Hostname: page-component-6766d58669-7fx5l Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2026-05-14T08:53:56.415Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Phonological phrasing and ATR vowel harmony in Akan*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  03 August 2015

Frank Kügler
Frank Kügler*
Affiliation:
University of Potsdam
*
E-mail: kuegler@uni-potsdam.de.
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

This paper examines phonological phrasing in the Kwa language Akan. Regressive [+ATR] vowel harmony between words (RVH) serves as a hitherto unreported diagnostic of phonological phrasing. In this paper I discuss VP-internal and NP-internal structures, as well as SVO(O) and serial verb constructions. RVH is a general process in Akan grammar, although it is blocked in certain contexts. The analysis of phonological phrasing relies on universal syntax–phonology mapping constraints whereby lexically headed syntactic phrases are mapped onto phonological phrases. Blocking contexts call for a domain-sensitive analysis of RVH assuming recursive prosodic structure which makes reference to maximal and non-maximal phonological phrases. It is proposed (i) that phonological phrase structure is isomorphic to syntactic structure in Akan, and (ii) that the process of RVH is blocked at the edge of a maximal phonological phrase; this is formulated in terms of a domain-sensitive CrispEdge constraint.

Information

Type
Articles
Information
Phonology , Volume 32 , Issue 1 , May 2015 , pp. 177 - 204
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2015 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Article purchase

Temporarily unavailable

Footnotes

*

The valuable help of Kofi Dorvlo and Charles Marfo during a fieldwork visit in 2012 is greatly acknowledged. Many thanks to Monica Amoah Appenteng and Reginald Duah for sharing their native speaker intuitions with me. Parts of this paper were presented at the ‘Syntax–phonology interface from a cross-linguistic perspective’ workshop at the Zentrum für Allgemeine Sprachwissenschaft, Berlin in 2012, and at colloquium series at Frankfurt am Main (2012), Stuttgart (2013), Potsdam (2014) and ZAS (2014). Comments from participants were greatly appreciated. For useful discussion, I would like to thank Ingo Feldhausen, Caroline Féry, Susanne Genzel, Shin Ishihara, Fabian Schubö and Sabine Zerbian. In particular, I sincerely thank the editors of this thematic issue, Lisa Selkirk and Seunghun Lee, for their invaluable support and discussion on earlier versions of this paper. This work was supported by the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (grant SFB 632 ‘Information structure’; project D5).

References

REFERENCES

Abakah, Emmanuel Nicholas (2000). A closer look at downstep in Akan. Afrika und Übersee 83. 253–275.Google Scholar
Abakah, Emmanuel Nicholas (2005). Tone rules in Akan. Journal of West African Languages 32. 109–134.Google Scholar
Abakah, Emmanuel Nicholas (2010). Tone and the associative construction in Akan. Journal of West African Languages 37:2. 57–79.Google Scholar
Abakah, Emmanuel Nicholas & Koranteng, Louise (2007). The interaction of tone, syntax and semantics in Akan. Studies in the Languages of the Volta Basin 4:2. 63–86.Google Scholar
Aboh, Enoch O. (2010). The morphosyntax of the Noun Phrase. In Aboh, Enoch O. & Essegbey, James (eds.) Topics in Kwa syntax. Dordrecht: Springer. 11–38.Google Scholar
Baker, Mark C. (1989). Object sharing and projection in serial verb constructions. LI 20. 513–553.Google Scholar
Baković, Eric (2000). Harmony, dominance and control. PhD dissertation, Rutgers University.Google Scholar
Ballard, Lee W. (2010). Akan vowel harmony in Optimality Theory. MA thesis, University of Florida.Google Scholar
Bickmore, Lee S. (1999). High tone spread in Ekegusii revisited: an optimality theoretic account. Lingua 109. 109–153.Google Scholar
Boadi, Lawrence A. (2005). Three major syntactic structures in Akan: interrogatives, complementation, and relativisation. Accra: Black Mask.Google Scholar
Bobuafor, Mercy (2013). A grammar of Tafi. PhD thesis, University of Leiden.Google Scholar
Cahill, Michael C. (1985). An autosegmental analysis of Akan nasality and tone. MA thesis, University of Texas at Arlington.Google Scholar
Casali, Roderic F. (2002). Nawuri ATR harmony in typological perspective. Journal of West African Languages 29:1. 3–43.Google Scholar
Casali, Roderic F. (2003). [ATR] value asymmetries and underlying vowel inventory structure in Niger-Congo and Nilo-Saharan. Linguistic Typology 7. 307–382.Google Scholar
Casali, Roderic F. (2008). ATR harmony in African languages. Language and Linguistics Compass 2. 496–549.Google Scholar
Casali, Roderic F. (2012). [+ATR] dominance in Akan. Journal of West African Languages 39:1. 33–59.Google Scholar
Christaller, J. G. (1875). A grammar of the Asante and Fante language. Basle: Evangelical Missionary Society.Google Scholar
Christaller, J. G. (1933). Dictionary of the Asante and Fante language called Tshi (Twi) . 2nd edn. Basle: Evangelical Missionary Society.Google Scholar
Clements, G. N. (1985). Akan vowel harmony: a nonlinear analysis. In Goyvaerts, Didier L. (ed.) African linguistics: essays in memory of M. W. K. Semikenke. Amsterdam & Philadelphia: Benjamins. 55–98.Google Scholar
Crouch, Marjorie & Herbert, Patricia (1997). Deg phonology. Tamale: Ghana Institute of Linguistics, Literacy and Bible Translation.Google Scholar
Dolphyne, Florence A. (1988). The Akan (Twi-Fante) language: its sound systems and tonal structure. Accra: Ghana Universities Press.Google Scholar
Dolphyne, Florence A. (1994). A phonetic and phonological study of downdrift and downstep in Akan. Paper presented at the 25th Annual Conference on African Linguistics, Rutgers University.Google Scholar
Dolphyne, Florence A. & Dakubu, M. E. Kropp (1988). The Volta-Comoé languages. In Dakubu, M. E. Kropp (ed.) The languages of Ghana. London: Kegan Paul. 50–90.Google Scholar
Duah, Reginald A. (2013). Force dynamics and causation in Akan. PhD thesis, University of Ghana.Google Scholar
Elfner, Emily (2012). Syntax–prosody interactions in Irish. PhD dissertation, University of Massachusetts Amherst.Google Scholar
Genzel, Susanne (2013). Lexical and post-lexical tones in Akan. PhD thesis, University of Potsdam.Google Scholar
Genzel, Susanne & Kügler, Frank (2011). Phonetic realization of automatic (downdrift) and non-automatic downstep in Akan. In Lee, Wai-Sum & Zee, Eric (eds.) Proceedings of the 17th International Congress of Phonetic Sciences, Hong Kong 2011. Hong Kong: University of Hong Kong. 735–738.Google Scholar
Hess, Susan (1992). Assimilatory effects in a vowel harmony system: an acoustic analysis of advanced tongue root in Akan. JPh 20. 475–492.Google Scholar
Hyman, Larry M. (2007). Universals of tone rules: 30 years later. In Riad, Tomas & Gussenhoven, Carlos (eds.) Tones and tunes. Vol. 1: Typological studies in word and sentence prosody. Berlin & New York: Mouton de Gruyter. 1–34.Google Scholar
Itô, Junko & Mester, Armin (1999). Realignment. In Kager, René, van der Hulst, Harry & Zonneveld, Wim (eds.) The prosody–morphology interface. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. 188–217.Google Scholar
Ito, Junko & Mester, Armin (2012). Recursive prosodic phrasing in Japanese. In Borowsky, Toni, Kawahara, Shigeto, Shinya, Takahito & Sugahara, Mariko (eds.) Prosody matters: essays in honor of Elisabeth Selkirk. London: Equinox. 280–303.Google Scholar
Jones, Peggy (1987). Collected field reports on the phonology of Dilo. Legon: Institute of African Studies, University of Ghana.Google Scholar
Kambon, Obadele B. (2012). Serial verb nominalization in Akan. PhD thesis, University of Ghana.Google Scholar
Kaplan, Aaron F. (2008). Noniterativity is an emergent property of grammar. PhD dissertation, University of California, Santa Cruz.Google Scholar
Kaye, Jonathan D. (1982). Harmony processes in Vata. In van der Hulst, Harry & Smith, Norval (eds.) The structure of phonological representations. Part 2. Dordrecht: Foris. 385–452.Google Scholar
Kilpatrick, Eileen (1985). Bongo phonology. In Wise, Mary Ruth & Watson, Richard L. (eds.) Occasional papers in the study of Sudanese languages No. 4. Juba: Summer Institute of Linguistics. 1–62.Google Scholar
Kula, Nancy C. & Bickmore, Lee S. (2015). Phrasal phonology in Copperbelt Bemba. Phonology 32. 147–176 (this issue).Google Scholar
Lewis, M. Paul (ed.) (2009). Ethnologue: languages of the world. 16th edn. Dallas: SIL International. Available at http://www.ethnologue.com.Google Scholar
Lindau, Mona (1975). [Features] for vowels. UCLA Working Papers in Phonetics 30. Available (February 2015) at http://escholarship.org/uc/item/7gv6z0vq.Google Scholar
Lindau, Mona (1979). The feature expanded. JPh 7. 163–176.Google Scholar
Marfo, Charles O. (2005). Aspects of Akan grammar and the phonology–syntax interface. PhD thesis, University of Hong Kong.Google Scholar
Mutaka, Ngessimo M. (1995). Vowel harmony in Kinande. Journal of West African Languages 25:2. 41–55.Google Scholar
Nespor, Marina & Vogel, Irene (1986). Prosodic phonology. Dordrecht: Foris.Google Scholar
Nkansa-Kyeremateng, Kofi (2004). The Akans of Ghana: their customs, history and institutions. Accra: Sebewie.Google Scholar
Obeng, Samuel Gyasi (1995). Vowel harmony in Gwa Nmle. Afrikanistische Arbeitspapiere 41. 143–152.Google Scholar
Obeng, Samuel Gyasi (2000). Vowel harmony and tone in Akan toponyms. Studies in the Linguistic Sciences 30:2. 173–183.Google Scholar
Obeng, Samuel Gyasi (2008). Efutu grammar. Munich: Lincom.Google Scholar
Osam, E. Kweku (2003). An introduction to the verbal and multiverbal system of Akan. In Beermann, Dorothee & Hellan, Lars (eds.) Proceedings of the workshop on multi-verb constructions (Trondheim Summer School 2003) . Available (February 2015) at http://www.ling.hf.ntnu.no/tross/osam.pdf.Google Scholar
Paster, Mary (2010). The verbal morphology and phonology of Asante Twi. Studies in African Linguistics 39:1. 77–120.Google Scholar
Saah, Kofi K. (1994). Studies in Akan syntax, acquisition, and sentence processing. PhD thesis, University of Ottawa.Google Scholar
Schachter, Paul (1974). A non-transformational account of serial verbs. Studies in African Linguistics. Suppl. 5. 253–270.Google Scholar
Schachter, Paul & Fromkin, Victoria A. (1968). Phonology of Akan: Akuapem, Asante and Fante. UCLA Working Papers in Phonetics 9. 1–268.Google Scholar
Scholz, Hans-Jürgen (1976). Igbira phonology. Dallas: Summer Institute of Linguistics.Google Scholar
Selkirk, Elisabeth (1986). On derived domains in sentence phonology. Phonology Yearbook 3. 371–405.Google Scholar
Selkirk, Elisabeth (2009). On clause and intonational phrase in Japanese: the syntactic grounding of prosodic constituent structure. Gengo Kenkyu 136. 35–73.Google Scholar
Selkirk, Elisabeth (2011). The syntax–phonology interface. In Goldsmith, John, Riggle, Jason & Yu, Alan C. L. (eds.) The handbook of phonological theory. 2nd edn. Oxford: Wiley-Blackwell. 435–484.Google Scholar
Snider, Keith L. (1985). Vowel coalescence across word boundaries in Chumburung. Journal of West African Languages 15:1. 3–13.Google Scholar
Snider, Keith L. (1989). Vowel coalescence in Chumburung: an autosegmental analysis. Lingua 78. 217–232.Google Scholar
Stewart, John M. (1965). The typology of the Twi tone system. Bulletin of the Institute of African Studies 1. 1–27.Google Scholar
Stewart, John M. (1967). Tongue root position in Akan vowel harmony. Phonetica 16. 185–204.Google Scholar
Stewart, John M. (1983). Akan vowel harmony: the word structure conditions and the floating vowels. Studies in African Linguistics 14. 111–139.Google Scholar
Tiede, Mark K. (1996). An MRI-based study of pharyngeal volume contrasts in Akan and English. JPh 24. 399–421.Google Scholar
Truckenbrodt, Hubert (1999). On the relation between syntactic phrases and phonological phrases. LI 30. 219–255.Google Scholar
Walker, Rachel (2012). Vowel harmony in Optimality Theory. Language and Linguistics Compass 6. 575–592. http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/lnc3.340/epdf.Google Scholar