔ nε ε yε -ɔ fé nyε sε ε nɔ .
rice DET white-HAB surpass last own
‘This rice is whiter than the last time one.’
The examples in (139) to (141) show that verb in Ga takes either the perfect form or
the habitual plus the morpheme fè ‘surpass’ in the clause to express the degree or extent
of property that is under consideration.
These verbs also can be used to express the superlative by employing the use of fè
‘surpass and fέέ ‘all’ put in the sentence as in (142).
142) Àtàdé lε hìε é -kwá fé fε ε .
dress DEF face PERF–fade surpass all
‘The dress is the most faded one.’
When the verb is being used to express the superlative the verb form is either perfect
or habitual as seen in (142).
5.7 Sequencing of Property Concept verbs
Sometimes more than one PC is used to modify a noun and this includes PC verbs. In Lao
the two verbs used to modify a noun must come from the same semantic class.
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Section three of the questionnaire (Appendix 1) dealt with translating the sentences
that contain PC verbs into Ga, to find out whether or not there existed a strict order of
arrangement. It came to light that there was no strict sequencing of the PC verbs, as the
respondents seem to write what they believed should occur first. Speakers, however,
prefer to use PC verbs more than their corresponding equivalence. To really find out what
the true picture was, I followed up with interviews to solicit the respondents’ opinions. It
was revealed that what the speakers saw as important or wanted to focus on was what
they placed first. A few respondents also claimed that when they stand afar from what
they are to describe, they would normally mention what is very vivid to them first before
other descriptions. One respondent said if three men were standing and they were
conversing, and one happens to be fair, in description it is the fairness (Colour) which
will be mentioned first before possibly looking at Age and Dimension. (Refer to chapter
four, pages 129-134).
5.8 Chapter Summary
To summarise, apart from adjectives, stative verbs and change of state verbs are used to
express PCs in Ga and also in Mampruli as noted by Naden (2007:89). The PC verbs
which translate into adjectives most of the time in English have a lot of properties like
action verbs that have no PC associated with them. These PC verbs may of be of two
types as there are those that cannot occur in imperative form. Property concept verbs
occur in relative clauses when they are used to modify nouns and syntactically they serve
as intransitive predicates. There were very few verbs that could occur in epithet positions
in the nominal phrase. The verbs fall into the semantic class of Value, Dimension, Age,
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Physical Property, Similarity and Colour. Those from the Human propensity class tend to
be inherent complement verbs. Some of the PC verbs have corresponding adjectives and
other have adjectives being derived from them. The PC verbs could occur with modal
adverbs in Ga but were not found in serial constructions. PC verbs are not so different
from non PC verbs in terms of their distributional properties.
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Endnotes
iv. For detail discussion on Ga verb types see Dakubu (2007) and Adjei (1999)
vi Elders et al (2008) questionnaire , the formal criteria examines issues like special
covert or overt markings on the quality verbs like special inflections or derivations, any
special TAM markers used on quality verbs , any person markers used only for quality
verbs like clitics, any TAM restrictions, are they derived and any restriction n derivation,
any formal features special to them, any special functions: attributive, predicative,
apposition, any recategorisation from other verbs .
viithe semantic criteria deals with isues like: any default for temporal reference, any special reason for TAM
marker or without it, any default interpretation, do they occur with adjuncts or adverbs, any special
difference between quality verb and dynamic one?, do they refer to states, do they combine with verbs
indicating change of state, any grammatical status when indicating state like taking complements, ccuring
with auxiliaries, any combination with modals, any relation to voice, any semantic categorization etc.
Most of the tests in the questionnaire were applied at least 80%. Full questionnaire see
www.eva.mpg.de
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CHAPTER SIX
NOUNS USED TO CODE PROPERTY CONCEPTS IN GA
6.0 Introduction
PCs, as noted in this work, include lexical items that are used to express or denote
adjectival meanings. Languages use adjectives to express this PC meaning as noted by
Dixon (2004:2), but when a language has no adjective category it can express this
adjectival concept with other word categories, This was also noted by (Welmers
1973:250). However, it must be noted that languages which have the adjective category
can also use other word classes in expressing PCs or adjectival meanings. Welmers
(1973 :250-251) further stated that most Niger Congo languages have less members in
their adjective classes and therefore words that are used to express adjectival meanings in
non-European languages may come from other constructions using nouns or verbs or
both word categories. In Igbo there are six adjectives (Dixon 2004) and in Logba there is
only one adjective (Dorvlo 2009:3). These languages use other syntactic categories to
denote PCs. Ga has the adjective class as a separate syntactic category, but Ga still
employs other word categories to express PCs. Sometimes Ga uses nouns or verbs in
expressing the property of nouns in certain instances.
This chapter investigates nouns that maybe used as PCs in Ga. The noun class is
being investigated to establish whether or not the claim by Dixon (2004:2) that a ‘concept
may relate to different word classes in different languages’ occurs in Ga. This means that
certain words will translate into other word classes in particular languages which are
different from the languages under consideration. For instance Dixon (2004:2) cited the
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example of the concept ‘beauty’ being a noun in some languages but a verb in other
languages. It is worth examining nouns in Ga as some nouns may have qualificative
meanings but are not from the adjective class. It therefore may be misleading to the Ga
learner or native speaker who may not be aware and is ignorant about how word classes
are established, as s/he translates the noun and it falls into the adjective class in English.
The nouns that are used to code PCs will be examined to find if they have special
characteristics in terms of phonology, morphology and syntax.
6.1 Brief features of Nouns
Nouns in languages generally come from semantic types with concrete reference like
chair, table, sea etc, but others like love have no concrete reference (Dixon 2004:4). In
English, terms referring to mental states, physical states and speech acts are included in
noun class (Dixon 2004:3). There are general criteria for distinguishing word classes
namely their meaning, inflection and distribution (O Grady et al 2010). However the
meaning criterion has problems as noted by Carnie (2013:47) and he suggested the best
criterion to apply to establish word classes is the distribution test. The distribution test,
according to Carnie (2013:47-48) consists of the morphological distribution and syntactic
distribution. The morphological distribution examines the types of affixes that occur with
the word being either derivational or inflection. The syntactic distribution takes a look at
what words occur with. Carnie (2013) further remarks that every language has its own
distribution criteria as affixes differ. Nouns, for example, normally occur with
determiners and definite articles in English; they may be marked for plural and may also
be reduplicated. Reduplication may apply to other word classes in all languages, but the
meaning derived from reduplicating a noun may not be the same for reduplicating an
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adjective, for instance. Nouns also occur more as subjects, than other word categories. In
Ga, nouns occur with determiners and occur as subjects and complements of verbs and
these features generally separate them from other word classes In Ga, nouns do not have
gender or animate distinctions marked on them, unlike other world languages. Ga does
not have noun classes, like Swahili. Ansah (2005:88-95) identified noun classes in Lεtε
based on the prefixes attached to these nouns. For singular nouns in Lεtε four noun
classes were identified and for plural nouns five classes were identified. The number
marking for each group of the Lεtε nouns is different. Ansah (2005:88-95) further noted
that number marking in Lεtε is normally through prefixation with the exception of
kinship terms which inflect for number through both prefixation and suffixation. In Ga
the formation of the plural of nouns involves the suffixation of the bound morpheme -i to
the stem. This suffix has different realisations and studies in Ga by Ablorh-Odjidja
(1961) have given the reasons for the distribution of the allomorphs of the Ga plural
morpheme. Ablorh- Odjidja (1961) gave rules for the formation of Ga plurals. It must be
noted that the examples by Ablorh-Odjidja (1961) are originally not carrying tones but
the tone marks are placed on the examples in this study.
This section examines the Ga plural suffixes. The first rule is that all nouns that end with
the vowels /a,e,o,u,ε/ which are the seven non-nasalized vowels are suffixed with -i to
mark plural. He added also that the nouns may have high, low or mid tones. Instances
that he gave are in (1).
1) Singular Plural
bí ‘child’ bíì ‘children’
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gbì ‘day’ gbìì ‘days’
àtàdé ‘dress’ àtàdéì ‘dresses’
ábl՜ádè ‘kinsman’ ábl՜ádèì ‘kinsmen’
gbὲ ‘road’ gbὲì ‘roads’
ŋ kátíέ ‘groundnut’ ŋ kátíέì ‘groundnuts’
òs ‘fox’ òs ì ‘foxes’
àtó ‘laddle’ àtóì ‘laddles’
dùkù ‘scarf’ dùkùì ‘scarves’
hѐlà ‘disease’ hѐlàì ‘diseases’
àdékà ‘box’ àdékàì ‘boxes’
t ՜m ՜ ‘mistake’ t ՜m ՜ì ‘mistakes’
(Ablorh-Odjidja 1961:12-13)
The second rule is that nouns that end with the velar nasal and also end with high tone
take the suffix –i for plural formation. Examples from Ablorh-Odjidja (1961:13) are in
(2).
2) Singular Plural
tsέή ‘chin’ tsέήi ‘chins’
súbáή ‘character’ súbáήi ‘characters’
ánsáŋ՜ ‘guinea fowl’ ánsáŋ՜i ‘guinea fowls’
gwàntέŋ ‘sheep’ gwàntέŋi ‘sheep’
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kr ՜ŋ՜kr ՜ŋ՜ ‘holy’ kr ՜ŋ՜kr ՜ŋ՜i ‘holy’
dàdѐsέŋ՜ ‘metal pot’ dàdѐsέŋ՜i ‘metal pots’
ámpàŋ՜ ‘bat’ ámpàŋ՜i ‘bats’
t ՜ŋ՜t ՜ŋ՜ ‘mosquito’ t ՜ŋ՜t ՜ŋ՜i ‘mosquitoes’
The third rule given states that nouns that end with the velar nasal and a mid or low
tone, take the suffix –dzi (–ji) for plural. Examples cited on page 14 of Ablorh-Odjidja
(1961) are in 3. Ablorh-Odjidja’s work was written in the old Ga orthography and
examples taken from his work have been written in the current orthography. It must be
noted that the orthography used in this work is in the current one and therefore examples
taken from Ablorh-Odjidja (1961) have been written in the current orthography.
3) Singular Plural
g ՜ŋ` ‘mountain’ g ji ‘moutains’
màŋ ‘town’ màji ‘towns’
wàŋ ‘grey’ wàji ‘grey’
àdúŋ ‘monkey’ àdúji ‘monkeys’
gbòŋ ‘hip’ gbòji ‘hips’
klàŋ ‘wolf’ klàji ‘wolves’
kòŋ ‘horn’ kòjì ‘horns’
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w ŋ ‘god’ w jì ‘gods’
He further states that nouns that have the agentive suffix /–l / take the /–i/ suffix to
form their plurals. Examples from page 14 of his work are found below in (4).
4) Singular Plural
jùl ‘thief’ jùl i ‘thieves’
fѐél ‘actor’ fѐél i ‘actors’
s l ‘blacksmith’ s l i ’blacksmiths’
kúd l ‘driver’ kúd l i ‘drivers’
nítsùl ‘worker’ nítsùl i ‘workers’
àpásáfólɔ ‘liar’ àpásáfol i ‘liars’
àmí yél ‘wicked person’ àmímyél i ‘wicked persons’
àtùátsél ‘rebel’ àtùátsél i ‘rebels’
He also noted that nouns that have the final syllable lu, l and le take – dzi (-ji) to
mark plurals after these final syllables are dropped. Examples are below in (5).
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5) Singular Plural
lὲlὲ ‘canoe’ lὲjì ‘canoes’
éwùlù ‘big one’ éwùjì ‘big ones’
w l ‘egg’ w jì ‘eggs’
tsùl ‘servant’ tsùjì ‘servants’
yὲlὲ ‘yam’ yὲjì ‘yams’
kpùlù ‘cup’ kpùjì ‘cups’
Ablorh-Odjidja explains further that some words/nouns also end with the syllables –
lu, l , lε but the lateral /l/ is deleted and then the plural suffix is attached to form the
plural. He iterated further that these words may be part of the ones above in (5) and if
possible may not be separated to have a different rule. He did not bring out any
conclusion on that. However I am of the opinion that these words belong to the above
group in (5) and therefore a separate rule does not apply to them to form their plurals.
This is because these nouns may contain vowels in some of their syllables which are just
weak vowels and when these vowels are deleted in speech, there is no effect in meaning
change for those words. Examples in (6) given by Aborh-Odjidja (1961:15).
6) a. Singular Plural
fálá ‘sore’ fájì ‘sores’
kápl ὲ ‘money’ kápὲjì ‘money’
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sám fl ὲ ‘window’ sám fὲjì ‘windows’
f ‘hole’ f jì ‘holes’
blὲ ‘whistle’ bὲjì ‘whistle(s)’
kpὲŋ kplέ ‘rabbit’ kpὲŋ kpέjì ‘rabbits’
As noted in (6a) above the nouns seem to be forming the plural by deleting the /l/ and
adding the suffix –ji. The assertion was that these nouns are originally as seen below.
b. fálá ‘sore’ kápὲlὲ ‘money’
sám fὲlὲ ‘window’ f l ‘hole’
bὲlὲ ‘whistle’ kpὲŋ kpέlέ ‘rabbit’
I agree that these are the underlying forms of the nouns and due to their weak vowels,
pronunciation differs when in speech, a separate rule therefore should not be given for
them in forming plural.
Nouns that show kinship terms form their plural by suffixing –mεi, to them according
to Ablor-Odjidja (1961). Examples from page16 is found in (7) below.
7) Singular Plural
nyὲ ‘mother ‘ nyὲmὲi ‘mothers’
tsὲ ‘father’ tsὲmὲi ‘fathers’
nu ts ‘master’ nu ts mὲi ‘masters’
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nìì ‘grandfather’ nììmὲi ‘grandfathers’
ŋà ‘wife’ ŋàmὲi ‘wives’
nàà ‘grandmother’ nààmὲi ‘grandmothers’
màŋtsὲ ‘king’ màŋtsὲmὲi ‘kings’
According to Ablorh Odjidja (1961) when nouns have the final syllable nyo, the
plural is formed by either suffixing mεi or bii. Examples from page16 is in (8) below.
8) Singular Plural
nànѐhѐnyò ‘friend’ nànѐmὲi ‘friends’
Ganyò ‘a Ga’ Gamὲi ‘Gas’
Akwapεnyò ‘an Akwapim’ Akwapem-mεi/Akwapεmbii’
Tamalenyò ‘Tamale person’ Tamalebiì ‘Tamale people’
Bl fónyò ‘white person’ Bl fómὲì ‘white people’
shiányò ‘house member’ shiàbiì ’house members’
màŋ nyo ‘national’ màŋbiì ‘nationals’
The studies also revealed that those nouns that end with tso turn to tsei. Examples from
Ablorh-Odjidja (1961:17) are in (9).
9) Singular Plural
yítso ‘head’ yítséì ‘heads’
y yitsó ‘blackberry tree’ y yítsé ‘blackblerry trees’
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àk tsò ‘clan’ ak tsèì ‘clans’
sààtsò ‘bed’ sààtsèì ‘beds’
nàk tsò ‘elbow’ nàk tsèì ’elbows’
f f ítsò ‘pestle’ f f ítsèì ‘pestles’
In my opinion the noun tso which has its plural tsei is as a result of the root changing
when the plural suffix –i is added. Since these words or nouns have the noun tso ending
them, they exhibit the root change.
Another rule according to Ablorh Odjidja is that nouns that have yoo at their final
positions change to yei in plural form. Examples are in (10).
10) Singular Plural
w yòò ‘priestess’ w yèì ‘priestesses’
w yòò ‘hen’ w yèì ‘hens’
gbèéyòò ‘bitch’ gbèéyèì ‘bitches’
òb àyòò ‘young lady’ òb àyèì ‘young ladies’
yòò ‘woman’’ yèì ‘women’ etc
All nouns that end with fonyo also form their plural by changing fonyo to foi as in
examples in (11).
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11) Singular Plural
òkwààfónyò ‘farmer’ òkwààfói ‘farmers’
K ístòfónyò ‘Christian’ K ístòfóì ‘Christians’
Kràm fónyò ‘Muslim’ Kràm fóì ‘Muslims’
àsr áàfónyò ‘soldier’ àsr áàfóì ‘soldiers’
òdàsèfónyò ‘witness’ òdàsèfóì ‘witnesses’
There was also a rule on nouns that take the plural suffix –bii. The rule states that
nouns that denote entities that are small in size (diminutives) take this plural suffix –bii.
Examples from page 18 in his work are found in (12) below.
12) Singular Plural
tsàts ‘ant’ tsàts bíì ‘ants
gbékέ ‘child’ gbékέbíì ‘children’
p ὲkòó ‘nail’ p ὲkòóbíì ‘nails’
However it was also noted that some nouns that denote entities that are in small sizes
and end in vowel /o/ delete the vowel before adding the plural suffix –bii. Instances were
seen on page 18 in Ablorh Odjidja’s work as shown in (13).
13) Singular Plural
àbìfáó ‘baby’ àbìfábíì ‘babies’
f f ó ‘toddler’ f f bíì ‘toddlers’
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àshìnáó ‘bead’ àshìnábiì ‘beads’
wàó ‘finger’ wàbiì ‘fingers’
The study on plural formation for nouns also reveals that nouns that end with n
delete the n and replace or add nii to form plurals. Illustrations are (14).
14) Singular Plural
hèsàám n ‘accesso y’ hèsàám níí ‘accessories’
káìm n ‘souvenir’ káìm níí ‘souvenirs’
n kwέm n ‘example’ n kwέm níí ‘examples’
shààn ‘strainer’ shààníí ‘strainers’
hèhààn ‘cloth’ hèhààníí ‘cloths’
kèèn ‘gift’ kèèníi ‘gifts’ etc
Before Ablorh-Odjidja concluded the findings on the plural formation he mentioned
that there were some of the nouns that did not follow any of the rules mentioned. He gave
examples such as in (15).
15) Singular Plural
sànè ‘issue’ sà i ‘issues’
nànè ‘leg’ nàjì ‘legs’
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fìnè ‘wing’ fìjì ‘wings’
ny m ‘debt’ ny jì ‘debts’
k k ‘a piece’ k k jì ‘pieces’
gbòm ‘human being’ gbòmὲì ‘human beings’
n ‘man’ hìì ‘men’
tὲŋ ‘palm’ tὲŋ ì ‘palms’
Before Ablorh Odjidja concluded the chapter he mentioned the types of nouns in Ga.
He stated three types of proper nouns which were names of places, towns and people
names. He noted that personal names can be pluralized in Ga. Examples that he
mentioned are in (16).
16) Singular Plural
Kofi Kofimὲì
Kwei Kweimὲì
Afote Afotemὲì
Okai Okaimὲì
Kotei Koteimὲì
These names of people are pluralized with only the suffix mὲì and nothing else. Can
it be concluded that the plural marker mὲì is having a feature + HUMAN and therefore
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can not be attached to non human nouns in forming the plural? To a large extent most of
the nouns that form their plural with the suffix mὲì are mostly animates. However from
discussions with other linguists, the plural of these animate nouns is formed by adding
the morpheme mɔ ‘person’ and the suffix –i. The plural marker is therefore –i and not mεi
as Ablorh-Odjidja claims. The morpheme is introduced to form a compound before the
plural suffix –i is attached to the nouns. In my opinion the latter suggestion is more
realistic.
Dakubu (2000:7-10) discussed plural of nouns and most of the findings were similar
to Ablorh-Odjidja’s (1961) study. However there were some differences in certain
reasons and rules. Dakubu (2000) noted that the CV+Vand CV+N syllables drop the final
syllable before adding the plural suffix –i. Also, she revealed that not only does the word
yoo ‘woman’ drop the final syllable – o but there is the vowel change from /o/ to /e/ in
the plural to become yei ‘women’. Furthermore the –ji suffix is realized on words that in
the singular forms have final syllables –ne, -ŋ, and –l with a weak vowel in the preceding
syllable. The study also revealed that some words with the diminutive suffix –o in the
singular have –bi which is a different suffix plus the plural suffix in plural forms. Some
words may occur with the diminutive –bi plus the –i suffix though they do not end with –
o. Dakubu (2000) noted that the –fó found at the final end of some Ga words was
borrowed from Akan. The two morphemes –fó and –nyò may be glossed as ‘person’. The
morpheme –nyo is normally dropped in the plural and –mε- or –bi is substituted in its
place before the –i plural suffix is added. In all the discussions it was concluded that
there were no strict phonological reasons for forming most of the plurals in Ga. In my
opinion there are phonological reasons but with so many exceptions I agree with
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Dakubu’s claim and believe that some of the reasons for some plural affixes are also
based on semantics. In these contemporary times people who speak Ga mostly pluralize
most nouns with the plural suffix –ji such as àtàd ‘dress’ –àtàd ji ‘dresses instead of
atadei. These corruption of the nouns being affixed with the –ji plural may be due to
urbanization and some speakers find that easy to add that suffix.
Nouns can be grouped into countable and uncountable ones. Nouns could also be
abstract, mass, common and proper nouns. Olawsky (2004:128-132) claims that Dagbani
has five noun types namely countable nouns, mass nouns, loans, proper nouns and
abstract nouns. The Dagbani nouns exhibit different features in terms of affixes attached
to each group. In Ga nouns can be grouped into proper nouns, collective nouns, common
nouns and abstract nouns. Nouns in Ga can also be grouped into countable and
uncountable ones. Examples are below in (17) for the four groups in Ga.
17)
Mass Noun: nù ‘water’, f ՜ ‘oil’, ŋòò ‘salt’, lá ‘blood’ àbѐlѐ ‘maize’
Abstract nouns: mìshὲὲ ‘happy’ s m ‘love’, mlìf ‘anger’, hѐtsέ ‘hatred’
tsùíshitòò ‘patience’
Common Nouns: wòlò, ‘book’ màmá ‘cloth’, àtàdé ‘dress, tsò ‘stick’,
àdékà ‘box’
Proper Nouns: Adole, Adjei, Akwele, Okai, Dede, La, Weija.
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6.2 The Ga Noun Phrase
In this section, the Ga Noun Phrase is discussed as in this phrase PC items can occur with
the head noun. It is prudent to know its structure.The Ga Noun Phrase (NP) as noted by
Dakubu (2002) contains ten lexical items including the head noun. All the ten available
slots of the NP make it complex and Dakubu (2000) refers to the Ga NP as the Nominal
Phrase (NP). Like all other phrases the head noun, is the only obligatory element in the
NP, the rest are optional. Most often, not all the slots(which are the modifiers) in the NP
are filled in speech. In conducting a test to find how many of these modifiers are filled in
speech with Level 300 and 400 Ga students in UEW, I realized that most often it is a
maximum of five modifiers that are filled. The Ga Nominal Phrase has three pre- head
modifiers and six post-head modifiers. The first element in the pre-modifier position is
the identifier. The identifier has only two elements that can appear in that position and
they are in complementary distribution. These two are nàkài ‘that’ and nὲkέ ‘this’. Below
are examples of NP in (18) and (19) to illustrate the identifier.
18) nàkàì wòlò ‘that book’
19) nὲkέ tsu ‘this room’
In the above examples in (18) and (19) the head nouns are wòlò ‘book’ and tsù
‘room’. With the occurrence of the identifier, the definite article which is a post-modifier
normally appears. It would be discussed below.
The head noun can be in the plural form but the identifier will not be marked for
plural. Below are the examples in (20) and (21) to demonstrate
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20) nàkàì wòjì ‘those books
21) nὲkέ ts ì ‘these rooms’
In the examples in (20) and (21) the head nouns are in plural forms wòjì ‘books and
tsùì ‘rooms but the identifiers remain in the same form nàkàì and nὲkὲ.
The identifier can appear as the head of the NP and could have modifiers from the
post head modifier items, namely, the determiner or definite article or intensifier for
example ‘nàkài pε’
The second pre- head modifier found in the Ga NP is the possessor. The possessor
position is filled with nouns but can also be filled with noun phrases as stated by Dakubu
(2000). The possessor is therefore an embedded NP within the NP. It shows a relation of
possessed and possessor. The examples in (22-26) illustrate
22) Yòò shíà
woman house
‘A woman’s house.’
23) Yòó !lε màmá.
woman DEF cloth
‘The woman’s cloth.’
24) Adole wòlò ‘Adole’s book’
25) éwòló ‘his/her book’
From the above (22-25) yòò ‘woman’ and yòó lέ‘the woman Adole and e are the
possessors and the head nouns are shíá ‘house and màmá ‘cloth’ wòlò ‘book’ and
wòlò ‘book respectively. In example (25) the possessor is a name of a person Adole and
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the (26) example the possessor is a pronoun e-. There is the possibility of the head noun
being pluralized and the possessor being the singular. Examples (26) and (27) illustrate.
26) Yòò àtàdé – ì.
woman dress -PL
‘Dresses of woman.’
27) Nùù hèjùùhè -ì
man bathroom-PL
‘Bathrooms for men.’
The possessor, when in the plural form, collocates with a head noun which has an
associative prefix. Below is an example in (28) where the possessor is in the plural form
to buttress that.
28) Yèì á - shíá
women ASSOC- house
‘Women’s house.’
The head noun shíá ‘house’ is prefixed with the associative prefix a-. The noun yèì
‘women is in the plural form and is found in the possessor position. However when the
possessor is a pronominal/pronoun and it is pluralized, the associative prefix is not
attached to the head noun. For instance, if example (25) above the possessor is put in the
plural form it will be
29) Àmὲ –wòlò.
3PL - book
‘Their book.’
When the head noun is in plural form it will be
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30) Àmὲ-wò – jì.
3PL- book-PL
‘Their books.’
It will be incorrect and ungrammatical to say.
31) *Amε a –wolo.
It must be noted that the possessive pronoun is written with the head noun as one unit
in Ga. This is peculiar to possessive pronouns and subject pronouns but not object
pronouns in Ga.
The next pre-head modifier is the epithet. The epithet which is a noun functioning as
a modifier of another noun. Osam (2003) refers to these as nominal modifiers whiles
Dzameshie (2007) calls them ordinary nouns. In this work, the term epithet is preferred
because the function of these nouns in relation to the NP is what is examined. The epithet
occurs before the head noun and this is filled by noun. The epithet normally does not
agree in number with the head noun in terms of number. Below are examples in (32) and
(33) to illustrate NPs that consist of epithets (not bolded).
32) Singular
a. Dádè sàà -tsò b. tsò àwàlé
iron mat - tree tree spoon
‘metal bed.’ ‘Wooden spoon.
Plural:
33)a. Dádѐ sààtsѐ -ì b. tsò àwàlé - ì
Iron bed - PL tree spoon - PL
‘metal beds.’ ‘wooden spoons.’
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This seems to comply with the English correspondent where the noun/adjective used
to modify another noun has no number agreement with the noun it modifies. However
Dakubu (2000) noted an exception of only one epithet that does have number agreement
with the head noun. This is exemplified below in (34).
34) Singular Plural
Epithet Head Epithet Head
SG: gbékέ nùù (boy) PL: Gbékέbíì hìì (boys)
(Dakubu 2000:4)
In the same vein I realized this word can be inflected for number to agree with the head
noun which is plural like in (35).
35) Singular: gbékέ yòò ‘girl’ Plural: gbékέbii yѐì ‘girls’
In the above example (35) the head noun yòò ‘woman’ agrees with the epithet gb kέ in
number and this has been marked morphologically with the plural suffix -bii. The epithet
which occurs before the head noun in the NP serves as a modifier. The nouns used in Ga
to code PC could be said to be filled by the epithet in the NP.
The possessor and epithet elements may look similar but they have different features.
The two pre-head modifiers, possessor and epithet can be distinguished in three different
ways syntactically. The three syntactic ways are.
a) The head noun is prefixed with the associate prefix /a-/ when the possessor is
plural.
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See example (28) above. This does not happen when the epithet is plural.
b) The epithet can not be expanded to form an NP but the possessor can be
expatiated to be a full NP. This is exemplified below in a diagram in Dakubu
(2000:5)
Diagram 1
Possessor H
N Num DEF Quant N
gbékέbíi ény ՜ lέ fέέ á-tsù
‘All the two children’s room.’
(Dakubu 2000 :5)
Dakubu (2000) indicated that the possessor is recursive in nature as the possessor can
have a possessor which in turn can have a possessor again and again. This could be done
severally and it is only limited when one considers the limit to which the human memory
can recollect. How many can the human mind recollect? Maybe not more than three or
four occur. This is exemplified below with a diagram.
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Diagram 2
36) NP
Possess H
á-wòlò
Possess H Number
bíi étέ
Possess H
nyὲmìnùù
DEF
yòò lέ
(Adapted from Dakubu 2000:5)
In the diagram the NP yòó !lέ nyὲmìnùù bíi etέ áwòlò ‘the woman’s three brothers
children’s book’ has the head noun wòlò ‘book, which has the possessor yòó! lέ
nyὲmìnùù bíì etε which has the head bíì ‘children’ which in turn has the possessor yòó
!lέ nyὲmìnùù ‘the woman’s brother, this also has the head nyὲmìnùù ‘brother’ which also
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has the possessor yòó! lέ ‘the woman’ and this is also headed by yòò ‘woman. This can
not occur with epithets in Ga.
The head noun when justaposed with another noun that serves as a possessor may
contained another NP as seen above. The phrase ‘yòó !lέ ‘the woman’ which is serving
as the possessor in example (1a) in chapter one is an NP which consists of the head noun
and the definite article. It does not function as an epithet though it consist of a noun,
because it can occur in the plural and still be in that position unlike an epithet. In fact,
juxtaposing nouns together in the NP is easily done in Ga but the characteristics and role
of these nouns are examined before one can say it has an epithet function or possessive
function. For instance ,in example (1a) in chapter one the NP, yòó !lέ hѐ ‘ the woman’s
body’ has the head hѐ ‘body which is the head and is justaposed with another NP yòó !lέ
which serves as a possessor. This NP, yòó !lέ hѐ, can occur in plural as yèí !lέ ‘the
women’ with the head noun being prefixed with the associative prefix a- to be ahѐ’
bodies’. This phrase in the subject position in chapter one is not a compound noun
because of the features. The compounds in Ga which occurs may not have the plural affix
attached to the two or more words forming the compound. for instance, sààtsò ‘bed’
consists of sàà ‘mat and tsò ‘tree/stick’ put together to form the compound will not have
the plural affix attached to both nouns but will be attached at the end of it sààtsѐì ‘beds’,
where there is a vowel change from /o/ to /e/ for words that have the word tsò as part of
them before the plural affix is attached to replace the last syllable.
The last syntactic feature that differentiates the epithet and the possessor is
pronominalisation. The possessor can be pronominalised but the epithet cannot be
pronominalized. Examples are in (37) and (38) below.
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37) Yòó !lε wòlò - e - wòlò
woman DEF book 3SG- book
‘The woman’s book’ - ‘her book.’
38) Hìì ámàmá - àmὲ màmá
men cloth 3PL-cloth
‘Men’s cloth’ ‘their cloth.’
39) Kai tsò òsѐré *e e osere
Kai tree comb 3SG 3SG comb
The examples (37) and (38) have the head wòlò ‘book’ and màmá ‘cloth’ which have
the possessor yòó !lέ ‘the woman’ and hìì ‘men’ respectively. The possessor has been
pronominalised with the possessive pronouns e and àmὲ. In the epithet tsò ‘tree cannot be
pronominalised but the possessor ‘Kai’ can be pronominalized in (39) to be étsòò òsѐr
‘his/her wooden comb’.
There is the possibility of the NP having possessor in addition to an epithet. When
this occurs and the possessor is in plural, the associative prefix occurs with the epithet
instead of the head noun. This makes the epithet and the head noun become one unit like
a compound as the associative prefix seems to bind both the epithet and the head noun.
40) Hìì á - dádè sààtsè- ì
man-PL ASSOC-iron bed - PL
‘Men’s metal beds ‘
The post-head modifiers found in the Ga NP are six in number. The modifier that
occurs immediately after the head noun, if present, is the adjective. The adjective, as
discussed in the previous chapter, occurs after the head noun and has number agreement
with the head noun. The number agreement is marked morphologically on them unlike
English where there is no number agreement between noun and adjective. Below is an
example.
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Singular Plural
41) a. Yòò kpákpá b. Yèì kpákpá-í
woman good women good-PL
‘Good woman’ ‘good women’
The adjective is an element found in the NP that more than one can be used .The two
or more adjectives used as modifiers normally inflect to show number agreement with the
Head(refer to in chapter three).
After the adjective, the numeral occurs in the NP. The head agrees with the numeral
semantically as a singular number co-occur with a singular noun and plural noun with a
plural number.
42) Wòlò àgbò kòmé
book big one
‘One big book’
43) Wòjì àgbòì ény ՜
book big two
‘Two big books ‘
In (42) and (43) above the numeral kòmé ‘one’ and ény ՜ ‘two’ has been used respectively
in the NP and the adjective àgbòì ‘big’ occurs before the numeral. In (43) the number
ény ՜ ‘two’ occurs with a plural noun and the adjective also inflects to indicate number
agreement with the head noun wòlò ‘book’.
It would be incorrect to say (44) and (45) below as the numerals do not agree
semantically with the head noun.
44) *Wòlò àgbò ény ՜
book big two
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Or
45) *wòji agbòi kòme
The determiner occurs after the numeral in the NP. The determiner is kò ‘certain
/some’ or nε. Kò is a non-specific determiner and it has the plural form kòmὲì. The non-
specific determiner can appear with the definite article which is the next post head
modifier. The specific determiner often occurs with the definite article. The specific
determiner and definite article do not change shape when the head noun is plural. What
rather happens most often is that the specific determiner and definite are written as a
single word. Examples are below to indicate these.
46) tsù kò
house certain
‘A certain house.’
47) màmá kò.
cloth certain
‘A certain cloth.’
48) àdékà nε lε .
box DET DEF
‘That box’
49) tsò tsù kò.
tree house certain
‘A certain wooden house’
50) tsò tsù - i kòmε – ì.
tree house - PL certain-PL
‘Certain wooden houses.’
51) àdékà-ì nε - ε .
box -PL DET- DEF
‘Those/that boxes.’
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In the illustrations above (46), (47) and (49) have the non-specific determiner kò and
the specific determiner nε is in found in (48) and (51). The plural form of the non-specific
determiner is illustrated in (50). The specific determiner remains in the same form when
it occurs with plural noun as noted in (51).
The quantifier is the next modifier to appear after the determiner in the nominal
phrase. The quantifiers are more in number than determiners but not as many as nouns.
They may include words like tóó ‘only’ fέέ ‘all’ pii ‘many’ among others. They agree
with the head noun in semantic sense though they seem not to have plural forms. For
instance quantifiers with singular meaning collocate with singular nouns and those with
meaning of plurality co-occur with plural quantifiers. This is exemplified below in (52 -
55).
52) àtàdé tóó.
dress only
‘Only dress’
53) àtàdéì pìì.
dresses many
‘Many dresses’
54) wónù tóó.
soup only
‘Only soup’
55) wónù pìì.
soup many
‘Plenty soup.’
The quantifier tóó ‘only’ occurs with the singular head noun àtàdé ‘dress and an
uncountable noun wónù ‘soup’. The plural quantifier occurs with plural nouns àtàdéi
‘dresses and the noun wónù ‘soup’.
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The last post head modifier in the Ga NP is the intensifier. Just like the quantifiers,
intensifiers are few and not as many as adjectives or nouns. They are not pluralized and
they include words like pέ,’only’ hú, s ŋŋ. The modifiers as mentioned earlier are
optional in the Ga NP.
It must be noted that, the head noun can be represented with some of the modifiers
that occur with it. The modifiers that can represent the NP are: identifier, the adjective
which will be nominalized, the numeral and the intensifier.
6.3 Nouns as Property concepts
Despite the presence of adjectives in Ga, nouns are sometimes used to express PC items.
When nouns are used, they may occur with adjectives or may also occur in adjective slot
(refer to the section/discussion on Ga NP above). Nouns that are used to denote PCs
precede the head noun (refer to the Ga NP). As mentioned earlier, when the nouns
precede the Head noun, they are referred to as epithets. The nouns that occur at the
adjective slot are nouns that may be derived from other nouns or even from verbs. These
two groups of nouns would be examined in this section to investigate how they function
as PCs.
6.3.1 Nouns That Occur As Epithets
Noun modifying nouns have become a common phenomena in the Ga language and this
has been illustrated in this chapter ( see section on Ga NP). More examples to indicate
noun -noun modifier or epithet noun modification are in examples (56-59).
56) r ՜bà àwàlѐ “plastic spoon’
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57) wòlò àdékà kò nε ε ‘that wooden paper box’
58) tsò òsὲrέ bíbìóó tóó pε ‘an only small wooden comb’
59) nὲkέ Kofi tsò tsù nε ε ‘that Kofi’s wooden house’
From the above examples (56-59) the epithet position, if present, is firmly established
to occur before the head noun (bolded words). Epithets serve as PCs in Ga and normally
found to modify the head noun that is an attributive role, one of the roles that PC items
play in language.
Do these nouns that function as epithets have number agreement with the head
nouns? The answer to that is negative as already discussed. Generally, epithets in Ga do
not have number agreement with the Head noun as exemplified in (33) above. It would be
ungrammatical to mark plurality on the epithet. It must be noted that it is not just every
noun that can occur in the epithet position. The nouns that are normally found in the
epithet position are common nouns. Few abstract nouns also occur as epithets in Ga and
this is illustrated below in (60-62).
60) Mi-nú m ՜b ՝ sànѐ ŋmε nε .
1SG-hear.PST sad issue today.
‘I heard of a sad news today.’
61) Kofi káné àwѐrὲhó sànѐ kò nyε .
Kofi read.PST sad issue DET yesterday
‘Kofi read about a sad issue/matter yesterday.’
62) Adole wìé kwàshìáì awìémɔ .
Adole speak.PST fool speech.
‘Adole uttered foolish words/Adole spoke foolishly.’
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The abstract nouns m ՜b ‘pity’, àwѐrὲhó ‘sadness’ kwàshìáì ‘fool’ are the epithets in (60-
62) above. It was noted that kwàshìá ‘fool’ can occur post-nominally as demonstrated in
(63).
63) Gbékέ kwàshìá lε tèè.
child foolish DEF go
‘The foolish child went.
It is worth noting that when nouns that play the role of epithets are used to code PCs
they function as attributes. In predicative positions the nouns employed as epithets can
serve as complement of the verbs but do not describe or express adjectival meaning in
that position. More than one epithet can occur in the noun phrase to serve as attributes
just like the adjective. Lets examine the illustrations in (64a-d) below.
64) a. Làlà wòlò.
Song book
‘Hymn book’
b. Ga làlà.
Ga song
‘Ga hymn’
c. Ga làlà-ì
Ga song-PL
‘Ga hymns’
d. Ga làlà wòlò.
Ga song book
‘Ga Hymn book’
In (64a) the epithet function is played by the noun làlà ‘song’ and in (64b) the epithet
function is played by the noun, Ga. The (64c) example has the head noun, làlàì ‘songs
and the noun serving the epithet function is singular as the epithets are not marked to
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show plural. In (64d) the there are two nouns làlà and Ga modifying the head noun.
When the noun làlà ‘song//hymn’ modifies the head wòlò ‘book’ then it forms a unit
which can be modified again by another noun preceding it. The introduction of the noun
‘Ga’ also modifies the single unit làlà wòlò ‘song/hymn book’. The two therefore
function as epithets.
It must be noted that the epithet function as mention above cannot be replaced with a
pronominal and therefore these two nouns serving as epithets cannot be replaced. This
makes it clear that these two nouns làlà and wòlò justaposed to the head noun are not
serving as compound written as three words. They will only form a unit when a
possessor, which is plural, is introduced and the associative prefix is attached to the
nouns functioning as epithets. The associative prefix is not marked on both noun epithets
but only on the first one and therefore takes scope over the nouns occurring after it to
form a single unit.
Unlike English which has terms like chicken farm versus farm chicken, beer
garden versus garden beer, equivalents of these in Ga may not be that simple. For
instance, beer garden will be ábɔ ɔ mli ní anúɔ dàà/beer yὲ ‘garden in which beer is
drank’ or beer númɔ hè ‘beer drinking place’, whereas there is the use of a relative clause
being used to modify the garden for the concept to be expressed and the second option
made used of two nouns. On the other hand, for the expression, garden beer, for the
equivalence in Ga, the speaker may employ the same English, but when she wants to
speak Ga, the corresponding form will be ‘dàà/ beer ní àfè yὲ gààdii ml ì ‘beer which is
made in the garden’. The use of a relative clause is employed again to express this
concept, others may also express it by saying ábɔ ɔ ŋ dàà ‘garden inside beer’. Other
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concepts like ‘wooden water bucket’ may be expressed by saying tsò nù gògá or nù
gògá ní akέ tsò fѐ . In expressing the concept’ wooden water bucket , nù and gògá form a
single unit, then the single unit formed has the noun, tsò ‘wooden’ , playing the epithet
function. It is realized that these concepts could be expressed with two nouns or the use
of relative clauses depending on what is being discussed. This buttresses the point of FFG
that strict and rigid rules do not apply to all concepts in all languages. It must be noted
that when two nouns are juxtaposed and one functions as an epithet, the relationship
between the head noun and the epithet function may be ‘produce of, made of, place of,
putting inside, among others. Though the positions of these two nouns can be swapped, it
is not all instances that the nouns are interchangeable as they may not be meaningful.
Both the nouns, Ga and làlà ‘song’ in (64d) that are used do not inflect to show
number agreement when the nouns are in plural forms. This is illustrated below in (65).
65) Ga làlà wò-jì.
Ga song book-PL
‘Ga hymn books’
The adjective as discussed in chapter four can be more than one to serve as PC items.
Similarly, it is rare to have more than one epithet modifying a noun as seen in (64d). It is
highly possible for an epithet and an adjective both to serve as attributes for a head noun.
Examples are below.
66) Tsò àdékà bíbìóó kò.
tree box small certain
‘A small wooden box’.
67) R bà gògá díŋ .
rubber bucket black
‘A black rubber bucket’.
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68) Tsò àdékà-ì bí -bíí.
tree box-PL small-PL
‘Small wooden boxes’
69) R bà gògá-ì dí-ji.
rubber bucket-PL black-PL
‘Black rubber buckets’
From the above the head nouns in (66-69) are àdékà ‘box’, gògá ‘bucket’ and the nouns
functioning as epithets are tsò, ‘tree’ and rɔ bà ‘rubber’ . The adjectives which occur after
the head nouns are bíbìóó ‘small’, and díŋ ‘black’ in (66) and (67). When the head nouns
are pluralized with the suffix –i as in (68) and (69), the adjectives are also marked to
indicate agreement with the nouns. However the noun epithet shows no agreement with
the head nouns. It is also possible for the noun epithet to occur with two adjectives in
attributive position in the NP. In (70) the epithet dádè ‘iron’ occurs with two adjectives
bíbìóó ‘small’ and hèè ‘new’ in attribution position. In (71) two adjectives àgbò ‘big’
mómó ‘old’ serve as attributes for the head noun àdékà ‘box’ and the epithet is wòlò
‘paper’. The constructions (70) and (71) are shown below.
70) Da՜dè àwàlé bíbìóó hèè kò.
metal spoon small new certain
‘A small new metal spoon’.
71) Wòlò àdékà àgbò mómó lε .
book box big old DEF
‘The old big paper box’.
Nouns function as subjects and objects in languages and these nouns which occur as
epithets can occur as subjects and objects as well. This makes it clear that these words
which are epithets are from the noun class. The only difference between nouns serving as
epithets and nouns in subject positions is the number agreement. Subjects generally are
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marked morphologically to show number agreement with the verbs in the constructions,
and objects can be marked morphologically, based on or depending on what the speaker
wants to put across. The nouns which may be used as epithets therefore can appear as
complements of verbs. The verbs, in these instances, are not always copula verbs only
and most importantly the nouns that serve as the complements do not serve as attributes
to whatever nouns may be in the subject positions. These same nouns that serve as
epithets can also be found in head positions. Examples are below to explain.
72) Tsò sε í lε é -fite.
tree chair DEF PERF-spoil
‘The wooden chair is spoilt’
73) Adjele fò tsó lε .
Adjele cut tree DEF
‘Adjele cut the tree.’
74) W - yὲ tsó yὲ w ՜-shíá lέ mlì.
1PL-have tree in IPL-house DEF inside
‘We have a tree in our house.’
75) Tsó !lε kù nyε .
tree DEF break yesterday.
‘The tree broke yesterday.’
In (72) the noun tsò ‘tree’ is used as epithet. It is the object of the verb yὲ ‘have’ and fò
‘cut’ in (73) and (74). The verb fò ‘cut’ is not a copula verb. In (75) the noun tsò ‘tree’ is
the Head of the NP. Look at the example in (76).
76) Tsèí lέ kù nyὲ
tree.PL DEF break yesterday.
‘The trees broke yesterday.’
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In (76) the noun tsèí trees’ which is in plural form can be in subject position but cannot
be in epithet position.
The epithet function is not a predicative role in Ga as already exemplified. Some
nouns which occur as heads of NP in Ga, some of these same nouns can function as
epithets. For example wòlò ‘book’ can occur as an epithet in a phrase like wòlò àdékà
‘paper box’ and the word wòlò can be the head of an NP like wòlò hèé lέ ‘the new book’.
However to express a sentence like this in Ga ‘the bucket is plastic’ could be:
77) Gògá nε -ε rͻ՜bà nì.
bucket DET-DEF plastic PART
‘This bucket is plastic’.
78) Gògá nε -ε rͻ՜bà ní akέfèè.
bucket DET –DEF plastic REL do
‘This bucket is made of plastic’.
There is a difference in expressing the same idea as seen in (77) and (78) and the FFG
theory supports this phenomenon.
6.3.2 Expressing of Comparative/Superlative
PC items occur in comparative and superlative constructions, especially the adjectives in
English. This is one of the roles of PC items in languages (Dixon 2004). For instance the
illustration below shows an adjective from English in comparative and superlative
constructions.
79) This house is nicer than that house.
80) This house is the nicest of all.
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The adjective nice which is a PC item from the adjective category has been used in the
construction in as a comparative form by suffixing with –er in (79) and for the
superlative in suffixing –est in (80), the superlative suffix in English. It should be noted
that sometimes the word more is used for comparative in addition to the adjective which
is not suffixed and most for the superlative with the adjective employed not suffixed with
–est.
Nouns that occur as epithets in an NP(epithet role) seem not to have comparative
forms and are not used to express comparative in Ga. Their function (that is an epithet) as
attributive is not gradable. For instance it is not acceptable to say:
*Oserε nε yε tso fe osere nεε
When a speaker utters a statement like:
81) Flawas ní yɔ՜ɔ énε mlì fá fè nɔ nì mì-nà.
flowers REL have this inside be.enough exceed one that 1SG-see.PST
‘There are more flowers in this than the one I saw’
The speaker is making a comparison of the number of flowers in something, an entity,
being more than he or she had seen earlier. This is a way that can be used to express some
sort of comparative. Sometimes some of the abstract nouns (in bold) can be used
periphrastically to express some comparative/superlative. A statement below can be
uttered in speech
82) Sàné lε míìshὲὲ sàné fè fε ε .
issue DEF happiness issue exceed all
‘This news is the happiest of all.’
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83) Wìém nε -ε yε d lὲ fè fε ε .
speech DET- DEF.have sorrowfulness surpass all
‘This is the most sorrowful speech.’
6. 3. 3 Nouns that occur after the head noun
In Ga sometimes nouns occur in the adjective position or in addition to the adjective to
express the notion of PC. These nouns may be countable or uncountable. They may also
be derived nouns. Below are examples in (84).
84) Noun PC noun
i) òhìá ‘poor’ ohìáfó ‘poor person’
ii) ànɔ՝kwá ‘truth’ ànɔ kwáfó ‘truthful person’
iii) níléé ‘knowledge’ nílélɔ ‘wise person’
iv) shìká ‘money’ shìkátsὲ ‘rich person’
v) níí ‘things’ nííàtsὲ ‘rich person’
vi) àníháó ‘laziness’ àníháólɔ ‘lazy persn’
Most of the nouns from which the agentives are derived are abstract nouns. These
nouns are suffixed with the agentive suffix -fó/-lɔ and the free morpheme tsὲ ‘owner’.
With the suffixes attached, these nouns can be used as PC items and being nouns can be
referred to as nominal adjectives. In Ga sometimes nominal adjectives occur to express
the notion of PC. The nominal adjectives (bolded) occur immediately after the head noun
as shown in example (84-86).
85) Yòò àn kwá - fó lε é - w .
woman truthful-AG SUF DEF PERF-sleep
‘The truthful woman is asleep.’
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86) Nùù òhìá -fó lε bà ŋmε nε .
man poor –AG SUF DEF come today
‘The poor man came today.’
87) Ts ՜l՝ àníháó- l bà mrá ŋmε nε .
teacher lazy –AG SUF came early today
‘The lazy teacher came early today.’
There are other nouns that do not host these suffixes but are also used as PC items as
seen in the examples.
88) Gbèé búùlù lε é - gbò.
dog fool DEF PERF- die
‘The foolish dog is dead.’
89) Gbékέ kwàshìá lέ tèè.
child foolish DEF pass
‘The foolish child went.’
90) Yòò púpúúpú lέ mìì-hòó níyéníí.
Woman boastful DEF PROG-cook food
‘The boastful woman is cooking some food’.
These nouns which are bolded express property of the head nouns they modify
therefore give some sort of attributive meaning. In English, for example, these nouns
which are formed from nouns by adding most often the agentive suffix, may correspond
to words that will fall into the adjective category but they are nouns in Ga as they can
occur as subjects and also as objects.
There exist also other nouns which can be used as PC items but are derived from
verbs. These verbs mostly are inherent complement verbs (ICV). These are exemplified
below and put into constructions.
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91) Verb Process Nominal
i) tswà òjò ‘to rob’ òjòtswà+ -l → òjòtswàl ‘arm robber’
ii) b kó ‘to play truancy’ kób +-l → kób l ‘vagabond
iii)yè àw ì ‘to be wicked’ àwúì+yè+-l → àwúìyèl ‘wicked person
iv) yè àw ŋà’to be jealous àw ŋà+yè+-l → àw ŋàyèl ’ jealous pe son’
v) yè àmín ‘be unfair’ àmín+yè+-lͻ → àmínyèlɔ ‘unfair person’
92) Ama hòó níí há yòò àwùŋày l lέ
Ama cook things give woman jealous person DEF
‘Ama cooked food for the jealous woman’.
From the above examples in (91) the verbs are suffixed with the agentive suffix –l .
after the ICVs are inversed. The nouns are derived from inherent complement verbs
(verbs that occur strictly with their own complements).
Apart from the nouns discussed above, there exist some abstract nouns in Ga, very
few though, that correspond to English adjectives when translated. These nouns which
can be used as PC items are not used attributively. Sometimes to use them attributively
they may appear in relative clauses. Below are examples
93) Kote ná míìshὲὲ.
Kote get.PST happiness
‘Kotey is happy’.
94) Kotey kὲ gbékέ ní é -ná míìshὲὲ tèè shíá.
Kotey with child REL PERF-get happiness go.PST home
‘Kotey went home with the happy girl’.
95) Mì-nú m b sànè ŋmὲnὲ.
ISG-hear sad matter today
‘I heard a sad news today’
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96) Kofi káné àwèrèhó sànè kò nyὲ.
Kofi read sorrow matter certain yesterday.
‘Kofi read a sorrowful/sad story yesterday’.
In the use of some of these abstract nouns they may precede the head as in example
(95) and (96) however they may only be found after the head noun when they occur in
relative clause forms as in (97):
97) Mì-nú sànè ní y m b ŋmε nε .
1PL-hear.PST matter REL be sorrow today
‘I heard an issue that was sorrowful today.’
98) Kofi káné sànè kò ní yε àwèrèhó nyε .
Kofi read.PST matter certain REL be sad yesterday
‘Kofi read a story which was sad yesterday’.
There is the possibility of two nominal adjectives to occur as modifiers of a single
head noun. Below is an example from Matthew 24.45 (Ga Bible).
99) …..námͻ jì tsùl àn kwáfó kὲ nílèl m ní……
….who is a faithful and knowledgeable servant…..
What is derived from this is that the two nouns àn kwáfó ‘truthful person’ and nílèl
‘clever person’ that are nominal modifiers are joined with a conjunction kὲ ‘and’.
There is the possibility for two PCs to appear immediately after the head noun, one
from the adjective class and the other from the noun class. This is exemplified below for
instance in the Ga Bible.
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100) Aekóó tsúl kpákpá kε àn kwá-fó
Aeko servant good CONJ truth-AG SUF
‘ well done good and faithful servant’.
(Matthew 25 :21)
101) ‘Tsúlɔ fɔ ŋ kὲ àníháólɔ
servant bad CONJ lazy-person
“…bad and lazy servant”
(Mathew 25:26)
In (99) and (100) there are adjectives and nouns coding PCs for the head noun tsúl
‘servant’ and they are joined together with a conjunction. It will not be correct to have the
nominal adjective preceding the adjective in this structure, that is àn kwáfó’ ‘truthful
person’ occurring before kpákpá ‘good’. This was evident when it was tested on five (5)
native speakers who were all above sixty years. For the younger generation the two PCs
can occur in the restricted order but the conjunction kὲ was optional for example a
statement like:
102) Nùù f ŋ՜ àníhàó- l nì.
man bad lazy -AG.SUF PART
‘He is a bad lazy man.’
When the head noun is plural the nominal adjective and adjective inflect to show
number agreement with the head noun they modify. Below are examples. (103a) and (104
a) are the singular and the plurals are found in (103b) and (104b) respectively.
103) a. Tsúl àn kwá - fó nέ.
servant truthful – AG SUF PART
‘A truthful servant’
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b. Tsúl -ì àn kwá – fó - ì nε
servant-PL truthful-AG SUF-PL PART
‘ These are truthful servants.
104) a. Yòò àníháó - l nε
woman lazy –AG SUF PART
‘This is lazy woman’
b. Yè -ì àníháó -l - ì nε
women-PL lazy AG SUF- PL PART
‘These are lazy women’
When the modifiers are made up of adjectives and nominal adjective there is also
number agreement with the head noun and the modifiers. For instance the plural form of
the example above will be:
105) Aékóó tsú -lɔ -ì kpákpá-ì kὲ àn kwáfó-ì.
Ayekoo servant-PL good -PL CONJ truthful-PL
‘Congratulations truthful and good servants’.
Nominal adjectives can also be heads of NP apart from being modifiers. The
examples below explain this.
106) Gbékέ nílè - l lε mìì - lá
child knowledge- AG-SUF DEF PROG-sing
‘The wise child is singing.’
107) Nùù bùúlú lέ yè níyéníí lε .
man foolish DEF eat-PST food DEF
‘The foolish man ate all the food.’
From the above in (106-107) the nouns nílèl ‘wise person and bùúlú ‘foolish serve
as modifies for the Head nouns gb kέ ‘child’ and nùù ‘man’. These nouns that serve as
modifiers can serve as heads of nominal phrases for instance:
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108) Nílé - l lε mìì - lá.
wise-person DEF PROG -sing
‘The wise person is singing.’
109) Bùú- lú lέ yè níyéníí lε .
fool-person DEF eat-PST food DEF
‘The fool ate the food.’
When nominal adjectives occur as heads of NP, they can further be modified by PC
items which can be an adjective or a nominal adjective as in example
110) hìáfó f ŋ՜ lέ tèè àkròwá lε .
poor person bad DEF went village DEF
‘The bad poor person went to the village’.
111) Màŋtsέ lέ sámá òhìáfó àwúíyèl ՜ lε .
chief DEF summon poor person wicked person DEF
‘The chief summon the poor wicked man’.
In (110) and (111) the head nouns are òhìáfo. In (110) the head noun has been
modified by Value adjective fɔ ŋ ‘bad’ and in (111) àwúíyèlɔ՜ ‘wicked one’ a nominal
adjective has been used.
Most often the nominal adjectives cannot be used as copula complements especially
when the predicative role employs the copula verbs. It will be ungrammatical and
unacceptable to say in (112). However it is possible to get some of these nominal
adjectives as complements of some verbs in Ga as in (113) or (114).
112) *Nuu lε yε shika-tsε.
113) Nùú !lε tsɔ՜ shìká-tsὲ.
man DEF turn money-owner
‘The man became a rich person’.
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Or
114) Nùú !lε yε shìká.
man DEF possess money
‘The man has money.’
However it is possible to use the copula verb ‘ji’ as in (115) for the nominal adjective to
be a complement.
115) Nùú !lέ jì shìkátsὲ.
man DEF COP money-owner
‘It is the man who is rich’.
Which could also be expressed as in (116) where the NPs can be swapped:
116) Shìká-tsὲ jì nùú !lέ.
money-owner COP man DEF
‘T he man is a rich man.’
These examples in (115) and (116) are alternative ways of saying the man is rich. In
reference to the example (3a) in chapter one, it is seen from these discussions that there
are other ways of expressing this idea of richness. It is realized therefore that in analyzing
the data in this chapter by employing FFG, different options of expressing particular
concepts have been discovered, data analysis have showed what pertains and the findings
are just what have been uncovered from the data.
6.3.4 Nouns in Apposition
Nouns in apposition could be said to play PC role especially being attributive. Apposition
is a grammatical relation realized by constructions having particular syntactic, semantic
and pragmatic relations(Meyer 1992:6). In addition, Meyer stated that it is best to
describe appositions as grammatical relations that stand in opposition to relations such as
complementation or modification. Furthermore, he claimed that characteristics that define
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these apposition relations are syntactic, semantic and pragmatic. Syntactically appositions
function as subjects or objects, have linear hierarchical structure, units are juxtaposed and
constitute a single apposition. Semantically, the units are coreferential, they are semantic
class of appellation where the second unit names the first unit and is not restrictive and
therefore not semantically integrated. Pragmatically, the second unit contains new
information not previously introduced in the discourse. From the examples given for
nominal adjectives it could be said that they are in apposition and they play the role of PC
items in the NP. However it must be noted that after having interviews with a few native
speakers, they believe that the nominal adjective modifies the head noun as what they
intend saying is that meaning for example nùù shìkátsὲ ‘rich man, they are using shìkátsὲ
to qualify the head noun nùù’ man’. They would only say shìkátsὲ when they
interlocutors are already aware of whom they are talking about. Sometimes nominal
adjectives occurring with the head nouns have equal status with the head noun that is yòò
‘woman’ can be the head and jùl ‘thief’ can also be head. For instance in the example
below yòò ‘woman and jùl ‘thief’ have equal status. The thief is the same as the woman
talked about. Is it possible to say they are in apposition. This can be if analysed from the
point of view that the two nouns refer to the same person and both have been mentioned
for more clarity to be ascertained. In this work these are preferred to be called nominal
adjectives adopted from Osam (2003).
117) Yòò jù - l ՜ !lέ é - téè shíá.
woman steal-AG.SUF NOM DEF PERF- go home
‘The (lady) thief has gone home.’
It is prudent to say that these appositional nouns denote PCs.
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6. 4 Questionnaire Analysis
In the questionnaire distributed to respondents ( seeAppendix 1), section four tested some
few sentences in English and the respondents were to give the free translations . Using
FFG, the results were
The English:
118) The wooden spoon
which was translated as:
‘tsò àwàlé’ by 57 out of the 59 respondents gave that order with only two respondents
who translated it as àwàlé àtó.
The next was: 119) The metal chair
(58) out of the (59) respondents gave the translation as ‘dádè sέí’ with only one person
leaving that out unanswered. The next was:
120) The plastic table.
Most respondents who numbered 46 out of the respondents wrote ‘rɔ bà òkpl ɔ’, 8
wrote plastiki òkplɔ and only one person used a relative clause form in writing ‘òkplɔ ní
akε rɔ bà fѐ ’.
The phrase ‘the paper box’ which was also tested had 100% of the respondents giving
the same answer wòlò àdékà. The phrase
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The next was the phrase in example (120)
120) ‘the boastful woman’
It was interesting as (120) had several translations as listed below. The translations
given by the respondents are below with the number of respondents who wrote or prefer
that option.
Translation Number of Respondents
a.Yòò hènòwó-lɔ՜ lέ
woman proud.AG SUF DEF 10
b.Yòò dáàgbèé-lɔ՜ lέ
woman boast.AG SUF DEF 8
c.Yòò f tsέ lέ
woman boast.owner DEF 8
d.Yòò hènͻtsέ lέ
woman self-owner DEF ` 3
e.Yòò nààf tsέ lέ
woman mouth-owner DEF 1
f.Yòò hènòwómɔ՜ lέ
woman pride DEF 1
g.Yòò fùùfèé-lɔ՜ lέ
woman boast.AG SUF DEF 2
h.Yòò shέyíí lέ
woman boastful DEF 2
i.Obl՜áyòò shwà-lɔ՜ lέ
youth boast-AG SUF DEF 3
j.Yòò kòkòtìí lέ
woman boastful DEF 1
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k.Yòò àgbò-í-ánìì-tsὲ
woman big-PL thing-PL owner 1
l.Nààfùù yòò
proud woman 1
m.Yòò ní gbé-ɔ é-dáŋ
woman REL kill-HAB 3SG –mouth 1
n.Yòò ní nàà è-hè
woman REL see 3SG-self 2
o.Yòò ní wò-ɔ èhè nɔ
woman REL raise-HAB 3SG-self top 7
The respondents gave these translations in (a-o) as there exists words that are
synonymous in Ga. Some respondents also employ the relative clause as in (m-o) in the
translation. The number beside each translation gave the number of respondents that
provided that translation. There were 3 respondents out of the 59 who did not translate
this phrase on the questionnaire.
The last phrase was:
121) “the quarrelsome girl”
The results were:
Translation Number of Respondents
a. Gbékέ-yòò béì -lɔ .
child-woman quarrel-AG SUF 57
b. Béì -lɔ gbékέ-yòò.
quarrel-AG SUF child-woman 1
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c. Yòò ní sùmɔ՝ -ɔ béì.
woman REL like-HAB quarrel. 1
Out of the 59 respondents, 57 preferred to say the response in (a) whereas only one
person employed the relative clause as seen in (c).
As a follow up on the questionnaire I had a chat with few respondents and got to
know that changing the position of the words results in different meaning for instance
saying rɔ՜bà tsensi means ’plastic bowl’ were plastic serves as an epithet but changing
the order ts nsi rɔ bà means ‘a plastic in which bowls are put.’
It is clear that all these words that function as epithets and nominal adjectives are
from the noun class as they have the features of nouns in Ga : they occur as subjects and
objects, they can take the agentive affixes, they take the plural affixes for nouns (refer to
plural formation above), they occur as heads of NP and can also occur with the other
modifiers that head nouns appear with like the definite article, determiners and identifiers
among the rest. They can be employed to play the PC role.
In applying the FFG theory it is realized that the epithet function is played by nouns
as well the nominal adjectives. It is also discovered that words in subject positions can
play other roles in Ga. There is the option of putting a conjuction between two nominal
adjectives and also synonyms exist for some words and speakers preference is strictly
theirs to select one of them.
6.5 Semantic Classification of Nominal PCs
In examining the nouns used to express PCs, it was found out that the abstract nouns
were all from the Human Propensity group. The nouns (nominal adjectives) that were
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also derived from verbs were also of Human Propensity Type. The epithets which are
mostly common nouns did not fall into any of the semantic classification group by Dixon
(2004, 2006). The Human Propensity adjectives were mostly having the agentive suffix
and were used attributively. The plus HUMAN (+HUMAN) feature was very evident
with the nominal adjectives. These nominal adjectives have animacy feature but the
epithets which also serve as PCs were mostly inanimate and may be placed into the
Physical Property class due to the meanings they put across.
6. 6 Chapter Summary
PC items can be used attributively and predicatively with only few exceptions. The
exceptions may depend on the language under consideration. Osam (2000:205) notes that
Akan adjectives can be used attributively, in that instance they occur after the Head
nouns. When Akan adjectives are used predicatively they involve the copula ye. Osam
notes that there were few adjectives in Akan that can be used attributively but not
predicatively. In Ga, studying the syntactic properties of the nouns that are used to
modify nouns, it is realized they are of two types. There are those nouns that precede the
head noun and those that appear after the head noun. The nouns that precede as discussed
above are what is referred to as epithets and those that appear after the Head nouns can be
referred to as nominal adjectives. The term nominal adjectives being adopted from
Osam. It is best to also to refer to those in Ga as such as they are mostly nominal forms.
Epithets in Ga are used only attributively and not predicatively to express PC. The epithet
(noun) can appear as complements of verbs. The verbs in these instances are not copula
verbs only and most importantly the nouns that serve as the complements do not describe
whatever nouns may be in the subject positions. These same nouns that serve as epithets
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can also be found in head positions.Rarely do more than one epithet occur to serve as an
attributive for the head noun The nominal adjectives which occur with adjectives or occur
in the adjective position(immediately after the head noun if present) cannot most often be
used predicatively but occur at the attributive positions. In terms of semantic class of
PCs, epithet function could be placed in the Physical Property class and nominal
adjectives are placed in the Human Propensity class.
To conclude, from the FFG analysis of analyzing data and discovering things as they
pertain, nouns can be used in Ga to express adjectival meanings/PCs. Two groups of
nouns perform this function: the epithet and the nominal adjectives. They both are used
attributively. Nominal adjective and an adjective can occur but in a fixed order. The
epithet does not inflect to show number agreement with the head noun whereas the
nominal adjectives inflect to show number agreement. Nouns used as epithets are not
used in comparative constructions. Rarely abstract nouns are used periphrastically to
compare things in Ga. The nominal adjectives that denote PCs were found in the Human
Propensity group.
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CHAPTER SEVEN
SUMMARY AND CONCLUSION
7.0 Introduction
The work examined lexical categories that are employed to express PCs in Ga. PCs were
seen as words that express adjectival meaning (Palancar 2006) and most often occur as
attributives and predicatives /intransitive predicates in languages. (Thompson 1988). The
objective of identifying PCs in Ga was to help learners and speakers(native/ non native)
as well as other learners of other languages to understand that words used in languages
do not belong to universal syntactic categories, for example if a word is a noun in a
particular language its equivalent in another language may not necessarily be a noun.
Words as posited by Carnie (2013) are put into classes based on their syntactic and
morphological features. PC items can be from the adjectives class (the most popular class
that functions as PC items); noun class, verb class, adverb class and even from clauses
depending on the language under consideration.
In chapter one, the introduction to the whole work was discussed. The chapter
examined the purpose of the work, the significance as well as the statement of the
problem. In chapter two works that have examined PC were reviewed and the framework
employed in this research was also explored. The framework employed was the
Framework-Free Grammatical (FFG) theory by Haspelmath (2008). The framework
proposed that languages should be analysed without imposing strict rules that may have
been identified in another language onto another. This means bound framework may not
apply to every language and therefore to arrive at a true picture of an analysis or
investigation, Framework-Free Grammatical theory is the best in my opinion . Dixon’s
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(2004) semantic classification of PCs was used to classify PC items found in Ga. In the
review of literature it was revealed that words that serve as PC items in languages were
not only adjectives but other word classes such as verbs in Semelia, (Kruspe 2006), nouns
for example in Otomi (Palancar 2006) and adverbs in Carriban (Sergio & Gildea 2005).
In chapter three the adjectives in Ga were examined. The adjective which serves as a
PC item in Ga was seen to have come from different sources. It came to light that there
were both deep level adjectives and derived adjectives. The derived adjectives have their
sources from verbs and nouns. Deep level adjectives were found to be of two types, those
that seem to be reduplicated and therefore referred to as reduplicant deep level adjectives
and those that were monomorphemic were referred to as deep level or basic adjectives.
Adjectives that were derived from verbs were of two types; those that were derived
mainly through suffixation and those that were derived through suffixation and
reduplication. Adjectives derived from nouns were mainly through the processes of
suffixation plus reduplication. The nouns were both from the countable and uncountable
groups. Some few adverbs were found to play the role of PC items as well.
Adjective sequencing was investigated in chapter four. Data was gathered from
questionnaires, listening to some conversations having discussions and informal
interviews, as well as employing the Toy Task. In chapter five, verbs that could be used
to denote PC items were investigated and nouns that also denote PC were also examined
in chapter six before the final conclusion of the work.
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7.1 Property Concepts in Ga
PCs as noted by Dixon (1982, 2004), Thompson (1988), Backhouse ( 2004) among others
are generally from the adjective class. Languages therefore that have the adjective class
have no difficulty in using these adjectives to express PCs. However it was also revealed
that there are situations where these adjectives may or may not express all PC ideas
needed and sometimes other syntactic categories must be resorted to. Despite the fact that
Ga has adjectives other syntactic categories can be employed to denote PC items in the
language. In addition to both derived and deep/basic level adjectives in Ga, nouns and
verbs were found to also play the role of PCs. There were very few adverbs in Ga which
played this PC role.
The adjectives found were basic and derived. The basic ones were monomorphemic.
Derived adjectives were from nouns and verbs. The adjectives derived from nouns were
formed through the processes of reduplication and/or suffixation plus reduplication unlike
Ewe which derived them through the compounding of a noun plus an adjective. There
were adjectives derived from verbs through affixation of (-i, -ru, -ra,-ŋ) or affixation
plus reduplication. This resulted in two processes used to derive adjectives from verbs.
Verbs were also found in Ga to denote PC items just like in other Kwa languages like
Akan and Ewe. For instance, ‘The food is hot’ can be said in the following ways:
Akan: Aduane no a-dͻ /aduane no aye hye
Food DEF PERF- be hot./ food DEF be hot
Ga: Niyenii lε e -dͻ
Food DEF PERF-be hot
Dangme: Niyenii dͻ la
Food be.hot fire
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These languages (Akan, Ga and Dangme) express this concept of food being hot
using different syntactic categories, Akan makes use of a verb or an adjective, Ga uses an
intransitive verb while Dangme employs a verb plus its complement. There is an
adjective equivalent for d ‘be hot’ in Ga which is klakla and can also be used. From my
Dangme informant, they either use the verb plus its complement or a relative clause to
express this concept. It was realized that though these verbs are generally stative as they
are referred to in the literature (Sampson 2011), other scholars also prefer to call them
quality verbs (Elders et al 2008). There were verbs that were change of state verbs which
were also used and these findings confirmed what linguists have revealed in other
languages. Some of these verbs were found to have adjective equivalents and therefore
could be employed in certain instances. The few adverbs that were found to denote PCs
always had to depend on the syntactic structure they were found in and their semantics or
meanings that they put across. The nouns that were used as PCs were found to be of two
types, the epithet which occurs before the head noun and the nominal referred to as
nominal adjectives by Osam (1999) and also named nominal by Dorvlo (2009). These
two types which I may call PC nouns have different features in terms of syntax and
morphology. The epithets are mostly not derivations from other word classes but the
nominal adjectives are mostly derived from abstract nouns or Inherent Complement
Verbs. There are few nominal adjectives, however, that were not derived like búulu ‘fool’
and púpúú u ‘inquistive’.
7.2 Morphological Properties of Property Concepts in Ga
The work revealed that adjectives that were used to denote PCs share some features with
the head nouns they modify. The Ga NP, as discussed and noted by Dakubu (2000), had
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ten slots and the adjective occupies one of the slots. Though noun classes or gender
agreement for nouns are not existent in Ga unlike in Hocank (Helmbrecht 2004), the head
noun and the adjective have a feature in common and that is number agreement. The head
noun, when it is plural and has an adjective modifying it agrees with the adjective as the
adjective is marked morphologically as well to show number agreement. All the basic
adjectives that may be found in this position are be marked overtly to show number
agreement with the head nouns, this does not happen in Dangme (Ceasar 2012). Dangme
may mark only one of the adjectives when there are multiple adjectives used or mark it
only on the adjective leaving the head noun. The plural marking for the nouns as
identified were based on Ablorh–Odjidja (1961) and Dakubu (2003) rules which were
discussed in chapter six. The plural marking for the nouns were suffixes and had
allomorphs. The adjective plural markings are of two types, suffixation or reduplication.
For example an adjective like wùlù ‘huge’ is morphologically marked to show number
agreement with a head noun through suffixation after deleting the last syllable to yield
wùji. On the other hand, an adjective like kèkètèè ‘hard’ is marked overtly to show
number agreement through reduplication that will be kèkètèkèkètèè, with the tone
changing. In reduplicating the adjective to arrive at the number agreement, the final
vowel is deleted before reduplication. The adjectives that are derived from nouns remain
in the same forms when the head noun is plural with the exception of a few like blóbló
‘lanky’ becoming blóblóbii ‘lanky‘ (PL). The adjectives that have their sources from
verbs are of two types as seen in chapter four. The ones derived through affixation are
generally marked overtly to show number agreement with the head noun. On the other
hand, those that were derived through both suffixation and reduplication are not all
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marked overtly to indicate number agreement. The few adverbs that were employed as
PCs are not marked morphologically for any number agreement. Adjectives (basic) can
also be reduplicated to show emphasis and they are also nominalized to be heads of NP.
The basic reduplicant adjectives are not reduplicated and do not have any plural forms.
The adjectives derived from nouns are hardly reduplicated likewise the ones derived from
verbs through suffixation and reduplication. However some of the basic adjectives are not
prefixed with the e – nominaliser as it is ungrammatical and unacceptable, especially
those that have /k, l , a / as initial sounds, that is they occur in the same forms when
nominalized. With the exception of mómó ‘old’ from basic level reduplicant adjectives
the rest are not prefixed with e-. The use of multiple adjectives for a single head noun
agrees morphologically with the head noun in number, that is, all the adjectives are
marked overtly for number agreement. Stative verbs, which I prefer to call quality verbs,
adopting from Elders et al (2008), may show number agreement depending on what
meaning is being put across through reduplication plus suffix –i. For example, wójí !lέ
egb gb i. The subject is plural and there is agreement though wójí! lέ gb can also be
uttered both meaning ‘The books are old’. The quality verbs can also be nominalized in
most cases just like non quality verbs by suffixing with -m , -lε or the same final vowels
in the roots. Nouns used for PC expressions are of two types; epithet and nominal
adjectives. The epithet morphologically is not marked to show any agreement with the
head noun it modifies neither is there any other agreement between them. The epithet is
not reduplicated in any circumstance. Nominal adjectives do show number agreement
with the head nouns in attributive positions. Some of these nominal adjectives can be
reduplicated for emphasis and to show number agreement.
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7.3 Syntactic Properties of Property Concepts in Ga
PCs function as intransitive predicates, being complements of verbs and as
attributes/modifiers in NP as well as occurring in constructions that express comparison
(Dixon 2006). PC adjectives, as already established in Ga by Dakubu, occur as attributive
and could be multiple for a single head noun. These PC adjectives whether derived or non
derived play this role in Ga and syntactically appear in the slot immediately after the head
noun in the NP. Adjectives derived from nouns also are used attributively but seem to
occur more with mass nouns like duade ‘cassava, koko ‘porridge’ and the like. When
predicative function was examined, it was revealed the deep level adjectives are prefixed
with e- to occur in predicative positions or as complements of verbs but there are
exceptions to these as some of the adjectives occur with a zero allomorph of the e-prefix.
The e-prefix makes it nominalized as the sentences in Ga mostly take nominals as
objects. However, those adjectives derived from verbs through suffixation do generally
take the e-prefix whiles those derived through both suffixation and reduplication do not
take the e- nominaliser prefix when they occur as predicatives and this is the same for
adjectives that have their sources from nouns. The basic and derived adjectives can occur
alone as heads of NPs. Epithets only function attributively by occurring immediately
before the head nouns and more than one can be used as modifiers just like the adjective.
Two epithets may occur plus even an adjective in the Ga NP. It is also possible to have
two epithets and two adjectives serving as attributes for a single noun. Epithets do not
play predicative roles but words that are used can occur as complements for verbs and not
only copula verbs. They do not play descriptive roles or have relationship of attribution to
the nouns in subject positions. Nominal adjectives also serve as attributes for head nouns
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and could also be heads of NPs (as discussed in chapter six). The nominal adjectives that
are derived from Inherent Complement verbs (ICV) resort to the ICV to occur in
predicative positions most often, however, the few that are not from ICV occur in the
same forms when they are complements of verbs whether copula or not. A nominal
adjective can occur with a deep level adjective in attributive position and usually the deep
level adjective occurs before the nominal one. Sometimes, in that instance, a conjunction
is placed between the two PC items. Quality verbs function as intransitive predicates and
when they have to occur as attributes, two strategies are employed. The first is to employ
a relative clause and secondly make use of their adjective equivalents, if any.
Syntactically the quality verbs serve as heads of VPs. The quality verbs can inflect to
show tense, aspect and mood just like non -quality verbs. These quality verbs also occur
with adverbs and the few that are ICV occur with complements in constructions. The
work has not yet come across any of the quality verbs in Serial Verb Constructions and
also not found them in appositions yet. Unlike English, where modals occur so close to
verbs (whether quality type or dynamic), it is not so in Ga. The modals are found at initial
positions in constructions. The words that normally are used as modals are not
monomorphemic like English as seen in chapter six. Passives are expressed in English
and other languages by mostly the agent /subject in the active sentence being changed to
be objects in the passive. However, in Ga expressing the passive is different from English
as it employs a periphrastic way. The passive makes use of a null pronoun and the agent
not mentioned at all as discussed in chapter five. The verbs in the construction being used
to express passive can be quality verbs or dynamic verbs. Quality verbs in Ga were seen
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mostly not to occur in imperative constructions with the exception of few like da ‘to be
big’ where the imperative form for instance in singular will be daa ‘grow up’.
7.4 Semantic Properties of Property Concepts in Ga
In Ga, it was revealed that six of the semantic classes proposed by Dixon (2004) could be
filled by adjectives namely: Dimension, Value, Age, Physical Propensity, Colour and
Speed. Quality verbs can be placed in the Value, Dimension, Colour and Similarity
classes. The Human Property class is filled with nominal adjectives. The six classes
which are filled by adjectives and identified are based on the questionnaires distributed to
respondents, collected and analysed. The section two of the questionnaire which
investigated how multiple adjectives in attributive position for a single noun were ordered
revealed the following:
When Value and Dimension adjectives were to be ordered the most preferred order will
be Value before Dimension. When the adjectives are from Dimension and Age classes,
Age occurring first, followed by Dimension is most preferred. When the three classes
namely Physical Property, Age and Dimension were to be sequenced, the most preferred
was Age, Dimension and Physical Property last. In the event of sequencing adjectives
from the classes of Dimension, Colour, and Physical Property, the most preferred order
was Colour, Dimension, and Physical Property. The preferred order for adjectives from
the classes of Dimension, Value and Colour was Value Dimension and Colour. Colour,
Physical Property and Value order was most preferred in the event of sequencing these
semantic classes. Value, Age and Colour order was also preferred as well as Age, Colour
and Physical Property in the event of sequencing these classes. The order, Value, Age
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and Physical Property order and Age, Colour and Dimension order were also the most
preferred orders. In the event of sequencing two adjectives of the same semantic classes
plus one from another class the orders, Age, Dimension and Dimension as well as
Dimension, Colour, Dimension order were most preferred by the respondents. In
examining some few ordering of plural nouns with some semantic classes the order Value
Age, Colour was still preferred just as when it is modifying a singular noun. The Age,
Colour, Dimension order changed in the singular to be Colour, Age, Dimension order as
well as the Value, Age, Colour order to Age Value order in plural. From the orderings in
attributive position of these semantic classes Colour adjectives were preferred to be
closer to the head noun or far from it as well as Age adjectives. Physical Property
adjectives seem to occur in the middle or the last in the ordering and in summary all the
orderings seem not to be strict.
In examining these adjectives in predicative use, it was revealed that most often
verbal equivalents were employed and the few sequencing orders found were two verbs
that can be placed in Colour and Dimension classes, Dimension was preferred to appear
closer to the head noun and Colour last. Also two verbs from the Physical Property and
Value classes, Value verb was preferred last. When a verb from Value class occurs with
an adjective from Colour class, the Value verb is preferred first in the predicative role.
7.5 Future Research.
Despite the investigation into lexical categories that are used to express PCs in Ga, there
are a few issues that could not be examined and this gives opportunity for future research.
Some of these issues are mentioned below.
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The work did not examine into detail tone changes on the PC items used and whether
tone variations may occur in syntactic positions or when multiple adjectives are used.
Moreover pragmatic issues relating to why a speaker would prefer to use PC item which
may have an adjective equivalent was not delved into, for example, using d
i ‘to blacken’
instead of díŋ ‘black’ and also why would a speaker choose a PC item to occur first when
there are multiples to be employed for a head noun. Reasons for such choices were not
examined in detail. Furthermore there may be other ways or strategies that may be used
to denote PCs in Ga but this was not investigated. There may be special clauses used and
the use of ideophones to express PCs in Ga, this remains for future research and
possibly a comparative analysis of adjective ordering in Kwa languages to contribute to
typology of PCs.
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APPENDIX 1
Questionnaire
Please I am undertaking a research on the sequencing of adjectives in Ga. I would be
grateful if you could share your opinion with me on the sentences below. Please feel free
to express your opinion as no names are included or mentioned. Thank you.
Section 1
Please tick the appropriate answer
1. Which variety of Ga do you speak as your mother tongue
a) Osu b) La c) Teshie/ Nungua d|) Ga Mashi e) others
2. Which other Ghanaian language do you speak apart from Ga?
a) Twi b) Fante c) Ewe d) Hausa e) Gurene f) others
3. What is your age?
a) 18-23,b) 24- 29 c)30 -36 d)37-42 e)43 -49 f) 50and above
4. What is your educational background ?
a) Primary b)Secondary c) Tertiary d) teacher training e) other f)none
5. What is the level of formal education in Ga a) Primary b) Secondary c)Tertiary d)
Teacher training e) other f) none
6. Place of home town Region
…………………………………………………………..District ……………………..
SECTION II
Please rank the following sentences below on the scale of 0-5.
0- Completely unacceptable 1-hihgly unacceptable 2- quite unacceptable 3-
quite acceptable
4 –Highly acceptable 5- completely acceptable.
5) Tso fεfεoo kakadaŋŋ lε eku. ‘The beautiful tall tree is broken.
Tso kakadaŋŋ fεfεoo l ε eku. ‘The tall beautiful is broken.
6) Atade hee agbo lε efɔ. ‘The new big dress is wet.’
Atade agbo ehee ‘The big new dress is wet’
7)
Ehe adeka tsiŋmoo agbo momo ko. ‘He bught a heavy big ld box’
Ehe adeka momo tsiŋmoo agbo ko. He bought an old heavy big box.
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Ehe adeka agbo tsiŋmoo momo ko. He bought big heavy old box ;.
Ehe adeka agbo momo tsiŋmoo ko. He bought big old heavy box’.
Ehe adeka momo agbo tsiŋmoo ko. ‘He bought an old big heavy box’.
8)
Ehe baagi tsiŋmoo wulu diŋ ko. ‘he bought a heavy big black bag.’
Ehe baagi tsiŋmoo diŋ wulu ko. He bought a heavy black big box.’
Ehe baagi diŋ wulu tsiŋmoo ko. ‘He bought a black big heavy box’.
Ehe baagi wulu diŋ tsiŋmoo ko. ‘He bought a big black heavy bag’.
Ehe baagi wulu tsiŋmoo diŋ ko. ‘He bought a big heavy black box’.
9)
Mina akutu kpakpa bibioo tsuru ko. ‘ I saw a good small red orange’
Mina akutu bibioo tsuru kpakpa ko. I saw a small red good orange’.
Mina akutu tsuru kpakpa bibioo ko. ‘I saw a red good small orange’.
Mina akutu kpakpa tsuru bibioo ko. ‘I saw a good red small orange’.
Mina akutu bibioo kpakpa tsuru ko. ‘I saw a small good red orange’
10)
Mihe mama hatahata taŋtaŋ yεŋ ko. ‘I bought a light ugly white cloth.’
Mihe mama taŋtaŋ hatahata yεŋ ko. ‘I bought an ugly light white cloth’.
Mihe mama yεŋ hatahata taŋtaŋ ko. ‘I bought a white light ugly cloth’.
Mihe mama hatahata yεŋ taŋtaŋ ko. ‘I bought a light white ugly white.
Mihe mama taŋtaŋ hatahata yεŋ ko. ‘I bought an ugly light white cloth’.
11)
Mina baagi hatahata tsuru taŋtaŋ ko. ‘I bought a light red ugly bag.
Mina baagi hatahata taŋtaŋ tsuru ko. ‘I bought a light ugly red bag’.
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Mina baagi taŋtaŋ hatahata tsuru ko. ‘I bought an ugly light red bag’.
Mina baagi taŋtaŋ tsuru hatahata ko. ‘I bought an ugly red light bag’.
Mina baagi tsuru taŋtaŋ hatahata ko. ‘I bought a red ugly light bad’.
12)
Ena adeka tsiŋmoo bibioo yεŋ ko. ‘He saw a heavy small white box’.
Ena adeka bibioo tsiŋmoo yεŋ ko. ‘He saw a small heavy white box’.
Ena adeka yεŋ tsiŋmoo bibioo ko. ‘He saw a white heavy small box’.
Ena adeka bibioo tsiŋmoo yεŋ ko. ‘He saw a small heavy white box’.
Ena adeka bibioo yεŋ tsiŋmoo ko. ‘He saw a small white heavy box’.
Ena adeka tsiŋmoo yεŋ bibioo ko. ‘He saw a heavy white small box’.
13)
Ewo atade yεŋ momo fεfεoo ko. ‘He is wearing a white old beautiful dress.’
Ewo atade momo yεŋ fεfεoo ko. ‘He is wearing an old white beautiful dress’.
Ewo atade momo fεfεoo yεŋ ko. ‘He is wearing an old beautiful white dress’.
Ewo atade fεfεoo momo yεŋ ko. ‘He is wearing a beautiful old white dress’.
Ewo atade fεfεoo yεŋ momo ko. ‘He is wearing a beautiful white old dress’.
Ewo atade fεfεoo momo yεŋ ko. ‘He is wearing a beautiful old white dress’.
14)
Mina saa bɔdɔɔ hee yεŋ ko. ‘I saw a soft new white bed’.
Mina saa bɔdɔɔ yεŋ hee ko. ‘I saw a soft white new bed’.
Mina saa hee bɔdɔɔ yεŋ ko. ‘I saw a new soft white bed’.
Mina saa hee yεŋ bɔdɔɔ ko. ‘I saw a new white soft bed’.
Mina saa yεŋ bɔdɔɔ hee ko. ‘I saw a white soft new bed’.
Mina saa bɔdɔɔ hee yεŋ ko. ‘I saw a soft new white bed’.
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15)
Mihe loo gbiŋ momo keketee ko. ‘I bought a dry old hard fish’.
Mihe loo gbiŋ keketee momo ko. ‘I bought a dry hard old fish’.
Mihe loo momo keketee gbiŋ ko. ‘I bought an old hard dry fish’.
Mihe loo keketee gbiŋ momo ko. ‘I bought a hard dry old fish’.
Mihe loo keketee momo gbiŋ ko. ‘I bought a hard old dry fish’.
Mihe loo momo gbiŋ keketee ko. ‘I bought an old dry hard fish’.
16)
Mina yoo fɔŋ bibioo diŋ ko. ‘I saw a bad small dark woman’.
Mina yoo fɔŋ diŋ biboo ko. ‘I saw a bad dark small woman’.
Mina yoo bibioo fɔŋ diŋ ko. ‘I saw a small bad dark woman’.
Mina yoo bibioo diŋ fɔŋ ko. ‘I saw a small dark bad woman’.
Mina yoo diŋ bibioo fɔŋ ko. ‘ I saw a dark small bad woman’.
17)
Eta gbε lεlεoo kakadaŋŋ hee ko nɔ. ‘He is sitting on a narrow long new path’.
Eta gbε lεlεoo hee kakadaŋŋ ko nɔ. ‘He is sitting on a narrow new long path’.
Eta gbε kakadaŋŋ hee lεlεoo ko nɔ. .’He is sitting on a long new narrow path’.
Eta gbε kakadaŋŋ lεlεoo hee ko nɔ. ‘He is sitting on a long narrow new path’.
Eta gbε hee lεlεoo kakadaŋŋ ko nɔ. ‘He is sitting on a new narrow long path’.
Eta gbε hee kakadaŋŋ lεlεoo ko nɔ. ‘He is sitting on a new long narrow path’.
18)
Wolo hee bibioo diŋ lε elaaje. ‘The new small black book is lost’
Wolo hee diŋ bibioo lε elaaje ‘The new black small book is lost’
Wolo bibioo diŋ hee l elaaje. ‘The small black new book is lost’
Wolo diŋ hee bibioo l elaaje ‘The black new small book is lost’
255
20)
Nuu diŋ kpitioo tɔ trɔɔ lε eba. ‘The black short fat man has come’
Nuu kpitioo diŋ tɔtrɔɔ lε eba. ‘The short dark fat man has come’.
Nuu tɔtrɔɔ kpitiooo diŋ lε eba. ‘The fat short dark man has come’.
Nuu diŋ tɔtrɔɔ kpitioo lε eba. ‘The dark fat short has come’.
21)
Tso gbiŋ kakadaŋŋ yεŋ ko. ‘The dry tall white tree’
Tso kakadaŋŋ gbiŋ yε ŋ ko. ‘The tall dry white tree’
Tso gbiŋ yεŋ kakadaŋŋ ko. ‘A dry white tall tree’
22)
Yei agboi diji kpitibii. ‘big dark short women’
Yei kpitibii agbo diji lε. ‘short big dark women’
Yei diji kpitibii agboi lε. ‘ dark short big women’
23)
Atadei hei agbo tsuji . ‘new big red dresses’
Atadei agboi hei tsuji . ‘big new red dresses
Atadei tsuji agboi hei . ‘red big new dresses
Atadei tsuji hei agboi. ‘ red new dresses
24)
mamai hei fεfεji diji. ‘new beautiful black clothes
mamai fεfεji hei diji. ‘beautiful new black clothes.
mamai diji fεfεji hei. ‘black beautiful new clothes
SECTION IV
25) Please translate the following into Ga. Please write it as it is said in GA
The wooden spoon
The metal chair.
The plastic table .
The paper box
The boastful woman.
The quarrelsome girl.
256
SECTION III
26) Please translate the following into Ga. Please write it as it is said in GA
The ugly big black pot.
The tall yellow building.
The dirty old chair.
A new beautiful black belt.
They saw a big black pot
They bought a small beautiful red purse.
The new wide umbrella of the chief.
The old heavy blue box.
The boy is dark and tall.
The building is new.
The bucket is big and blue.
The books are heavy and old.
The man is old and handsome.
7. Please fill in the spaces with the adjectives in the order acceptable to you.
Kaa nεε yε
………………………………………………………………………………………
agbo, fεfεo
S i nεε yε
…………………………………………………………………………………..
Mujimuji , tan, momo
Yoo lε yε
………………………………………………………………………………………
Bloblo, tsur
257
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