37 research outputs found

    ADJECTIVE SEQUENCING IN GA

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    The use of multiple words to describe nouns is a common phenomenon in language and languages that have adjectives employ this word class.Ga, a Kwa language of the Niger Congo, branch is no exception, whereas languages without adjectives may use other lexical categories like nouns and verbs which play the adjectival role. Ga has adjectives and employs them as attributives for nouns. The paper examines the syntactic rule governing the occurence of several adjectives serving as attibtutes of a single head noun. In this paper the noun is considered as the head of the Ga Nominal Phrase. The order of these adjectives has not received scholarly attention in Ga and this is to fill that gap in the literature. I argued that the order of adjectives is not haphazardly arranged but follows a laid down syntactc prescription. For instance the data showed that Dimension adjectives normall occur in first position, whereas colour adjectives occur further from the head noun. It was also revealed that in the ordering of adjectives in which Value adjectives is included, the Age adjective occurs in last position and Value adjective occurs first or last when included in the ordering of adjectives for a noun. Consequently, it is opined that defying the arrangement in the ordering of the adjectives resulted in unacceptable forms.The adjectives are grouped according to  Dixon semantic classes. Data is gathered from native speakers of Ga. The findings contribute to the existing literature on adjective sequencing in Ghanaian languages

    Ditransitvity in Ga: A Lexical Functional Approach

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    The paper examines diathesis alternation of Ga and English ditransitives verbs. It discusses simple ditransitive verbs found in English and compares them with Ga verbs that can be used in ditransitive constructions. Ditransitive verbs are known to subcategorise for two noun phrases as objects. The semantic arguments found in ditransitive constructions are most often the beneficiary followed by the theme. In English, ditransitivity is linked to dative shift. The NP that bears the semantic role of beneficiary /goal in a ditransitive construction is preceded by the theme. The verb, in this instance, then subcategorises for NP followed by PP syntactically. The PP bears the semantic role of the beneficiary and the NP bears the role of the theme. In ditransitive alternation, the semantic roles of the NP objects do not change. What differs in the construction is the syntactic form. Part of the paper will show some analysis using Lexical Functional Grammar (LFG). Data was gathered in consultation with native speakers for the analysis. It was evident that in Ga the constructions used to express dative shift of ditransitive were multiverb constructions and some of the verbs that were used to express ditransitivity were inherent complement verbs with subordinate clauses as their complements. Keywords: ditransitive, diathesis alternation, semantic role, multiverb, ditransitivit

    Theory and description in African Linguistics: Selected papers from the 47th Annual Conference on African Linguistics

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    The papers in this volume were presented at the 47th Annual Conference on African Linguistics at UC Berkeley in 2016. The papers offer new descriptions of African languages and propose novel theoretical analyses of them. The contributions span topics in phonetics, phonology, syntax, semantics, and pragmatics and reflect the typological and genetic diversity of languages in Africa. Four papers in the volume examine Areal Features and Linguistic Reconstruction in Africa, and were presented at a special workshop on this topic held alongside the general session of ACAL

    Theory and description in African Linguistics: Selected papers from the 47th Annual Conference on African Linguistics

    Get PDF
    The papers in this volume were presented at the 47th Annual Conference on African Linguistics at UC Berkeley in 2016. The papers offer new descriptions of African languages and propose novel theoretical analyses of them. The contributions span topics in phonetics, phonology, syntax, semantics, and pragmatics and reflect the typological and genetic diversity of languages in Africa. Four papers in the volume examine Areal Features and Linguistic Reconstruction in Africa, and were presented at a special workshop on this topic held alongside the general session of ACAL

    Theory and description in African Linguistics: Selected papers from the 47th Annual Conference on African Linguistics

    Get PDF
    The papers in this volume were presented at the 47th Annual Conference on African Linguistics at UC Berkeley in 2016. The papers offer new descriptions of African languages and propose novel theoretical analyses of them. The contributions span topics in phonetics, phonology, syntax, semantics, and pragmatics and reflect the typological and genetic diversity of languages in Africa. Four papers in the volume examine Areal Features and Linguistic Reconstruction in Africa, and were presented at a special workshop on this topic held alongside the general session of ACAL

    Theory and description in African Linguistics: Selected papers from the 47th Annual Conference on African Linguistics

    Get PDF
    The papers in this volume were presented at the 47th Annual Conference on African Linguistics at UC Berkeley in 2016. The papers offer new descriptions of African languages and propose novel theoretical analyses of them. The contributions span topics in phonetics, phonology, syntax, semantics, and pragmatics and reflect the typological and genetic diversity of languages in Africa. Four papers in the volume examine Areal Features and Linguistic Reconstruction in Africa, and were presented at a special workshop on this topic held alongside the general session of ACAL

    Theory and description in African Linguistics: Selected papers from the 47th Annual Conference on African Linguistics

    Get PDF
    The papers in this volume were presented at the 47th Annual Conference on African Linguistics at UC Berkeley in 2016. The papers offer new descriptions of African languages and propose novel theoretical analyses of them. The contributions span topics in phonetics, phonology, syntax, semantics, and pragmatics and reflect the typological and genetic diversity of languages in Africa. Four papers in the volume examine Areal Features and Linguistic Reconstruction in Africa, and were presented at a special workshop on this topic held alongside the general session of ACAL

    Theory and description in African Linguistics: Selected papers from the 47th Annual Conference on African Linguistics

    Get PDF
    The papers in this volume were presented at the 47th Annual Conference on African Linguistics at UC Berkeley in 2016. The papers offer new descriptions of African languages and propose novel theoretical analyses of them. The contributions span topics in phonetics, phonology, syntax, semantics, and pragmatics and reflect the typological and genetic diversity of languages in Africa. Four papers in the volume examine Areal Features and Linguistic Reconstruction in Africa, and were presented at a special workshop on this topic held alongside the general session of ACAL

    Theory and description in African Linguistics: Selected papers from the 47th Annual Conference on African Linguistics

    Get PDF
    The papers in this volume were presented at the 47th Annual Conference on African Linguistics at UC Berkeley in 2016. The papers offer new descriptions of African languages and propose novel theoretical analyses of them. The contributions span topics in phonetics, phonology, syntax, semantics, and pragmatics and reflect the typological and genetic diversity of languages in Africa. Four papers in the volume examine Areal Features and Linguistic Reconstruction in Africa, and were presented at a special workshop on this topic held alongside the general session of ACAL

    Theory and description in African Linguistics: Selected papers from the 47th Annual Conference on African Linguistics

    Get PDF
    The papers in this volume were presented at the 47th Annual Conference on African Linguistics at UC Berkeley in 2016. The papers offer new descriptions of African languages and propose novel theoretical analyses of them. The contributions span topics in phonetics, phonology, syntax, semantics, and pragmatics and reflect the typological and genetic diversity of languages in Africa. Four papers in the volume examine Areal Features and Linguistic Reconstruction in Africa, and were presented at a special workshop on this topic held alongside the general session of ACAL
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