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I DOCUMENT RESUME AL Cv:1 514 ED 022 189 48 By- Schachter, Paul; Fronikin, Victoria A PHONOLOGY OF AKAN:AKUAPEM, ASANTE, FANTE. California Univ., Los Angeles. Spons Agency-Office of Education(DHEW), Washington, DC. Bureauof Research. Report No- WPP -9 Bureau No-BR-5- 1094 Pub Date Sep 68 Contract - OEC -6-14 -028 Note- 272p. California, Los Angeles, California90024 Available from-Textbook Department,Student Store, University of WOO/ i EDRSPrice MF -$125 HC -S10.96 STRUCTURE. *DIALECT STUDIES.DISTINCTIVE FEATURES,MORPHOPHOWMICS, Descr" tors- *AKAN, DEEP GEWRATIVE GRAMMAR, VERBS OGY, SURFACE STRUCTURE,TOWLANGUAGES, sTRANSFORtIATION Halle Phonological System, Fante,Tshi,Twi Identifiers-Akuapem, Asante, *Chowtsky phonological In this _preliminary reportthe authors compare apart of the Asante, and Faniethe maiordialects of Akan. The comparition systems of Akuapem, which reveals the features common toall three dialects aswell as the features from one another. Thedescription of thephonological systems distinguish the dialects phonology as of these dialects ispresented within theframework of generative developed principally byChomsky. Hale, and Stanley.Although this study does not either a complete grammar or acomplete phonology of Akan, a attempt to present and "reasonably complete" treatmentof the finite verb is givenand deep structures relation to certainP-rules. Chapter 1 presents transformational rules are discussed in Segment 1 the inventory of systematicphonemes and Includes the setof Morpheme Structure Conditions which are tobe apphed to the dictionarymatrices ofmorphemes. of Morpheme SequenceStructure Cooditions whichapply ! Chapter 2 presents the set generally to all formatives.The first chapters thus presentall the general lexical redundancies in the language and cover a maiorpart of thephonological constraints surface Chapter 3 discusses all thegeneral Phonological Ruleswhich apply to the P-rules applying specifically tothe finite verb are discussed structures of sentences. surface structures in Chapter 4, whichalso discusses various otheraspects of Akan dominated by the Verb-Phrasenode. (JD) zii.- sr /0te 717-yr PHONOLOGY OF AKAN. KU E 3A E 11 FANTE"NI" 044- / y oar AUL H E & VI IA F KIN U.S. DEPARTMENT OFHEALTH, EDUCATION & WELFARE OFFICE OF EDUCATION THIS DOCUMENT HAS BEEN REPRODUCED EXACTLYAS RECEIVED FROM THE PERSON OR ORGANIZATION ORIGINATING IT.POINTS OF VIEW OR OPINIONS STATED DO NOT NECESSARILY REPRESENT OFFICIALOFFICE OF EDUCATION POSITION OR POLICY. A L 001 5 1 4 KING PAPERS IN E I O. 9/UNIVERSITY OF CALIF lAs OS ELES/ AUGUST 1986 A PHONOLOGY OFAKAN: AKUAPEM, ASANTE, FANTE PAUL SCHACHTER AND VICTORIA FROMKIN O.E. Contract 6-14-028 The research reported herein wasperformed pursuant to a contract withthe Office of Education, U.S. Department ofHealth, Education, and Welfare. Contractorsunder- taking such projects underGovernment sponsorship areencouraged to express freely their professional judgment inthe conduct of the project.Points of view or opinions stated do not, therefore,necessarily represent official Officeof Education position or policy. Working Papers in Phonetics 9 September 1968 University of California. Los Angeles Extra copies are available from:Textbook Department, Student Store, University of California, LosAngeles, California 90024 Price: $3.00 _ Preface This is a preliminaryreport on researchthat we have conducted ()Ter the pastfew years, under U.S.Office of Education Cvntract0E-6-14-028, into the phonologyof the major Akan dialects ofGhana: Akuapem, Asante, andPante. No one realizes betterthan we just how"preliminary" a re- port this is, but wehope that, by issuingit in its present form, we can elicitcomments from interestedscholars that will assist us in preparing acontemplated revision of the report. We recognize, inparticular, that ourfirst-hand investigation of the Pantedialect has been farfrom thorough, and expect that moreerrors willbe found in our analysis of this dialect thanin our analyaes of theother dialects with wILLch we havebeen concerned. It is a pleasure toacknowledge the assistancethat we have hadfrom native speakersof Akan, For Akuapem, our principal informants havebeen: Miss Doris Anakwa andMiss Mercy Martinson; for Asante,they have been: Miss Agnes Aidoo, Miss GraceAsafogyei, and Miss GraceMeenu, Mensah; Mr. and for Pantethey have been: Miss Christine Aidoo, and Mr, AlbertKodwo- 0, K. Brew, Miss JaneGarbrah-Aidoo, Mensah, We wish to offerMiss Agnes Aidoo ourparticular thanks for the manycontributions her intelligenceand in- sight into the workingsof her native languagehave made to our work. We have had the goodfortune to have theservices of Dr, John M. Stewartof the Institute ofAfrican Studies, University of Ghana, Legon as aconsultant throughoutthe course of ourresearch. The influence of Dr.Stewart's investigations of Akan isapparent throughout thisreport, although be is, of course,in no way responsiblefor our errors ofcommission or omission. Finally, we should liketo thank Mrs, ReneeWillen and Mrs. TheodoraGraham for theirassistance in typing, respectively, the preliminarymanuscript of the reportand the finished version. P.S. V.F. Table of Contents Introduction 0.10The Akan Language 0.20The Model 0.30The PhonologicalFeatures 0.31Segmental Features 0.32 Non-SegmentalFeatures 0.40The MorphemeStructure Conditions. 0.41If-Then Conditions 0.42 PositiveConditions 0.43 FurtherRemarks on Redundancy. The PhonologicalRules of MS Conditionsto P-Rule 0.51 &tension 18 Output 19 Syntactic and DiacriticFeatures 0.60 19 0.70The Treatment ofDialect Differences of the Text 20 0.80The Organization 21 0.90Symbols Defined. Chapter1 Segment Structure 25 1.10Contrasting Segments 28 1.20Segment StructureConditions Segment StructureConditions for 1.21 29 Vowels . 1.22Segment StructureConditions for . 33 Glides . 1.23Segment StructureConditions for Consonants 35 1.24Segment StructureConditions for Non-Distinctive Features 38 Contrasting Segments . 40 1.30Minimally Specified 40 1.40Boundary Units 1.50The Exclusion ofTraditional Phonemic Features 114 Chapter 2 Sequence Structure Segments 4 5 2.10Sequential Constraints on 46 2.20 The Structure ofthe Syllable. the Principal 2.21The Structure of 49 Syllable . 2.30The Structure of Root Morphemes 53 2.31Vowel Tenseness Harmony 55 2.32 Other Restrictions onVowels 58 2.33 Dialectal Restrictions 60 2.34Restrictions on Particular Lexical Categories 61 2.40The Structure of Derivational Morphemes. 61 2.50The Structure of Grammatical Morphemes 62 2.51 Verbal Grammatical bpiphenes 65 2,52 Nominal Grammatical Morphemes. 0 65 Chapter 3 General Phonological Rules 3.10Introduction . 69 3.20 Nasalization 71 3.21Regressive Non-Vowel Nasalization. 72 3.22Syllable-Final Nasal Consonants. 73 3.23Nasal Prefixes . 75 3.24Homorganic Nasals. 76 3.25Progressive Non-Vowel Nasalization 77 3.26Vowel Nasalization . 78 3.30 Final Consongints . 81 3.31 Final Lwi - 83 332 Glottal-Stop Deletion. 83 3.40 Medial Intervocalic Consonants . 84 350 Labialization. 87 3.60Palatalization 89 3.61Palato-Labialized. Non-Vowels and Fronted Round. Vowels . 91 3.70Vowel Rules . 96 3.71Vowel Tensing * . 96 3.72 Vowel Backing. 101 3.73 Pante Backness Harmony 102 3.74 Vowel Deletion and Addition. 104 3.80 Systematic-Phonetic Segments 3.90 Tone Rules lgt 3.91 Downdrift . 106 3.92 The "Drop" or "Mid" Tone . 109 3.95 Tone Incorporation and Tone Simplification 394 Other Tone Rules 11; Chapter4 The Finite Verb 4.10Surface Structure of the Finite Verb 117 4.20The Subject-Concord Prefix 118 . 122 4.30ASPect . 4.31STAtive and HABitual . 123 . 124 4.32 PROgressive. 4.33 PASt and PERfect . 126 4.34 FUTure . 132 4.35 OPTative and ltiPerative. 134 137 4.36 CONsecutive. 4.40 NEGative , . 141 4.41Aspectual Changes in NegativeVerbs. 146 4.50INGressive . 150 4.60REDuplication. 155 4.61General Rule of Monosyllabic RED 156 4.62 Subsidiary Rules AffectingMonosyllabic 0 0 162 RED. 4.63 General Rule of DisyllabicRED . 169 4.64Subsidiary Rules Affecting Disyllabic . 171 RED. 177 4.70Verb Roots . 4.71 Tone Raising in MonosyllabicVRs . 178 4.72 Replacement of Final NonArowelin Monosyllabic VRs by Glottal Stop . 181 4.73 Vowel Addition in Monosyllabic VRs . 184 4.74 Other Rules Affecting MonosyllabicVRs185 475 Structure of DisyllabicVRs. 189 4.76 Tone Reversal in Disyllabic VRs. 195 4.77 Other Rules Affecting DisyllabicVRs 197 4.78 Trisyllabic VRs. 203 4.79 Final Glottal Stop in VRs. 203 4.80SUBordinative. 207 4.81 Rules Affecting VP-FinalSUB . 209 4.90Tone-Changing P-Rules. 215 4.91 Tone Changes in AffirmativeSimple Vs. 216 4.92 Tone Changes in NegativeSimple Vs . 225 4.93 Tone Changes in IngressiveVs. 231 4.94 Tone Changes in ReduplicatedVs. 233 4.95Tone Changes in Verb-Plus-Pronoun Constructions. 236 4.96 Tone Changes in SubordinativeVs . 239 Appendix Phonological Rules . 245 . 267 Bibliography . 3 Introduction 0,10 The Akan Langumg* The most widely spoken languageof Ghana consists of a number of more orless mutually intelligibledialects* Until very recently, when Akan becamethe official name for the dialects spoken by allthe Akan peoples, there was no generallyaccepted name for the language as awhole. Ohristaller in 1875 used the nameTshi (Twi), a name whidh has been widely used for two ofthe dialects dealt with in this study, Akuapem Twi(hereafter, Akuapem) and Asante Twi (hereafter, Asante),The third dialect dealt with is Pante*Asante and Pante are the mostwidely spoken Akan dialecta* Akuapem is included in this studybecause of its historical role as thedialect originally selected i4 1838 as the written literary