Abunya, L.N.2019-05-272019-05-272018-07http://ugspace.ug.edu.gh/handle/123456789/30309PhD.This thesis examines some aspects of Kaakye grammar within the functionaltypological framework. These aspects primarily concern noun class system and animacy distinctions, relativization, complementation and serialization. Kaakye is one of the least studied Guan (Kwa, Niger Congo) languages, spoken in the northern part of the Volta Region of Ghana. The data collected for the study was mainly based on natural discourse from native speakers in the Kaakye speaking community. The corpus included spontaneous spoken text of various genres, elicitation and data from written sources. Adopting a singular-plural pairing notion, Kaakye nouns were classified into six classes. The classification revealed a clearer semantic basis for at least three of the noun classes. It also showed that the language is sensitive to human/non human distinction on one hand and animate/inanimate distinction on the other hand. Nouns agree with numerals and a few adjectives with some restrictions within the noun phrase. The synchronic data analysed for the study showed that Kaakye has maintained the Proto-Guan noun classes (Snider 1988) in the development of its noun class system. Nonetheless, there are two emerging noun class pairings and the loss of singular and plural prefixes. Evidence is also provided to show that the noun class system is undergoing decay. Regarding relative clauses (RCs), it was shown that Kaakye RCs are strictly post-nominal. Both the head noun and its referent within the RC are obligatorily expressed. Unlike some Kwa languages, the head nouns obligatorily take a definite determiner. Kaakye uses both the pronoun retention and the gap strategy to indicate the canonical positions the head noun occupies in the RC. The study also demonstrates that all the NP positions are accessible to relativization in Kaakye. Kaakye, however, contradicts two constraints of the Noun Phrase Accessibility Hierarchy. Kaakye employs a relative marker kɛ́ to mark the beginning of the relative clause. Evidence is provided to suggest that the relative marker is diachronically derived from the manner demonstrative adverb kɛ́ nɩ̀ŋ̀ ‘like this/that’ through a grammaticalization process. On complementation, it was revealed that Kaakye employs five distinct complementizers and two complementation strategies: nominalized strategy and relativized strategy, all of which serve as the object complements of complement taking verbs (CTVs). The choice of these complementizers and complementation strategies is, to a large extent, determined by the semantics of the CTVs and to some extent by the tense, aspect, mood and negation effects of the CTVs reflected in the matrix clause. The study identifies four semantic types of CTVs in Kaakye: perception-cognitive-utterance (P-C-U) verbs, manipulation verbs, modality verbs and evaluation verbs. Examining the coreferential relation, tense, aspect, mood and negation between the CTVs and the complement clauses, it is observed that Kaakye generally conforms to Givón’s (2000) notion of event integration. A diachronic account of the source of the complementizers shows that unlike most Kwa languages of West Africa, none of its complementizers is derived from the verb ‘say’. Finally, the discussion on Serial Verb Constructions (SVC) in Kaakye showed that Kaakye SVC can have the same syntactic subject which may be expressed once on the initial verbs or on every verb. The verbs in series may either share the same object or each may have their own objects. The verbs may have different aspectual and transitivity values. The verbs in most cases share the same tense, aspect and mood which are marked once on the initial verb. Negation is marked only once on the initial verb. Kaakye, like its closelyrelated and non-related neighbouring Kwa languages, shows a pathway to grammaticalization through serial verb constructionenKaakye GrammarThesis