Morphosyntax of Dagbani Nominal Phrase Ziblim Yakubu 2018

University of Education Winneba http://ir.uew.edu.gh

UNIVERSITY OF EDUCATION, WINNEBA

MORPHOSYNTAX OF DAGBANI NOMINAL PHRASE

ZIBLIM YAKUBU

2018 University of Education Winneba http://ir.uew.edu.gh

UNIVERSITY OF EDUCATION, WINNEBA

MORPHOSYNTAX OF DAGBANI NOMINAL PHRASE

ZIBLIM YAKUBU

(8160080001)

A THESIS IN THE DEPARTMENT OF APPLIED LINGUISTICS, FACULTY OF

FOREIGN LANGUAGES EDUCATION AND COMMUNICATION,

SUBMITTED TO THE SCHOOL OF GRADUATE STUDIES, UNIVERSITY OF

EDUCATION, WINNEBA, IN PARTIAL FUIFILMENT OF THE

REQUIREMENTS FOR THE AWARD OF MASTER

OF PHILOSOPHY (APPLIED LINGUISTICS) DEGREE

JULY, 2018 University of Education Winneba http://ir.uew.edu.gh

DECLARATION

STUDENT’S DECLARATION

I, Ziblim Yakubu, hereby declare that this thesis, with the exception of quotations and references contained in published works which have all been identified and duly acknowledged, is entirely my own original work, and it has not been submitted, either in part or whole, for another degree else where.

Signature:……………………………………..

Date:……………………………………………

SUPERVISORS DECLARATION

We hereby declare that the preparation and presentation of this work was supervised in accordance with the guidelines for supervision of Thesis as laid down by the University of Education, Winneba.

Principal Supervisor: Dr. Kwaku Ofori

Signature:……………………………………..

Date:……………………………………………

Co-Supervisor: Dr. Rogers Krobea Asante

Signature:……………………………………..

Date:……………………………………………

University of Education Winneba http://ir.uew.edu.gh

ACKNOWEDGMENTS

My sincere appreciation goes to the almighty Allah for granting me good health, guidance, knowledge and wisdom throughout this course.

My profound immortal gratitude goes to my supervisors, Dr. Kwaku Ofori and

Dr. Rogers Krobea Asante, for their support, direction and guidance that eventually saw the completion of this thesis. I will forever be grateful. I would also like to thank the entire staff of the Department of Applied Linguistics and my lecturers: Prof. Esilfie, Prof.

Yusuff, Dr. Akpanglo-Nartey, Dr. Lomotey, Dr. Agbedor, Dr. Akanlig-Pare, and Dr.

Amuzu for their kind and valuable pieces of advice.

I also appreciate the efforts of my family, especially, my father Alhaji Ziblim

Menika, my mother Ziblim Ashetu and my wifes Abukari Warihana and Abdulai

Nafisah, and also my children, Abdul-Kayum Wuntuma, Safiya Tipahiya and Subaha

Suhuyini, for their patience, love, and consistent prayers that gave me sound mind to complete this work on schedule.

Further, I would like to thank my course mates: Jordor Abra Josphine, Boakye

Benard and Nakotey Daniel God-Dey, and my childhood friend and colleague Salifu

Issah at Tamale College of Education for the encouragement and friendship they provided me during the period.

iii

University of Education Winneba http://ir.uew.edu.gh

DEDICATION

Almighty Allah

University of Education Winneba http://ir.uew.edu.gh

LIST OF ABBREVIATION

1 First person

2 Second person

3 Third person

ANIM Animate

CONJ Conjuction

DEF Definiteness marker

DEM Demonstrative

DET Determiner

DIST Distal

FOC Focus

FUT Future

INANIM Inanimate

INDEF Indefiniteness

NEG Negative

NUM Number

OBJ Object

PART Particle

PDD proximal directional demonstrative

PERF Perfective

PL Plural

POSS Possessive

PRST Present

University of Education Winneba http://ir.uew.edu.gh

PRO Pronoun

PROG Progressive

PST Past

QUAN Quantifier

RCM Relative clause maker

SG Singular

SUBJ Subjects

STAT Stative

University of Education Winneba http://ir.uew.edu.gh

LSIST OF TABLES

Table Page

1: Dagbani Noun/Adjective Class System 53

2: Personal Pronouns in Dagbani. 84

vii

University of Education Winneba http://ir.uew.edu.gh

LIST OF FIGURE

Figure Page

3.1 Map of Districts in Northern Region, Ghana 43

viii

University of Education Winneba http://ir.uew.edu.gh

ABSTRACT

This thesis investigates the morphosyntax of the Dagbani (Gur, Niger-Congo) nominal Phrase (NP). The study described the internal components or constituents of the nominal phrase. It looked at the sequential order and distribution of the elements within the NP in addition to the pronominal system of the language. The methods used to collect the data were focus group discussion and elicitation. The Basic Linguistic Theory (BLT) (cf. Dixon, 2009, 2010, 2012) was adopted for this study. The study revealed that the Dagbani noun phrase exhibite the following order: (Reference particle) – Noun – (Adjective) – (Numeral) – (Relative clause) – (Article) – (Quantifier) – (Intensifier). Apart from the reference particle lala ‘that’, which occurs prenominally, all other modifiers are postnominal. The study demonstrated that the cardinal and ordinal numerals differ in their syntactic realisations with the head noun. It is also demonstrated that Dagbani has two demonstratives, that is, proximal demonstrative ŋɔ ‘this’, which indicates that a referent is closer to the speaker and distal demonstrative ŋɔ ha/sa ‘that’ which indicates that the speaker is not closer to the referent(s). The study demonstrated that some pronouns maintain their form regardless of whether they occur in nominative (subject) or accusative (object) slots. It also found that Dagbani speakers do not use resumptive pronouns in their relative clauses. The study will serve as a way of documenting and preserving the knowledge of Dagbani speakers. It will also serve as a reference material which could be used to develop educational materials and written literature for the use of students and lecturers.

University of Education Winneba http://ir.uew.edu.gh

CHAPTER ONE

INTRODUCTION

1.0 Introduction

This thesis discusses the morphosyntax of the nominal phrase of Dagbani, a

Gur-language in northern Ghana. It aims to contribute to the understanding of the morphology and syntax of Dagbani nominal phrase using the Basic Linguistic Theory

(Dixon, 2009, 2010, 2012). It discusses the structure of the nominal phrase, the morphological processes that take place as well as the syntactic relations that exist in the Dagbani nominal phrase. Specifically, this chapter talks about the language and its speakers, background to the study, statement of the problem, objectives of the study, research questions, significance of the study, and limitation of the study, and the organization of the study.

1.1 The Language and its Speakers

Dagbani is a Gur language spoken in northern Ghana. It belongs to the Oti-

Volta sub group, a major branch of Gur languages within the Niger-Congo family

(Bendor-Samuel, 1989; Hudu, 2010; Naden, 1988; Naden, 1989). Dagbani is one of the dominant languages in northern Ghana. It is the mother tongue of two ethnic groups, the Dagbamba and the Nanumba. It is highly intelligible to Mampruli and closely related to Dagaare, Gurunɛ, Kusaal and Waala; hence, the speakers of these ethnic groups call one another m ma bia ‘my relative (lit. my mother’s child)’. There are probably over two million native Dagbani speakers (Hudu, 2010). The population censuses in Ghana put the following related groups, Dagbamba, Nanumba, Mamprusi and Moshe (spoken mainly in Burkina Faso and Cote d’ Ivoire) into one group called

Mole-Dagbani (Hudu, 2010). According to Ghana Statistical Service (2000),

University of Education Winneba http://ir.uew.edu.gh

Dagbamba and Nanumbas who speak Dagbani constitute over two thirds of the Mole-

Dagbani language speakers in Ghana. Dagbani has three main dialects, the Western,

Eastern and Nanuni. The Western dialect (also known as Tomosili) is spoken in

Tamale the largest city in northern Ghana and the administrative capital of Dagbamba and its surrounding towns and villages. The Eastern dialect (Nayahili) is spoken in

Yendi, the traditional capital of the Dagbamba ethnic group. The third dialect,

Nanuni, is spoken in Bimbilla and its surrounding towns and villages. The traditional and administrative capital is Bimbilla. Among the three dialects, the Western dialect is standardized. It is spoken on both national radio and television, and also taught as a subject /course in schools from basic to tertiary level. A great number of Dagbamba are Muslims and a small number being Christians and few being Traditionalists.

1.1.1 Dagbaŋ

The traditional state of the Dagbamba is called Dagboŋ. It covers a land area of about 9,611 square kilometres lying between latitude 9 ˚N and 10 ˚N. Its length cuts across Kubalim in the South East of Zabzugu District to Zantani in the North

West of Tolon District, with total distance of about 322km and width is about 161km

(Mahama, 2004). Dagboŋ has ten (10) administrative capitals. Out of this number, seven are district capitals, two municipal and one metropolitan which is Tamale. The main towns in Dagboŋ are Tamale, Yendi, Saveligu, Sagnarigu, Gushigu, Zabzugu,

Kariga, Cheripuni, Tolon, Kumbugu, Saŋ, Saboba, Nanton, Tatali as well as Mion. It shares boundaries with a highly mutual intelligible dialect Nanumba in the south-east, in the south-west it shares boundary with Gonjas, and in the northern part it shares boundary with Mamprusi. Even though there is no definite figure on the number of speakers of Dagbani from Ghana statistical service, there are probably over three million people who speak the language as their L1. Dagbaŋ is noted to be one of the

University of Education Winneba http://ir.uew.edu.gh

food baskets of Ghana but a reasonable number of them are peasant farmers and a few are commercial farmers. The main crops they cultivate are cassava, maize, yams, rice, groundnut, millet, guinea cone, soya bean, mango, sheanut, cashew, and vegetables.

They also rear animals and birds like cattle, goat, sheep, fowls, guinea fowl, turkey, dove etc.

1.2 Morphology and Syntax of Dagbani

These are the basic characteristics of grammatical features of the language, some of which will be discussed into details later (cf. Olawsky, 1999; Bodomo, 2004;

Hudu, 2005, 2010; Issah 2013).

Morphology:

• Nouns and adjectives have the same Morphology.

• Like other Gur languages, which show empirical evidence of derivational and

inflection suffixes, Dagbani also has only derivational and inflectional suffixes; it

does not have prefixes like Kwa languages.

• Noun has a pair of suffixes for singular and for plural.

• Inflectional suffixes are predominant in Dagbani.

• Irregular singular and plural suffixes are exception to the number marking noun in

the language, therefore a common morphological process used to mark irregular

plural in Dagbani is suppletion.

• Unlike many of the world's languages, whose borrowed plural morphemes

conform to the languages plural morpheme(s), in Dagbani, most borrowed words

are usually employed inflected suffix -nema as their plural marker which is called

default plural suffix.

• In Dagbani, derivation is derived through suffixation only.

University of Education Winneba http://ir.uew.edu.gh

• In Dagbani, adjectives manifest inflectional classes for number marking and each

adjective has a pair of suffixes for singular and for plural, and has no semantic or

pragmatic classes.

• Adjectives that have irregular singular and plural suffixes are exception to the

number marking pattern in the language, therefore a common morphological

process used to mark irregular plural in Dagbani is suppletion.

Syntax:

• Negetion is preverbal in Dagbani.

• Like other Gur languages, the head of a noun phrase is an obligatory noun in

Dagbani NP constructions. The head noun can be followed by postnominal

optional modifiers within the NP which occurs in a fixed order: noun,

adjective, numeral, determiner/relative clause, quantifier and intensifier.

• Basically, Dagbani is a Subject - Verb – Object language, thus, the unmarked

sentence order; the subject precedes the verb and the object, and the verb also

comes before the object, though direct objects or location/temporal elements

may be fronted for emphasis.

• Adpositions, adjective, quantifiers, number, determiners and intensifiers are all

post nominal, i.e. the head noun precedes ite modifiers.

• Serial verb constructions are very common.

• No overt case-marking.

1.2 Background to the Study

The thesis discusses the structure of the nominal phrase in Dagbani. Nominal phrase has received much attention from different scholars in different languages.

Some of these scholars include Ansah (2014), Ameka (1991), Bobuafor (2013),

University of Education Winneba http://ir.uew.edu.gh

Bodomo (2004), Dorvlo (2008), Issah (2013). These authors are of the view that in determining the constituents of the nominal phrase (NP), the nominal (N) universally becomes the obligatory and the syntactic head of the NP. They opine that the modifiers give certain grammatical or semantic information about the noun they modify.

According to Aboh (2010), most Kwa languages have determiner-like elements that appear to mark discourse specificity. These markers and other modifiers such as qualifiers, quantifiers and intensifiers are all post nominal. This argument of

Kwa languages is not different from Dagbani a Gur language.

Unlike other languages where exhaustive description of nominal phrase is studied the story is different in Dagbani. I therefore found it a big gap to fill. Every language combines words and strings of words into small or larger constructions to form phrases, clauses and sentences. It is therefore necessary to know the complete sequences and distribution of various constituents that make nominal phrase in

Dagbani.

In the position of the head noun in Dagbani and most African languages, except the reference particle lala ‘that’, the determiner and the other modifiers are postnominals unlike English where the determiner and some modifiers precede the noun. Even though the various constituents that modify the noun phrase may vary from language to language, this study seeks to identify the constituents of the Dagbani nominal phrase, the morphological processes that take place in Dagbani Nominal

Phrase and the syntactic relations that exist in the Dagbani nominal phrase.

1.3 Statement of the Problem

Linguists and opinion leaders in recent times have seen and stressed the need for language description and documentation and its related functions in order to avoid

University of Education Winneba http://ir.uew.edu.gh

extinction. This is crucial in this era where modernity and western languages are a big threat to several local languages. Describing and documenting human languages not only help preserve the languages but also promote their legitimacy and recognize the culture and identity of the languages and associated cultures (Ochieng, 2013).

Although a number of studies have been conducted on Dagbani, there have not been enough studies on morphosyntax of Dagbani nominal phrase. The low level of its study has directly or indirectly affected the language and its users in the sense that students and lecturers often lack literature on this aspect which directly and / or indirectly impedes the academic work of both the students and the lecturers. Although

Wilson (1972), Yahaya (1979), Olawsky (1999) and Issah (2013) talk of the noun phrases of Dagbani, they do not go into the details of the topic. Hudu (2005) also discusses some morphological properties of plural and singular affixes in Dagbani nouns and adjectives, rather than analyzing the adjective as postmodifier of the noun phrase in Dagbani. Issah (2013) also discusses the structure of Dagbani simple noun phrase without looking at the premodifier lala ‘that’, relative clause, intensifiers, compound and complex noun phrases which have more complex modifiers, such as possessive determiners (genitives) and relative clauses.

1. 4 Purpose of the Study

The main purpose of this study is to identify and discuss the morphological as well as syntactic processes that take place in Dagbani nominal phrase. It also seeks to identify the syntactic relations that exist in the Dagbani nominal phrase. The study intends to help document some syntactic aspects of Dagbani for linguistic studies.

Therefore, the study‘s main purpose is to examine Dagbani nominal phrase from the morphological and syntactic perspectives.

University of Education Winneba http://ir.uew.edu.gh

1.5 Objective of the Study

The specific objectives of this study are to:

a. identify the constituents of the Dagbani nominal phrase.

b. identify the morphological processes that take place in the Dagbani Nominal

Phrase.

c. identify the syntactic relations that exist in the Dagbani nominal phrase.

1.6 Research Questions

The questions that will guide this thesis are the following:

• What are the constituents of the Dagbani nominal phrase?

• Which morphological processes take place in the Dagbani nominal phrase?

• Which syntactic relations exist in the Dagbani nominal phrase?

1.7 Significance of the Study

The findings of the study will be significant in several ways. In the first place, it will serve as a way of documenting and preserving the knowledge of the speakers on the aspects of the language. This is crucial in an era where modernity is a threat to several languages. It will enable the Dagbani speakers and non-speakers to recognize the fact that the language (Dagbani) is important. It will also serve as a reference material which could be used to develop educational materials and written literature for the use of both students and lecturers. This will certainly be of interest to morphologists and syntacticians in their scholarly work. It will also add to the little existing literature on the Dagbani morphology and syntax. It may also help to empower the language (Dagbani) for public use, and preserve’s them for future generations.

University of Education Winneba http://ir.uew.edu.gh

1.7 Limitation of the Study

The study will be limited to morphosyntax of Dagbani nominal phrase; this is because it has not been extensively studied. There are only few documented materials available which are a major challenge to the study. To overcome these challenges the researcher relies on knowledge acquired in the study of other relevant related languages. The study will be limited to only people who live in Tolon and Kumbungu.

These communities are ideal because they are the home where the language (Dagbani) is not adulterated.

1.9 Organization of the Study

The study is organized into five chapters. Chapter one contains an

introduction, background to the study, statement of the problem, purpose of the

study, significance of the study, objectives of the study, research questions,

limitations and delimitations of the study.

Chapter two reviews the literature relevant to the work and discusses the theoretical approach or framework for analysis. Chapter three is methodology and research design. It looks at the research design, populations, sampling techniques and sample size. Others are data collection instruments, data analysis and data presentation.

Chapter four focuses on the presentation and analysis of data collected from respondents from the perspectives of morphology and syntax. In this chapter, the morphological and syntactic processes that take place in Dagbani nominal phrase as well as the syntactic relations that exist between elemets in the nominal phrase will be analyzed linguistically. Chapter five end the discussion with summary, recommendations and concluding remarks.

University of Education Winneba http://ir.uew.edu.gh

1.10 Summary

This chapter has been concerned with the general introduction of the thesis. It focused on the language and its speakers. The various major cities and towns where the language is predominantly spoken have been mentioned. The research questions that guide the conduct of this study and what the study intends to achieve have been clearly stated. The statement of the problem or what necessitates this study and the significance of the study when completed has also been highlighted. The chapter concludes with the organizational structure of the thesis or how the study will be conducted on chapter by chapter.

University of Education Winneba http://ir.uew.edu.gh

CHATER TWO

THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK AND LITERATURE REVIEW

2.0 Introduction

This chapter discusses the theoretical framework of the study and the literature review. The theoretical framework that will be used for the study is what Dixon

(2009, 2010, 2012) refers to as the Basic Linguistic Theory (BLT). The literature review will concentrate on the nominal and determiner phrases as well as some relevant works on nouns and pronominals.

2.1 Theoretical Framework

The theoretical concept which is used in this study is in line with what Dixon

(2009, 2010, 2012) refers to as the Basic Linguistic Theory (BLT). The theory is a cumulative typological framework which mainly uses the techniques of analyses derived from traditional grammar and also considers the ideas from the other theoretical frameworks developed over the years. The theory differs from other contemporary theoretical frameworks because unlike other theoretical frameworks the basic linguistic theory considers the relevant aspects of both old and new traditions. It adds the relevant concepts of traditional grammar and does away with its limitations.

It also incorporates positive ideas from other theories like structuralism and generative grammar. The major contribution of structuralism to basic linguistic theory is that, it describes each language in its own terms rather than force the language into a model based on Western languages (Dryer, 2006).

The theory uses observation, description and explanation to study why a particular language behaves the way it is. This framework is used because with this

University of Education Winneba http://ir.uew.edu.gh

theory it will aid me to describe into details and offer adequate explanations of the morphosyntax of the Dagbani nominal phrase.

2.2 Issues on the Typology of the Noun

There are still unanswered questions recently among linguists on what constitutes a part of speech or syntactic category, and how many major word classes are universal or near universal still remain unanswered (cf. Givon, 2001; Rijkhoff,

2002). Some scholars argue that not all languages have a word class called the noun, the adjective and the verb. A survey of 52 languages was conducted by Rijkhoff

(2002) who generalizes that the noun is a universal category which may need modification. He argues that language should be categorized into three: (1) those without a major class called nouns; (2) those in which nouns cannot be differentiated from the other word classes; and (3) those with a word class called noun. According to this typological categorization, Dagbani belongs to the latter group of languages. It has a large distinct word class called noun which can serve as a head of a phrase. It also has phonological, morphological and syntactic properties which differentiate them from other major word classes (adjective and verb).

Rijkhoff (2002) again divides languages into two: (1) those with a distinct class of nouns of which Dagbani belongs; and (2) those with flexible nouns. Flexible nouns can serve as head noun phrases, head of sentences or a modifier. On the second type languages there is no difference between the noun as an independent class from other syntactic categories such as verbs and adjectives. Givon, (2001) on his part, enumerates features of the prototypical universal noun as: temporal stability, complexity, concreteness, compactness and countability.

University of Education Winneba http://ir.uew.edu.gh

2.3 Previous Related Works

This part serves as a guide to broaden our horizon of knowledge and awareness of relevant issues raised and discussed in the various nominal and determiner phrase structures across the world‘s languages.

Adebilije (2016) shows that simple noun phrase in English can be just one word which is normally a noun or pronoun; he opines that pronouns replace nouns.

While a noun or pronoun can sometimes stand alone as a single-word, simple noun phrase, a determiner such as the article (a, the, etc.) cannot stand alone and is defined by its function in relation to the item it determines. The noun or pronoun is therefore regarded as the head of the noun phrase. According to him a complex noun phrase contains the obligatory head; that is, a word that could stand alone as a simple noun phrase and be modified by a determiner, a premodifier and/or a postmodifier.

Premodifiers occur before the head, whereas postmodifiers come after the head.

Premodifiers are often adjectives but other nouns can also modify the head, and when this occurs the premodifying noun may be accompanied by a premodifying adjective.

Postmodifiers can consist of relative clauses, non-finite clauses, prepositional phrases, adverbs, adjectives and noun phrases in apposition. The premodifier of the head are of two main types: determiners and modifiers. The postmodifiers of the head are of three types: complements, modifiers, and peripheral elements. In Dagbani, a noun or pronoun is the obligatory head of the nominal phrase and any element that may be the head of nominal phrase must be nominalized. Unlike English which has both premodifiers and postmodifiers, Dagbani has postmodiefiers with only one premodifier lala ‘that’. The postmodifier may be an adjective, a noun, or other optional elements.

University of Education Winneba http://ir.uew.edu.gh

Wang (2012) investigates Mandarin Chinese nominal phrase and points out that prominent aspect of Mandarin is that its nominal phrases do not have articles. He opines that nominal phrases in Mandarin Chinese consist of a demonstrative, a numeral, a classifier and a noun. Wang (2012) demonstrates these with the examples below in (1):

(1 )a. na san duo hua

that three Cl flower

‘Those three flowers’

Also, a relative clause has a constituent that occurs very frequently in nominal phrases in Mandarin Chinese, and a relative clause is accompanied by a particle de.

Consider the example below: b. Zhangsan mai de shu

Zhangsan buy de book

‘The book that Zhangsan bought’ (Wang, 2012, P. 8-9)

Wang (2012) opines that the numerous studies that have proposed Mandarin nominal phrases reached different conclusions regarding what elements head DP and what hierarchical structure nominal phrases have. Unlike Mandarin, Dagbani has optional articles in its nominal phrase structure (that is, la and maa ‘the’) and a relative clause does not occur frequently in Dagbani.

Gelles (2010) indicates that nominal phrases in Dzongkha are arranged sequentially and the head of the nominal phrase is noun. Inside the NP can be found the quintessential non-functional modifiers: adjectives, postpositional phrases and relative clauses. He points out that adjective phrases are adjoined to the right of the head noun, following an ordering pattern that at least superficially is similar to

English in terms of strings of adjectives and their ordering. Postpositional phrases

University of Education Winneba http://ir.uew.edu.gh

appear directly to the left of the head noun and are restricted to one per phrase. She indicated that relative clauses can appear either to the right or the left of the head noun

(though is assumed as the starting point in the transformational analysis), though they must appear to the right of the head noun when either there is a postpositional phrase in the same nominal phrase or when there is more than one relative clause. In Dagbani the nominal can be an agent or a patient but it is always the head of a noun phrase followed by adjective and other modifiers, relative clauses in nominal phrase are postnominal.

Gómez (2009) points out that a noun may be defined as the category which characteristically occupies the head position in an NP. He indicates that it usually inflects for number and it may be accompanied by various dependents, such as determinatives, adjective phrases and relative clauses. According to Gómez (2009) it is the possibility that nouns may perform different functions, the function of the head is seen as characteristic but not the only possible one. He adds that nouns as modifiers modify the head of the noun phrase in order to provide it with those specific qualities that are unique to the given entity or head noun. He states that the optional modifiers specify and characterise the head noun, and also, the modifiers provide additional information to the head noun in a given discourse. This explanation is some what the same for Dagbani. This is because the explanations of noun category by both languages are the same. The difference between Gómez (2009) and this current study is that Gómez (2009) the looks at nominal modifiers in noun phrase structure from contemporary English of which the optional modifiers come before the head noun and this study looks at morphosyntax of Dagbani nominal phrase of which the optional modifiers come after the head noun except the referent particle lala ‘that’.

University of Education Winneba http://ir.uew.edu.gh

Vangsnes (2014) explains that the basic word order across all Nordic varieties is Demonstrative – Adjective – Noun, and the basic word order is also

Article/Quantifier – Adjective – Noun in indefinite noun phrases. Thus, a well-known specialty of North Germanic is the presence of a suffixed definite article in the grammar, a formative also referred to as the enclitic article. That the article attaches to the head noun of noun phrases, and the only variety that lacks it, is Western Jutlandic, a group of dialects spoken in the western part of Jutland in Denmark.

According to Vangsnes (2014) in Icelandic an attributive adjective may precede a noun carrying the definite suffix, but in Norwegian, Swedish, and Faroese, an additional lexical preadjectival definite article will normally also appear, resulting in double definiteness. In Danish, on the other hand, adjectival modification is characterized by absence of the suffixed definite article and presence of a preadjectival lexical definite article. Compare example (2i) and (2ii) below:

(i) (ii)

(2)a. hestur-inn a. svarti hestur-inn (Icelandic) b. hestur-in b. tann svarti hestur-in (Faroese) c. hest-en c. den svarte hest-en (Norwegian) d. häst-en d. den svarta häst-en (Swedish) e. hest-en e. den sorte hast (Danish) f. æ hest f. æ sorte hest (Western

Jutlandic) g. häst-n g. schwart-häst-n (Northern

Swedish) h. hest-n h. n sjvart-hest-n (Trøndelag Norwegian)

University of Education Winneba http://ir.uew.edu.gh

‘The horse’ ‘The black horse’ (Vangsnes, 2014, p.4-

5) The Northern Swedish structure in (2g) has the characteristics that the adjective is incorporated in the same prosodic word as Noun-DEF, and this phenomenon is also encountered in the central Norwegian dialects of Trøndelag where the A-Noun-DEF sequence may furthermore be preceded by a lexical definite article as in (2h).

Again, Vangsnes (2014) opines that both possessive pronouns and possessor noun phrases (genitivals) occur prenominally in some varieties of Norther Germanic and postnominally in others. According to him if possessors occur postnominally they will also be allowed prenominally. He gives Norwegian illustrations below.

(3)a. Min hest/*hast-en (Norwegian)

my horse/horse-DEF b. hest-en/*hest min

horse-DEF/horse my

‘My horse’

(4)a. Pers hest/*hast-en (Norwegian)

Per’s horse/horse-DEF b. hest-en/*hest til Per

horse-DEF/horse to Per

‘Per’s horse’ (Vangsnes, 2014, p

The examples show that a prenominal possessor is followed by a noun with no definiteness marker, whereas a postnominal possessor is preceded by Noun-DEF rather than an indefinite noun. Also the determiner phrased (DP) possessors are marked differently in prenominal and postnominal position: The prenominal

University of Education Winneba http://ir.uew.edu.gh

possessor is marked with a ‘genitival s’ whereas the postnominal possessor is part of a possessive phrase.

These examples from Norwegian represent the general pattern, but there are numerous deviations and restrictions, both within varieties as well as across varieties.

He indicates that Icelandic, Norwegian and many Northern Swedish dialects allow both prenominal and postnominal possessors. Danish and Standard Swedish

(including southern dialects) only allow prenominal possessors. In Faroese possessive pronouns only appear prenominally (except with kinship terms), but pronominal possessors may appear postnominally in a possessive PP construction. Possessive DPs may appear both prenominally (with genitival marking) or postnominally (in PPs).

That in several Northern Swedish and Fenno-Swedish dialects possessive DPs may precede a definite noun, i.e. giving the structure GenP – D-DEF, and in a subset of these dialects even possessives may precede a definite noun.

In Dagbani, adjectives do not precede nominal in any circumstance: the noun or the pronoun always precedes the adjective.

Krimmer (2003) studied the Arabic noun phrase and states that the most common position for adjectives is postnominal position. He states that adjectives in that position agree with the noun in gender, number, case and definiteness. Those inanimate plural nouns are always treated as feminine a singular noun, which means that they trigger feminine singular agreement on adjectives. He points out that quantifiers often appear prenominally, and take the noun as a complement, in contrast and demonstratives in Standard Arabic also occur both prenominally and postnominally.

In Dagbani, unlike Arabic, quantifiers, demonstratives are not postnominals. I must state that all the elements in the nominal phrase in Dagbani are postnominals

University of Education Winneba http://ir.uew.edu.gh

except lala ‘that’ which is the only premodifier in the language (Dagbani) and under no circumstance will a noun serve as complement to any of the modifiers; the reverse is true. As the head of the noun phrase, the noun is always the obligatory.

Kim & Sell (2008) state two main types of noun phrase (NP) in English: simple noun phrase (NPs) and partitive noun phrase (NPs). They show the following examples in (5) and (6) respectively.

(5) a. some objection b. most students c. all students d. much worry e. many students f. neither cars (Kim & Sell, 2008, p.109-110)

(6) a. some of the objections b. most of the students c. all of the students d. much of her worry e. many of the students f. neither of the cars (Kim & Sell, 2008, p.110)

As shown in (6), the partitive phrases have a quantifier followed by an of - phrase, designating a set with respect to which certain individuals are quantified. In terms of semantics, Kim & Sell (2008, p. 110) observe that the partitive noun phrases are different from simple NPs in several respects.

First, the lower NP in partitive phrases must be definite; and in the of -phrase, no quantificational NP is allowed, as shown in (7):

University of Education Winneba http://ir.uew.edu.gh

(7) a. Each student vs. each of the students vs. *each of students

b. Some problems vs. some of the problems vs. *some of many problems

Second, not all determiners with quantificational force can appear in partitive constructions.

As shown in (8), determiners such as the, every and no cannot occupy the first position:

(8) a. *the of the students vs. the students

b. *every of his ideas vs. every idea

c. *no of your books vs. no book(s) (Kim & Sell, 2008, p.110)

Third, simple NPs and partitive NPs have different restrictions relative to the semantic head.

Observe the contrast between (9) and (10):

(9) a. She doesn’t believe much of that story.

b. We listened to as little of his speech as possible.

c. How much of the fresco did the flood damage?

d. I read some of the book.

(10) a. *She doesn’t believe much story.

b. *We listened to as little speech as possible.

c. *How much fresco did the flood damage?

d. *I read some book. (Kim & Sell, 2008, p.110)

The partitive constructions in (9) allow a mass (non-count) quantifier such as much, little and some to cooccur with a lower of -NP containing a singular count noun. But as we can see in

(10) The same elements serving as determiners cannot directly precede such nouns.

University of Education Winneba http://ir.uew.edu.gh

Another difference, according to Kim & Sell (2008, p.110-111), concerns lexical idiosyncrasies is illustrated in the following:

(11)a. One of the people was dying of thirst.

b. Many of the people were dying of thirst.

(12) a. *One people was dying of thirst.

b. Many people were dying of thirst. (Kim & Sell 2008, p.110-

111)

The partitives can be headed by quantifiers like one and many, as shown in

(11) and (12) but unlike many, one cannot serve as a determiner when the head noun is collective as in (12a).

Noun phrases (NPs) are used to refer to things: objects, places, concepts, events, qualities, and so on.

Allen (1995) opines that in English, simplest NP consists of a single pronoun: he, she, they, you, me, it, i, and so on. Pronouns can refer to physical objects, events, and qualities, as shown in (13a), (13b) and (13c) respectively.

(13)a It hid under the rug.

b. Once I opened the door.

c. He was so angry, but he showed it.

Secondly, Allen (1995) observes that English pronouns do not take any modifiers except in rare forms, as in the sentence "He who hesitates is lost", where the pronoun ‘he’ takes the modifier of the construction.

Another basic form of noun phrase consists of a name or proper noun, such as

John or Rochester. These nouns appear in capitalized form in carefully written

English. Names may also consist of multiple words, as in the New York Times and

Stratford-on-Avon.

University of Education Winneba http://ir.uew.edu.gh

Moreover, Allen (1995) observes that excluding pronouns and proper names, the head of a noun phrase is usually a common noun. Nouns divide into two main classes:

count nouns — nouns that describe specific objects or sets of objects.

mass nouns — nouns that describe composites or substances.

Count nouns acquire their name because they can be counted. There may be one dog or many dogs, one book or several books, one crowd or several crowds. If a single count noun is used to describe a whole class of objects, it must be in its plural form.

Thus you can say Dogs are friendly but not *Dog is friendly.

Mass nouns cannot be counted. There may be some water, some wheat, or some sand.

If you try to count with a mass noun, you change the meaning. For example, some wheat refers to a portion of some quantity of wheat, whereas one wheat is a single type of wheat rather than a single grain of wheat. A mass noun can be used to describe a whole class of material without using a plural form. Thus you say Water is necessary for life, not * Waters are necessary for life. This is applicable in Dagbani they say kͻm n nyε nyɛvili ‘water is life’ but not kͻma n nyɛ nyɛvili ‘waters are life’

In addition to a head, a noun phrase may contain specifiers and qualifiers preceding the head.

The qualifiers further describe the general class of objects identified by the head, while the specifiers indicate how many such objects are being described, as well as how the objects being described relate to the speaker and hearer. Specifiers are constructed out of ordinals (such as first and second), cardinals (such as one and two), and determiners. Determiners can be sub-divided into the following general classes:

(14)a. articles — the words the, a, and an.

b. demonstratives — words such as this, that, these, and those.

University of Education Winneba http://ir.uew.edu.gh

c. possessives — noun phrases followed by the suffix ‘s, such as John’s and the fat man’s, as well as possessive pronouns, such as her, my, and whose.

d. wh-determiners — words used in questions, such as which and what.

e. quantifying determiners — words such as some, every, most, no, any, both, and half. Allen (1995,). Like English, Dagbani mass nouns can also be used to describe the whole of material without using a plural form. Unlike English, Dagbani has only two determiners: maa ‘the’ la ‘the’.

Delsing (1993) discusses Scandinavian languages. According to him,

Scandinavian languages typically display agreement between the elements in the noun phrase. Determiners and adjectives agree in gender and number with the head noun.

In the Insular Scandinavian languages they also agree in case. Consider the Icelandic

(nominative) examples in (15).

(15) Singular Plural

Masc: einn gamall bίl einhverjir gamlir bίlar

One old car some old cars

Fem: ein gӧmul bὁk einhverjar gamlar bǣkur

One old car some old cars

Neuter eitt gammalt hús einhver gӧmul hús

One old house some old houses (Delsing, 1993,

p.8)

It can be seen that Icelandic shows gender agreement in both singular and plural. In Mainland Scandinavian, gender agreement is only found in singular and is not visible in plural as can be seen in the Swedish examples below.

Singular Plural

Uter: en gammal bil några gamla bilar

University of Education Winneba http://ir.uew.edu.gh

one old car some old cars

en gammal bok några gamla böcker

one old book some old books

Neuter: ett gammalt hus några gamla hus

one old house some old houses (Delsing,1993, p.8)

Thus all the Scandinavian languages have some noun phrase intimal agreement, even if it is limited in Westem Jutlandic. In the case of Dagbani, gender and determiner do not display agreement in the noun phrase. It is only the adjective that agrees in number with the head noun in an NP as can be seen below.

(16) Singular Plural

do’ viε-li do’ viε-la ata

man handsome.SG man handsome.PL three

handsome man three handsome men

bi’ ji-a bi’ ji-hi ata

child short. SG child short.PL three

short boy/girl three short boys/girls

paɣ’ sabin-li paɣ’ sabila ata

woman black.SG woman black.PL three

black lady three black ladies

The data in (16) demonstrates that when noun and adjective co-occur in a construction the number suffix is inflected to the adjective leaving the noun in its root form. Thus the nouns in (a) doo ‘man’, daba ‘men’ and viε-li ‘hansome’ viε-la

‘handsomes’ respectively and in (b) the nouns bia ‘child’, bihi ‘children’ and their adjectives ji-a ‘short’ and ji-hi ‘shorts’ while in (c) the noun paɣa ‘woman’, paɣaba

University of Education Winneba http://ir.uew.edu.gh

‘women’ and their adjectives sabin-li ‘black and sabi-la ‘blacks’ respectively. This demonstrates that in Dagbani adjective agrees with number within the noun phrase.

Lisekelo (2009) discusses various ordering patterns of the elements in the noun phrase in the Bantu language Nyakyusa. He states that the dependents of the head noun attested in Nyakyusa are possessive, demonstrative, adjective, numeral, quantifier, associative, intensifier, and relative clause. He opines that the rules for the ordering of the elements within NPs are open as several possibilities of using two noun dependents for a noun phrase are attested in the language. He however indicates that the combinations Noun Adjective Intensifier, Noun Number Relative clause,

Noun Quantifier Relative clause are readily available in Nyakyusa. Also, the possessive, quantifier and numerals occur immediately after the head noun. He further states that the number of the tokens of the noun phrases decreases as the number of the dependents increases. This is a good indicator that one and two dependents per NP are preferred in Nyakyusa though there are possibilities of making use of even up to four dependents.

Unlike Nyakyusa whose rules for the ordering elements within NP are open, in

Dagbani the rules are strict and any attempt to bend the rules will make the phrase ungrammatical. Also, possessives, adjectives and determiners occur after the head noun but determiners only immediately occur after the head noun when there is no adjective and/or possessive in the nominal phrase.

Aboh & Michel (2014) did a comparative study of the noun phrase in Gungbe and Haitian Creole and observed that Haitian Creole is very much like Gungbe when it comes to the interpretation and distribution of Basic Noun Phrases (BNPs) With regard to the use of functional heads in the nominal domain, however, Haitian Creole displays a mix of properties: some similar to Gungbe, and others similar to French.

University of Education Winneba http://ir.uew.edu.gh

That there is evidence from history, ethnography and anthropology that Haitian

Creole and much else in Haitian culture emerged from the contact between, inter alias, speakers of Gbe (Kwa) varieties. Aboh & Michel (2014) thus seem reasonable to conclude that the Haitian Creole has inherited: i. DP-related properties from the Gbe substrate – some of these properties distinguish

DPs in both Haitian Creole and Gbe from DPs in French where determiners are prenominal ii. DP-related properties from French – some of these properties set Gungbe and

French apart but are found in both Haitian Creole and French. Aboh & Michel have clearly stated that the morphosyntactic properties of DPs in Haitian Creole overlap with the properties of DPs in Gbe and in Romance. Aboh & Michel look at the relationship between Haitian Creole and Gungbe in the determiner phrase and this study looks at nominal phrase in Dagbani.

Ochieng (2013) explains that Olusuba has a noun class system that involves singular and plural patterns as well as agreement markings triggered by these noun classes. That the noun classes are identifiable by the prefixes attached on the nominal stem and the agreement concords attached on the nominal modifiers; each noun class has affixes unique to its own class. This noun class forms a basis for agreement marking. He argues that the agreement markers manifest on the syntactic constituents like adjectives, numerals, verbs and others. And that all the concords are governed by the inherent noun class of the head noun. In Dagbani noun classes are identified by the suffixes attached on the nominal stem and the agreement concords attached on the nominal modifiers. The noun class forms the agreement markers which manifest on the syntactic constituents like adjective, number, quantifiers, and others.

University of Education Winneba http://ir.uew.edu.gh

Boadi (2010) states that the class of intensifiers in Akan include: paa ‘really, truely’, pii ‘a lot, much’, pi ‘to the mark, fully’, ankasa ‘really, without doubt’ kakra

‘a little’, ampa ‘really’.’ He observes that these itensifiers combine with adjectives to form adjectival phrase. Consider the examples below from Boadi (2010).

(17) Asεm kεse paa bi a-ba matter big really some PERF-come

‘A really big affair has happened.’

(18) ε yε den ankasa ma me

it Stat. be.hard really Stat.give 1SG

‘It is really hard for me.’

The bolded expressions in (17) and (18) are adjectival phrases whose respective heads are kεseε ‘big’ and den ‘hard’. The modifiers are the intensifiers paa ‘really’ and ankasa ‘really, without doubt’. In Dagbani, the intensifiers include pali ‘really’, biεlifu ‘a little’, pam ‘much, a lot’, dede ‘to the mark, fully’. The intensifiers in

Dagbani serve the same function as that of Akan.

Baah (2011) in his thesis on the semantics of the nominal and verbal phrases in

Akan opines that if one understands the noun phrase and verb phrase in a particular proverb, it will be possible that the person will understand the set proverb, and could relate it to what the speaker means for giving such proverb. He further states that apart from the contextual use of verb phrases, the meaning of a verb phrase X could change from Y to Z depending on the effect a speaker intended his or her utterances to have on the addressee or another. Baah’s work looks at the semantic of the nominal and verbal phrasesin Akan proverb and my study looks at the morphosyntax of the nominal phrase in Dagbani.

University of Education Winneba http://ir.uew.edu.gh

Ameka (1991) argues that in Ewe a nominal phrase may function in different slots in clause structure, as either a proposed or fronted constituent, or as subject, or object, or even adjunct. The latter is true of locative and temporal phrases especially.

In his study he notes that a nominal phrase can be made up of a noun alone (e.g.

ŋútsu ‘man’) or a pronoun or a quantifier. Consider the example below:

(19) ɖeká g..blé

One spoil

‘One is spoilt’ (Ameka, 1991, p. 45)

These are the elements that can function as the nucleus of a nominal phrase in Ewe.

He is of the view that modifiers can only occur as the head of the nominal phrase, if they are nominalized. He opines that in Ewe a number of modifiers can occur in an endocentric NP, namely: adjectives, quantifiers including numerals, determiners

(Which can be realised by either the definite article (DEF) or the indefinite article

(INDEF) or demonstratives (DEM), or content question markers (CQM) the plural marker (PL) and intensifiers (INT)). The subclass of intensifiers that can precede the noun head are: neném, alé, sigbe, all meaning ‘such’. All other modifiers come after the noun. Consider the following example in which all the slots are filled:

(20) NP[ neném ɖeví baɖa eve má wó-kóŋ]NP dí ḿ wó- le

such child bad two DET PL INT seek.PROG 3PL PRES

‘It is those two very bad boys they are looking for.’ (Ameka. 1991’ p.46)

Further, Ameka (1991) notes that there can be more than one adjective within the NP in Ewe the quantifier slot is filled by numerals such as ɖeká ‘one’, etͻ ‘three’ etc., ordinals, for example ade´- liá ‘six-th’, mͻmlͻε ‘last’ etc. and other quantity words such as geɖe ‘several’.

University of Education Winneba http://ir.uew.edu.gh

He points out that the DETerminer slot in the NP structure is filled by

DEFiniteness markers, INDEFinte markers, DEMonstratives, Content Question markers and the RELative clause introducer. Thus the DEF marker may be realised as lá or á . It is realised as á if there is a plural morpheme following. For example:

(21) nyͻ´nu (l) lá dzó

woman DEF leave

‘The woman left.’

nyͻnu- (*l)a- ẃó-dzó

woman DEF PL.leave

‘The women left.’ (Ameka, 1991, p. 46)

Note that lá and -á are in free variation when the NP is singular but in the plural only

-á is acceptable.

Like Ewe, in Dagbani if any of the modifiers were to occur as the head of the nominal phrase, they would have to be nominalized and there can be more than one intensifiers can precede the noun head such as: neném, alé, sigbe, all meaning ‘such’.

On the other hand, unlike Ewe, intensifiers cannot the head noun they can only follow it.

Dorvlo (2008) indicates that the noun phrase in Logba may be a noun or an independent pronoun. The head is followed by constituents that modify it. The structure of a simple Noun Phrase (NP) in Logba is as follows:

[NOUN]/ [PRO]– QUALIFIER – QUANTIFIER – DETERMINER - INTENSIFIER

A nominal word is minimally made up of a stem. That for most nouns, there is a class prefix which also signals number. This depends on the class to which the noun belongs. He states that the plural morpheme –wɔ comes immediately after the stem of

University of Education Winneba http://ir.uew.edu.gh

most plural nouns. In (1a) the noun, u-klontsí, has a vowel singular class prefix and - wɔ as its plural class prefix. In (1b) adzayi has only a class prefix.

(22)a. book u-klontsí u-klontsí-wɔ

CM-book CM-book-PLU

b. firewood a-dzayi n-dzayi

CM-firewood CM-firewood (Dorvlo, 2008, p.

69)

The only element obligatory in the NP is the head which is either a noun or a pronoun.

In (23) the subject NP is atele ‘ant’. The other elements in the NP can only support the head. This implies that none of them can be the only element in the NP slot.

(23) Atele ɔ́ta ebítsi é

a-tele ɔ́-ta e-bítsi =é

CM-ant SM.SG-sting CM-child =DET

‘The ant stings the child’ (Dorvlo, 2008, p. 69)

The qualifier is either an adjective or a derived nominal. This is followed by the quantifier. There is no agreement between the adjective and the head noun but some numbers that function in the Quantifier slot and the Determiner are marked for agreement with the noun head. Just like Logba, in Dagbani the head noun is the obligatory followed by adjective and other optional modifiers.

Bobuafor (2013) indicates that Tafi has ten individual classes which are made up of five singular classes, four plural classes and one class which mainly contains non-count nouns. The singular classes are a1-, o-, ki-, ka-, bu1-, and the plural classes are ba(a)-, i-, a2-, and bu2-. The ti- class is a non-count class and therefore it has no plural counterpart. The ba(a)- and bu2- classes contain the plural forms of more than one singular class. In less careful or spontaneous speech, whole prefixes or

University of Education Winneba http://ir.uew.edu.gh

consonantal onsets of prefixes are dropped. In sentence initial position or in isolation, the full forms of all the CV noun class prefixes, ki-, ka-, bu1-, ba(a)-, bu2- are used but when they occur elsewhere their initial consonant or the whole prefix may be dropped except for the prefix of the ti- class whose full form is used in any position.

This is one of the signs that the noun class system of Tafi is in the process of decaying as it is in Nyagbo. Further, Bobouafor (2013) observes that a noun phrase in Tafi consists minimally of a head nominal. The nominal head could be a common noun, a pronoun or a proper noun which is obligatory. As illustrated in sentence (1), Kofi, which is a proper noun, constitutes the noun phrase and it is the head noun.

(24) Kofi ékóéyɩ.

[Kofi]NP é-kóéyɩ

Kofi SM-exit

‘Kofi went out.’ (Bobuafor, 2013. P. 99)

The head noun can be accompanied by modifiers which can be any of the following occurring in a fixed order: qualifier, quantifier, interrogative qualifier, determiner, and intensifier. Bobuafor’s study on Tafi nominal phrase is not different from the Dagbani nominal phrase, in Dagbani, the head noun is also an obligatory and it can be a proper noun, common noun o pronoun which may be accompanied by modifiers.

Ofori (2014) states that Anum noun phrase has pre and post modification structures. The premodifiers include the ‘reference particle’ which is also called identity predeterminer –ala ban ‘that’. He adds that the Anum noun phrase could also be a bare noun. He opines that the postmodifiers could be a particle, an adjective, a demonstrative, or a quantifier. Considering Dagbani, it also has a premodifier particle

University of Education Winneba http://ir.uew.edu.gh

lala ‘that’ and other postmodifiers which include adjectives, determiners, numerals, quantifiers and intersifiers.

Ansah (2014) describes how elements constituting the Leteh simple noun phrase are structured. She describes the morphosyntax of the various modifiers with, and their co-occurrence restrictions. The barest Leteh noun phrase may be constituted by a proper noun; a mass noun; a singular or plural count noun or an abstract noun. It could also be constituted by a pronoun. All modifiers are optional, and they follow the noun head in the order: Noun phrase→ Noun (Adjective) (Quantifier/Number)

(Determine). As the formula indicates, the quantifier and the numeral are mutually exclusive. The determiner covers the definite article and the demonstrative. The adjective immediately follows the head noun, and could be one or several. It has been observed that the ordering of multiple adjectives in a Leteh noun phrase is congruent with native speakers’ preferences. Leteh is a less-studied Guan language of the Kwa group of languages spoken in Ghana. Both works study noun phrase but the differences are that the previous work study Leter simple noun phrase a Kwa- language spoken in southern Ghana while the current study looks at morphosyntax of

Dagbani of nominal phrase a Gur-language spoken in northern Ghana. And also the previous study narrows its study to simple noun phrase and the current work covers both simple and complex nominal phrases in Dagbani.

Asante (2016) notes that animacy distinction on possessive pronouns is best demonstrated in a type of possessive phrases that has relational nouns such as ɛyʊ

‘body/skin/self’ ɛlɔ ‘inside’ nkɪlɛlɔ ‘side’ asɪ ‘under/beneath’ ama ‘back/behind’, aɲɛsɪlɔ ‘face/front’ as possessed nouns. In such phrases, whenever the possessor noun is animate, an independent possessive pronoun mʊ is overtly juxtaposed after the

University of Education Winneba http://ir.uew.edu.gh

possessor noun to mark possession; however, when the possessor noun is inanimate, mʊ does not appear. Consider the examples below.

(25)a. Oyebi amʊ mʊ yʊ lɛ-waa efĩ.

child DET POSS body PRF-wear dirty

‘The child is dirty.’

b. Adaka amʊ Ø yʊ lɛ-waa efĩ.

Box DET body PRF-wear dirty

‘The box is dirty.’ (Asante, 2016. p.

131)

Thus, because (1a) has an animate possessor noun oyebi ‘child’, possession is overtly marked by placing an independent possessive pronominal marker mʊ after it and before the possessed noun yʊ ‘body’. However, because the possessor noun adaka

‘box’ (1b) is inanimate, possession is covertly marked, indicated by the null symbol

“Ø”. Moreover, the possessor NPs oyebi ‘child’ and adaka ‘box’ can be omitted and replaced with pronouns, as in (26a-b).

(26)a. Mʊ yʊ lɛ-waa efĩ.

POSS body PRF-wear dirty

‘She/he is dirty.’

b. Ø ɛyʊ lɛ-waa efĩ.

body PRF-wear dirty

‘It is dirty.’ (Asante, 2016. P. 131)

Predictably, in (2a) because the antecedent possessor NP oyebi ‘child’ is animate, the possessive pronoun mʊ substitutes for it; however, in (2b) adaka ‘box’ attracts null representation because it is inanimate.

University of Education Winneba http://ir.uew.edu.gh

In Dagbani, unlike Nkami there is no linker between the possessor and the possessed be it animate or inanimate. The possessor directly juxtaposes the possessed noun phrase without a linker. See below in (27):

(27)a. loori maa ni dahimi

lorry DET body dirty

‘The vehicle is dirty’

b. bia maa ni dahimi

child DEF body dirty

‘The child is dirty.’

The above examples demonstrate that there is no coordinator between the possessor nouns and the possessed.

Sulemana (2012) accounts for the postnominal order of modifiers in the Buli

DP. In his study he argues that the NP moves to Spec DP due to the need for N to check its features at D. Adjectives, like other modifiers, are argued to intervene between the DP and NP. His opines that the postnominal order of the adjective is, however, arrived at by the leftward movement of the NP to the Spec of AP to get the sequence [noun-adjective]; the sequence [noun- adjective] also moves to Spec DP to get [noun-adjective-determiner]. He states this type of movement is what is termed in the literature as ―Generalized Pied-piping‖ (Chomsky 1995), or ―Snowballing movement‖ (Aboh, 2004). A functional projection namely number (±plural) is motivated in the DP. He adds that the number of the DP is indicated by this functional phrase. He proposes that the NumP is always present. Its head Num is overt when the DP is (+plural) but null when it is (-plural). In other words, a (+plural) DP will have the Num position occupied by an overt plural morpheme while a (-plural)

DP will have the Num position occupied by a null morpheme. According to him it is

University of Education Winneba http://ir.uew.edu.gh

proposed along the lines of Borer (2005); Simpson (2005); and Watanabe (2006) that class markers and numerals are distinct functional heads that project their own phrases in the determiner phrase (DP). This implies that class markers (CL) and numerals will project CLP and NumeralP in the Buli determiner phrase (DP) respectively. With regard to demonstratives, he explains that the demonstrative projects a phrase (DemP) which takes a determiner phrase as its complement. The order which has the demonstrative occurring phrase finally is explained by the movement of determiner phrase to Spec Demonstrative Phrase as a result of the deictic feature at Dem. DP moves to Spec DemP motivated by the deictic feature at Dem, but prior to this movement the NP moves first to Spec DP. Sulemana’s study is similar to this study I think because both languages are Gur languages, the difference are; this current study looks at nominal phrase in Dagbani and Sulemana’s studied the structure of the determinaner phrase in Buli. Also, this study employed Dixon (2009, 2010, 2012) theoretical framework while Sulemana used minimalist theory propounded by

Chomsky (1995) and supplemented by Kayne‘s (1994) Antisymmetry theory.

Bodomo (2004) opines that the grammatical categories, number and definiteness, are overtly marked and distinguished within the Dagaare noun phrase.

He illustrates the following examples

(28)a. à gánè é lá bέróń́g DEF book.SG beFOC fat

‘The book is fat.’

b. gámá lá kà ǹ bóͻ-rͻ

book.PL FOC COMP 1SG want-IMP

(29)a. ǹ dà dé lá áyúó bíé gánè

1.SG PAST take FOC Ayuo child book.SG

‘I took Ayuo’s child’s book.’ 34

University of Education Winneba http://ir.uew.edu.gh

b á yúó bíe gánè é lá gán-ví làà yágà

Ayuo child book.SG be FOC book-good INTENS

‘Ayuo’s child’s book is a very good one.’ (Bodomo, 2004, p.3)

‘It is books that I want The noun, gánè ‘book’, alternates between a singular and a plural form. Also, the definite form of this same noun is preceded by the definite marker, à, while its indefinite does not have any such item preceding it.

He added that case and gender, do not have overt markings within the Dagaare lexical noun phrase. This is illustrated in (2), where there is no morphological difference in the nominative/subjective and accusative/objective occurrences of the noun phrase, Ayuo bie gánè ‘Ayuo’s child’s book’. Gender, as mentioned, is also not overtly marked, as there is no morphological difference between the nominative and genitive uses of the first person pronoun, ǹ, in Dagaare. He postulates that the earlier studies of the nominal phrase in Dagaare and related languages give us more substantial facts for understanding the nature of noun phrases and nominalization in

Dagaare. The previous work investigates the syntax of nominalized complex verbal predicates in Dagaare including noun phrase while this current study examines morphosyntax of Dagbani nominal phrase but both languages are Gur languages and therefore they share some subtantial common grammatical features.

Bendor-Samuel (1971), poses that nominal phrase in Gur languages are much easy to understand and straightforward. They have structures or constructions where a noun is followed by a numeral or a demonstrative. He claims that Gur languages never exhibit a string of adjectives after the head noun and even where a noun is followed by an adjective is not common. However, some Gur scholars like Saanchi

(1980), Bodomo (1993), Olwasky (1999) and Issah (2013) laid out the claims. They found instances where adjectives modify nouns in constructions. The previous study

University of Education Winneba http://ir.uew.edu.gh

considers nominal phrase in Gur- languages including Dagbani and claims that those languages have no string of adjectives and this current study looks at nominal phrase in Dagbani and also dispute the claim of the previous work.

Urs (2014) says a minimal noun in Kusaal contains a noun stem and a singular/plural suffix. A definite article may occur as suffix as the last element in the word.

Noun word = stem + suffix (V, VC, C, CV)

The simplest stem is a root. CV and CVC are the most common structures for roots in Kusaal. According to him, nouns have a citation form which is the short form; and a long form, which is applied in the context of a negative or interrogative phrase.

The short form has often a suffix reversal: instead of a -CV suffix it is a -VC suffix

(e.g. -gʋ ⇒ -ʋk).

He further states that nouns can have different syllabic structures. Substantives can have a monosyllabic, dissyllabic or in rare cases even three-syllabic structure. The substantives have a short or a long form. The short form is the citation form, which it is given as an answer to a question like « What is this? » The class suffix is either a consonant or a consonant preceded by an epenthetic vowel in order to avoid consonant clusters *CC, or the class suffix of the short form is zero (∅). The long form is found in negative sentences, in interrogative sentences and in vocatives, they have the full class suffix, mostly CV. Some nouns are derived from verbs or from adjectives. This nominalization is a process which involves the formation of nouns from verbs and adjectives. This study looks at the structure of Bukina Faso Kusal a

Gur-language and my work considers nominal phrase in Dagbani.

Olawsky (1999) states that apart from the semantics properties of nouns and verbs. It is not problematic to determine whether a word is a noun or a verb in

University of Education Winneba http://ir.uew.edu.gh

Dagbani. The distinction can be made with respect to the morphological and syntactic behavior of a word. He explains that the simplest way to distinguish nouns from verbs is certainly by their morphological and syntactic structure. That Dagbani syntax been subject-verb-object (S-V-O) word other facilitates the distinction between the two major lexical categories noun and verb. That verb never occurs in the word initial in a sentence. Together with preverbal elements indicating tense and postverbal aspect markers, verbs occur in clearly difference context than other words. That noun can be subject to fronting and the movement of an object to initial position will result in the word order object-subject-verb (O-S-V). The previous study looks at the morphological and syntactic relationship between noun and verb in Dagbani, and this study looks at morphosyntaxo of Dagbani nominal phrase but they both work on noun in Dagbani.

Hudu (2005) accounts for number marking in Dagbani and also cited (Abu-

Bakari 1978 and Olawsky 1999) that Dagbani has three types of number suffixes: regular singular and plural suffixes, irregular plural suffixes, and the default plural suffix. He noted that Dagbani has suffix pairs that will generally replace each other in singular and plural suffixation and that can be classified into one of the productive patterns in the language (noun classes). He gives example as -lə singular suffix takes - a in plural form. That the two therefore form a pair by which speakers are able to predict the plural form of a novel noun or adjective with -lə as singular suffix, and vice-versa.

On irregular singular and plural suffixes, he argues that it shows exception to productive pattern exhibited by nouns and adjective in the language, making them difficult to be classified. That a common morphological process used to mark irregular plural in Dagbani is suppletion (example; [kpe:] “colleague” to [taba]

University of Education Winneba http://ir.uew.edu.gh

“colleagues”). The default plural suffix “-nəma” is so called because it is used for nouns and adjectives that are not marked for distinct singular suffix in the singular form. That majority of this category is loanwords borrowed mainly from English,

Hausa, Akan, and Arabic (usually through Hausa). Hudu’s work focuses on number marking in Dagbani and this current study looks at nominal phrase in Dagbani but both works on nouns in Dagbani.

Pazzack (2007) considers word formation process in Dagbani. In his study, he looks derivational process, compounding, and other word formation processes. He finds the possible ways of deriving new word in Dagbani by the use of affixes and root. He revealed that a root of a noun, adjective and verb could be extended through derivational means, and that a verb could only be derived from verb and an adjective and adjective could also be derived from some verbs. A noun on the other hand could also be derived from a verb, a noun, and adjective. He poses that not all lexical items in Dagbani come together to form compounds and that nouns, adjectives and verbs are the lexical items in the language that can come together to form compounds. He looks at other morphological process that exits in the language where derivational affixes are not fully used. The processes include borrowing, coinage and semantic shift. Although, both works work on the same language (Dagbani), the previous work looks at word formation in Dagbani and this current study looks at morphosyntax of

Dagbani nominal phrases.

Hudu (2010) has demonstrated the usefulness of ST in handling patterns of

Dagbani [+ATR] harmony. He mentions Patterns such as trigger-target relations, height restrictions on harmonic triggers and direction-specific blocking effects could have posed a significant challenge to many pro-spreading approaches to harmony. He opines that the ST account has a good theoretical approach which is as important as

University of Education Winneba http://ir.uew.edu.gh

an accurate understanding of the vowel system in doing a successful phonological account of Dagbani [ATR] harmony. He poses that the first ultrasound investigation of [ATR] in a Gur, demonstrated that the dominant [+ATR] feature in Dagbani corresponds to a distinct anterior position of the tongue-root compared to the neutral position. Of further interest also are that the findings that [+ATR] harmony takes place regardless of the relative distance of the trigger from the target, and that it affects vowels of all height specifications, including the low vowel. The previous study looks at Dagbani tongue-root harmony and the current study looks at nominal phrase in Dagbani

Issah (2013) reveals that structurally, the Dagbani simple noun phrase (SNP) can co-occur with some optional linguistic elements that serve as modifiers. He further demonstrates that the modifiers of the noun phrases are postmodifiers. He also shows that it is possible for several post modifiers to be in a syntactic configuration with the head noun (HN). He opines that, the post modifiers are strictly structured items with the adjective being the closest to the head noun followed by the numeral, the demonstrative determiner, the definite article and then the quantifiers. He further demonstrated that the cardinal and ordinal numerals have different syntactic relations with the noun head, while the cardinal noun can directly modify the head noun, such a syntactic option is not available for the ordinal numeral. Issah’s work and this study look the same but the differences are that he narrows his study to simple noun phrase and this current study covers both simple and complex nominal phrases in Dagbani.

2. 4 Conclusion/ Summary

The chapter discussed the theoretical framework of the study, and reviewed works on the topic of the Dagbani language, some sister Gur languages, some Kwa languages, and some typological dirvised languages in the world. The theoretical

University of Education Winneba http://ir.uew.edu.gh

framework which is used for the study is Dixon’s (2009, 2010, 2012) basic linguistic theory. The BLC is appropriate for the study because it will allow for the provision of a detailed description and analysis of the Dagbani nominal phrase in its own terms.

University of Education Winneba http://ir.uew.edu.gh

CHAPTER THREE

RESEARCH METHODOLOGY

3.0 Introduction

In this chapter I will discuss the methodology and the procedure that I will follow to conduct a successful study. The chapter is made up of two parts: data collection and analysis of mophosyntax of Dagbani nominal phrase. The data collection part examines the research design, the area of the study, study population, sample and sampling procedures and tools for data collection.

3.1 Data Collection

This part of the chapter examines the research design, the area of the study, study population, sample and sampling procedures and tools for data collection.

3. 1.1 Research design

The approach of the research is qualitative method. Qualitative approach “is an approach for exploring and understanding the meaning individuals or groups ascribe to a social or human problem. The process of research involves emerging questions and procedures, data typically collected in the participant’s setting, data analysis inductively building from particulars to general themes, and the researcher making interpretations of the meaning of the data” (Creswell, 2013, p. 3). The descriptive research design is used to collect the data. Descriptive research is a process of collecting data in order to test hypotheses or to answer questions concerning the current status of the subjects in the study. It determines and reports the way things are and it does not accommodate the researcher’s manipulation this leads to credible, accurate and reliable study Gay (1981) cited in (Ochieng, 2013, p. 33).

Besides my intuition as an adult native speaker, primary data was collected from main

University of Education Winneba http://ir.uew.edu.gh

sources: focus group discussions and elicitations from some selected individuals who have in-depth knowledge of the language.

The secondary data used are textual; written texts including both published and unpublished works. The published ones included articles and books such as Olawsky

(1999), Hudu (2005, 2010), Abdul-Rahaman (2013), Issah (2011, 2013) Mahama

(2004, 2010) while the unpublished include Pazzack (2007, 2012), Ziblim (2013,

2015), Issahaku (2006), Abdul-Rahaman (2005) and many more. Samarin (1967) and

Rivierre (1992) cited in Ochieng (2013, p. 33-34) give the fullest accounts of what constitutes a good corpus for morphosyntactic analysis. They should be:

• dialectally uniform – that is, it should have the same phonological,

morphological, and syntactical properties

• natural – thus, it should be produced and accepted by native speakers as

appropriate under a given set of circumstances

• varied- that is, it should cover all varieties of language that can be attributed

to; the age, sex and social class or occupation of the speaker, the emotion at

the time of speaking, the speed of utterance, and the topic, type and style of

discourse;

• complete - in that all the closed classes of linguistics elements are fully

accounted for

• repetitious - in order to facilitate the identification of the distribution and

function of particular grammatical elements;

• interesting – that is, it should contain authentic genres (they should not be

manipulation of the genre of the set speech community) and tell something

about the culture and traditions of the speech community

University of Education Winneba http://ir.uew.edu.gh

3.1.2 Area of study

Dagbani speaking people are spread across the length and breadth of Ghana but majority of them live in the Northern region occupying seven districts, two municipalities and a metropolis. The field research was conducted in Tolon and

Kumbungu traditional areas. I chose these places because they are among the towns where the indigenous Dagbani is spoken as well as the custodians of the language.

Below is a district map of the Northern region (Ghana statistical service, 2010) that shows the study area by the red circle:

Figure 3.1 Map of Districts in Northern region, Ghana

KEY Tolon/Kumbungu dtistrict

University of Education Winneba http://ir.uew.edu.gh

3.1.3 Study population

Population “is the totality of all subjects that conform to a set of specifications, comprising the entire group of persons that is of interest to the researcher and to whom the research results can be generalised” (Polit & Hungler, 1999). In this study the population was Dagbani speakers of northern region of Ghana of age 18 years and above.

According to the 2010 population and housing census conducted by Ghana statistical service (GSS), the total population of Northern Region is 2,479,461 of this figure the native Dagbani speakers are around 1,1160,000, and the total population of the research area ( Tolon and Kumbugu) is 112,331. As stated earlier, over two million people could speak Dagbani in northern region. The reasons being that the language is the dominant medium of communication in the region, and it is also taught in schools, it is the only northern language spoken on both national television and radio.

3.1.4 Sample and sampling procedure

Sampling is the process of selecting samples from a group or population to become the foundation for studying a population in order to obtain data to address a research problem (Boateng 2015). Twenty (20) male and female respondents were selected for the study; ten each from Tolon and Kumbugu. Out of this number fourteen (14) of the respondents’ age forty (40) and above years and the remaining six

(6) respondents are ranged 17-39 years. Majority of the respondents were 40 and above years because their language is not adulterated. Purposive sampling technique which is also non-probability sampling technique was employed in selecting twenty respondents. A purposive sample is “a non-probability sample that is selected based on characteristics of a population and the objective of the study. Purposive sampling

University of Education Winneba http://ir.uew.edu.gh

is also known as judgmental, selective, or subjective sampling” (Crossman, 2017).

The core principle of gaining accurate and reliable data guides the sampling strategies of the researcher that is whom you select for your study, where and when depends on certain criteria which are determined by the purpose of your study. Therefore the term purposive sampling is applied. The main goal of sampling is to find individuals who can provide rich and varied insights into the phenomenon under investigation so as to maximize what we can learn (Dӧrnyei, 2011). From the purposively selected sampling, maximum variation sampling strategy was employed to arrive at the exact sample; in maximum variation sampling, respondents are selected with diverse experience. These processes showed any variation among the respondents and uncovered any commonalities that are found in the data.

Respondents were chosen based on their knowledge of the language, accessibility and readiness of the respondents, and their academic background; three

(3) attended junior high, four (4) senior high levers, four (4) diploma teachers, two (2) degree holders and four (4) were monolinguals who had no education. This was to ensure that the data collected are rich, accurate, reliable and useful.

3.1.5 Instruments

The instruments used to collect the data for this study were focus group discussion and elicitation. Respondents were engaged in conversations, dialogues, descriptions of events and other activities. My interest was not focused on the activities of the respondents but rather on the utterances that were made during the conversations and care was however taken to control observers’ paradox. The researcher used field notes and smartphone (audio-visual recorder) to collect raw data and later transcribed the data. The Smartphone recordings prevent the researcher’s

University of Education Winneba http://ir.uew.edu.gh

manipulation of the data collected and also allow for playback. Field notes were taken in order to complement that of the smart phone.

3.1.5.1 Focus group discussion

Focus group discussion (hereafter FGD) is a “carefully planned semi- structured discussion, moderated by the group leader and designed to obtain perception on a definite area of interest in a permissive non- threatening environment”

(Boateng, 2014). The groups were identified and then engaged in an interactive setting where the respondents were in natural setting talking freely with one another without any problem. A sample of twenty (20) respondents were put into two (2) groups of ten (10) members each .This was done on the basis of proximity, and each group was engaged separately with four topical issues. Thus, Dagbaŋ chieftaincy affairs, high unemployment rate in northern Ghana, fall in price of agricultural produce, and poor infrastructural development in the communities. These sessions took ten (10) to fifteen minute, and the discussion were audio-recorded a long side taken notes. The FDC was used to collect data because it is an economical way to gather a relatively large amount of data and also, it is flexible and can be adjusted by the researcher based on the group attitude.

3.1.5.2 Elicitation

Elicitation refers to the process of collecting linguistic data by asking native speakers to produce words, phrases, clause or sentences that can serve as data for analysis of a particular linguistic phenomenon or study (Ochieng, 2013, p. 37). This study employed non-translational elicitation. The elicitation was used as a backup to fill in gaps in the course of any problem that may likely to arise when collecting and analyzing the data. I employed pictures and unstructured form of question(s) and

University of Education Winneba http://ir.uew.edu.gh

interview(s) to find out from some of the respondents especially conflicting and unclear data for clarity during the collection and analysing the data.

3.2 Data Analysis

Data was collected from the FGD and elicitation from the selected groups and individuals and analyzed from morphological and syntactic perspectives to answer the research questions. All the morphological and the syntactic processes that took place in the formation of nominal phrase were discussed and accounted for. The discussions and analysis was done using the basic linguistic theory (Dixon, 2009, 2010, 2012) as stated in chapter two. Findings from the discussions were clearly stated and conclusions were made.

3.2.1 Accessibility

The researcher resides in Bimbilla about 187.2 kilomitres away from the research area, but a native of the research area. The researcher made three trips to each of the two communities (Tolon and Kumbungu). The maiden trip was to find respondents and familiarize with them, and then group them. This was done with the help of my elder brothers Sayibu and Seidu who have lived there for more than forty years to select people who meet the purposive sample.

The focus group discussions were done from January to March, 2018, and the elicitation was done throughout the collection and analyses of the data usually via mobile phone call. The discussions were scheduled on Fridays because the communities do not go to work on that day. They call the day vuhim dabisili ‘holiday

(lit. resting day)’.

University of Education Winneba http://ir.uew.edu.gh

3.3 Summary

This chapter described the procedure that the researcher followed to conduct a successful study. The researcher divided the chapter into two parts: data collection and analysis. The data collection looked at research design, target population, area of study, study population, sample and sample procedures and tools for the data collection. The data analysis covered the procedures that were used for interpreting and analyzing the data collected.

University of Education Winneba http://ir.uew.edu.gh

CHAPTER FOUR

DATA ANALYSIS AND DISCUSSION

4.0 Introduction

This chapter aims at analysing the morphosyntactic nature of the Dagbani nominal phrase and the various elements that modify the head noun in a noun phrase.

It also looks at their distribution in relation to one another in the noun phrase. The modifiers that will be discussed include: adjectives, relative clauses, numerals, determiners, quantifiers, and intensifiers. The chapter will also consider compound and complex noun phrases (thus; appositive and possessive phrases) as well as pronominal phrases. The pronominals/pronouns to be considered include personal pronouns, demonstrative pronouns, interrogative pronouns and possessive pronouns.

Under the pronominal phrases, the study will examine the syntactic positions

(nominative and accusative cases) of the pronouns.

4.1 The Structure of the Dagbani Nominal Phrase (NP)

Dagbani nominal phrases have an obligatory head noun, optional premodifier and optional postmodifiers. It appears that lala ‘that’ is the only premodifier in

Dagbani, just like Akan (Boadi, 2010, pp. 15) and Anum (Ofori, 2014, pp. 159). The head nominal which is obligatory may be a noun or pronoun. This implies that none of the other elements can function as the head in the NP slot. The head noun can be followed by optional modifiers within the NP which occur in a fixed order: adjective, numeral, relative clause, determiner, quantifier and intensifier, as schematized below:

(REFERENCE PARTICLE) – NOUN – (ADJECTIVE) – (NUMERAL) –

(RELATIVE CLAUSE) – (ARTICLE) – (QUANTIFIER) – (INTENSIFIER)

The following are some examples of NPs in Dagbani:

University of Education Winneba http://ir.uew.edu.gh

(1)a. Noun Only

bia

child

‘child’

b. Noun + Deteminer

bia la

child DET

‘the child’

c. Noun + Quantifier

bihi pam

child.PL many

‘Many children’ d. Possessive Noun + Possessed Phrase

Aminu buku

Aminu book

‘Aminu’s book’

e. Noun + Numeral + Determiner

bihi ata la

child three DET

‘The three children’

f. Noun + Adjective + Determiner

paɣ’ viɛla la

woman beautiful DET

‘Some beautiful woman’

University of Education Winneba http://ir.uew.edu.gh

g. Noun + Adjective + Numeral + Determiner

bi’ biɛ-ri ata la

child ugly three DET

‘The three ugly children’

h. Reference Particle + Noun + Adjective + Determiner

lala Paɣ’ viɛlli la

that woman beautiful DET

‘That beautiful woman’

i. Noun + Adjective + Determiner + Intensifier

do’ sabi-la la pam

man dark-PL DET very

‘The very black men’

j. Noun + Relative clause

bi’ so ŋun kana kpe la

child.SG INDEF REL come.PST here DET

‘The child who came here’

In (1a), the noun slot is occupied by only a bare noun bia ‘child’ while the rest (1b-j) are the combination of a noun and optional modifier(s). These demonstrate that in the

Dagbani noun phrase structure the noun is obligatory and the head of the noun phrase like many of the world’s languages. This conforms to Issah (2013) observation on

Dagbani simple noun phrase. In the following suctions I am going to discuss the optional modifiers.

4.1.1 Adjectives

University of Education Winneba http://ir.uew.edu.gh

Adjectives are always found immediately after nouns and no element is allowed between the nominal roots and adjectives in Dagbani (Olawsky, 1999; Issah,

2013). Consider the examples in (2).

(2)a. bi’ titali

child.SG fat

‘Fat child’

b. bi’ titali la

child.SG fat DET

‘The fat child’

c. do’ viεla ata

man.PL handsome three

‘Three handsome men’

Also Issah (2013, p. 205) argues that Dagbani adjective, like other Gur languaes such as Dagaare (Saanchi, 1980) and Gurenε (Nsoh, 2002, 2011), share the grammatical feature, plurality, with nouns. Consider the table below:

University of Education Winneba http://ir.uew.edu.gh

Table 1: Dagbani Noun/Adjective Class System

Class Class Marker Singular / Plural Gloss

Singular / Plural

1 -gu -ri zabi-gu zabi-ri Hair

-ti gbari-gu gbari-ti Cripple

2 -li -ya so-li so-ya Path

-a piɛ-li piɛl-a White

3 -a ti-a bi-hi Trees

-o -hi zoo zo-hi fly

-e dee de-hi hippopota mus

4 -ŋa -si ja - ŋ a jan-si Monkey

-ga noonga noon-si Bird

5 -o do-o dob-ba Man

-a -ba paɣ-a paɣa-ba woman

-m dͻɣi-m dͻɣiri-ba relative

6. default zo zo zo-nema Friend

ba -nema ba ba-nema father

Any borrowed word

buku buku-nema book

University of Education Winneba http://ir.uew.edu.gh

Consider the examples in (3) below which illustrate that adjectives consist of a root and a fixed number suffix for singular and plural:

(3) Singular Plural Gloss

a viɛl-li viɛl-a nice

b biiŋ-a biin-si famous

c biɛ-ɣu biɛ-ri bad

d ji-a ji-hi short

e kpem-a kpam-ba elder

Consider examples of some roots and number suffixes for singular and plural nouns in Dagbani in (4) below:

(4) Singular Gloss Plural Gloss

a kub-li bone kob-a bones

b zo-ŋa bat zon-si bats

c ju-ɣu vulture ju-ri vultures

d. ti-a tree ti-hi trees

e. paɣ-a woman paɣ-ba women

f. da-m alchohol da-ma alchohol

According to Dixon (2004), some of the semantic types of basic adjectives include: value, colour, age, dimension, physical properties, position, difficulty, similarity, human propensity and qualification. From the data collected, adjectives can be classified into the following in Dagbani.

University of Education Winneba http://ir.uew.edu.gh

(5) Type Example

Age kpema ‘elder’, bia ‘child’, zahikurili ‘younger’,

ninsariga ‘middle age’

Colour vakaɣili ‘green’, ʒee ‘red’, piεlli ‘white’ sabinli ‘black’

Value viɛlla ‘nice’, biεɣu ‘dirty’,

Dimension ŋmaa ‘short’, waɣinli ‘tall’, titali ‘fat’, bila ‘small’

Human propensity nyem ‘calm’, garata ‘bad’

Physical properties mahigi ‘wet’, kuui, ‘dry’

The number suffix maker in Dagbani is always deleted before it takes an adjective.

Consider the following examples:

(6)a. paɣ-a kpema la → [paɣ’ kpema la]

woman-SG old DEF

‘The old woman’

b. bi-a nyem la → [bi’ nyem la]

child-SG calm DEF

‘The calm child’

c. so-li viɛlli la → [so’ viεlli la]

path-SG good DEF

‘The good path’

In (6a) the suffix –a of the noun paɣa ‘woman’ is deleted while the adjective kpema ‘old’ retains its full form. In (6b) the suffix -a of the noun bia ‘child’ is deleted when it co-occurs with the adjective nyem ‘calm’. In the same way in (6c) the suffix –li of the noun soli ‘path’ is deleted when it co- occurs with the adjective viεlli

‘good’. It will be ungrammatical in Dagbani if a noun and an adjective co-occur and the noun retains its suffix except is a borrowed word. Consider example (7) below:

University of Education Winneba http://ir.uew.edu.gh

(7)a. .* paɣ-a kpema la

Woman-SG old DEF

‘The old woman’

b. *paɣa-ba viɛl-la la

woman-PL beautiful-PL DEF

‘The beautiful women’

Another aspect worth mentioning is the bearer of the plural marker in a noun phrase. According to Sulemana (2012), when an attributive adjective is introduced into the DP the plural particle shifts from the noun unto the adjective in Buli while in

Gichode the plural marker remains attached to the noun (David, 2015). Dagbani behaves like Buli since it is the adjectives that inflects for the plural morpheme (cf.

Issah, 2013) as (8) illustrates.

(8)a. ba-hi

dog-PL

‘Dogs’

b. bu’ ʒe-hi

goat red-PL

‘Red goats’

c. bu’ ʒe’ ka-ra

goat red big.PL

‘Red big goat’

d.*bu-hi ʒe-hi

goat.PL red.PL

In (8a) the plural morpheme -hi is inflected to the noun because there is/are no modifier(s) in the phrase. The presence of the modifier ʒee ‘red’ in (8b) causes the

University of Education Winneba http://ir.uew.edu.gh

shift of the plural morpheme from the noun buhi ‘goats’ to the adjectives to be realized as ʒehi ‘reds’. In (8c) the additional of another modifier kara ‘big’ triggers the plural morpheme unto it. (8d) is ungrammatical because both the noun bu ‘goat’ and adjective ʒe ‘red’ are inflected for the plural marker –hi. These examples demonstrate the morphosyntactic behaviour of the plural morpheme in Dagbani.

Unlike adjectives, in Dagbani when a determiner is attached to a noun, it is the noun that bears the number suffix, as (8) exemplified.

(9)a ba-hi la

dog-PL DET

‘The dogs’

b. ba-a la

dog-SG DET

‘The dog’

c. buku la

book.SG DET

‘The book’

d. buku-nema la

book-PL DET

‘The books’

e. buku

book

‘A book’

f. baa ŋͻ

dog this

University of Education Winneba http://ir.uew.edu.gh

‘This dog’

g. baa la

dog that

‘Tha dog’

In Dagbani, nouns can perform the function of modifiers (adjectives). That is, nouns can modify other nouns in a noun phrase. Unlike adjectives, however, whenever nouns modify other nouns, they precede (rather than follow) the head noun as the following examples illustrate in (10).

(10)a. taha duu la

zinc room DEF

‘The zinc room’

b. sallima yili la

gold house DEF

‘The gold house’

c. nyuya puu la

yams farm DEF

‘The yams farm’

Thus, in (10) the modifying nouns taha ‘zinc’, sallima ‘gold’ and nyuya ‘yams’ respectively precede their head nouns duu ‘room’, yili ‘house’ and puu ‘farm’. In this case the bearer of number marker is the head nooun.

Also, in Dagbani it is possible for more than one adjective to modify the head noun in the same NP. See the examples below:

(11)a. paɣ’ sabin’ waɣinli la

Woman black tall DEF

‘The dark tall woman’

University of Education Winneba http://ir.uew.edu.gh

b. paɣ’ tita’ sabinli waɣin-li la

woman big black tall-SG DEF

‘The big dark tall woman’

c. paɣ’ waɣin’ kari’ ʒe’ gͻ-ŋ la

man tall fat red bend-SG DEF

‘The fat tall bend’s fair-skinned woman’

d. do’ gͻŋ kari waɣin’ ʒe’ buni lana

man.SG bend fat tall red wealth owner

‘The bend fat tall fair-skinned rich man’

From the above example in (11a-d) the serial adjectives sabinli ‘black’, waɣinli ‘tall’,

ʒee ‘red’, karili ‘fat’, titali ‘big’, gͻŋ ‘bend’ and buni ‘wealth’ modify the head nouns doo ‘man’, paɣa ‘woman’ in the same NPs without any grammatical constrain in the language.

Another interesting thing about the Dagbani NP is the agreement relationship that exists between the head noun and its modifying adjectives. Thus, in Dagbani all adjectives, regardless of number, that modify a head noun must agree with it in number. Consider the following examples in (12).

(12)a. ba’ kar’ tita-li la

dog fat.SG big-SG DEF

‘The big fat dog’

b. paɣ’ ʒe’ kar’ titali la

woman red.SG fat.SG big.SG DEF

‘The big fair fat woman’

As you can see from (12), the adjectives take the singular suffix –li because the nouns that they modify are singular nouns. For instance, in (12a) tita-li ‘big’ take the

University of Education Winneba http://ir.uew.edu.gh

singular suffix –li because the head noun ba’ ‘dog’ is a singular noun. However, when the head noun is plural the adjectives will also take a plural suffix – ŋa, as exemplified in (13) below.

(13)a. ba’ kar’ tita-ŋa la

Dog fat.PL big-PL DEF

‘The big fat dogs’

b. paɣ’ kar’ ʒe’ waɣi-la la

woman-PL fat-PL red-PL tall-PL DEF

‘The fat fair tall women’

Contraryly to the wider speculation of the deletion of the final syllable in serial adjective per the data collected some of the adjectives do not truncate their final syllable in serial construction. Consider examples in (12)

(14)a. do’ gͻŋ ʒe’ titali la

man bend red big DEF

‘The fair-skinend bends big man’

b. do’ tita’ sabili jia la

man big black short DET

‘The big short dark man’

c. do’ waɣinli sabili kuri’ titali la

man tall black old big DET

‘The tall big dark old man’

The examples in (14a-c) contradict the wider claim that only the last adjective occur in full in serial adjective construction the rest deletes their last syllable, but any

University of Education Winneba http://ir.uew.edu.gh

attempt to delete the final syllable of gͻŋ ‘bend’ sabinli ‘black’ waɣinli ‘tall’ in srial adjective construction will render the construction ungrammatical.

Subject to further investigation, a closer observation of the distribution of adjectives in the language (Dagbani) shows that the ordering of adjectives in a noun phrase is quite free because the exchange of position between or among the adjectives will not change the meaning of the construction. Thus, in Dagbani there is no strict order to the position of adjectives when they are in series in an NP. Consider the examples in (15) below.

(15)a. paɣ’ sabili waɣinli tita-li la

Woman black tall big-SG DEF

‘The big dark tall woman’

b. paɣ’ tita’ sabili waɣi-li la

woman big-SG black-SG tall-SG DEF

‘The big dark tall woman’

(16)a. do’ waɣinli kari’ ʒe’ gͻ-ŋ la

man tall-SG fat red bend.SG DEF

‘The fat tall bend’s fair-skinend man’

b. do’ gͻŋ kari’ waɣinli ʒee la

man.SG bend fat tall red DET

‘The bend fat tall fair-skinned man’

In (16a) the adjectives come in the following order: sabinli ‘black’, waɣinli

‘tall’ and titali ‘big’. When you change their position in (16a) in the following order titali ‘big’ sabili ‘black’ waɣili ‘tall’, the meaning of the construction still remains intact. Thus, the change in the order of the adjectives in an NP does not significantly affect the meaning of the construction. In the same way in (16a) the adjectives come

University of Education Winneba http://ir.uew.edu.gh

in the following order: waɣinli ‘tall’, karili ‘fat’, ʒee ‘red’ and goŋ ‘bend’. Their positions are changed in the following order: goŋ ‘bend’ karili ‘fat’ waɣinli ‘tall’ ʒee

‘red’, but the grammatically of the construction is still the same. This observation conforms to earlier ones by Bodomo (2004) and Issah (2013) on Dagaari and Dagbani respectively.

4.1.2 Numerals

Numerals consist of cardinal and ordinal numbers. In a nominal phrase, the numerals are post nominal. They follow adjectives and precede relative clauses and the determiners.

4.1.2.1 Cardinal numbers

Dagbani has a base ten number system. With the exception of ten, all the counting cardinal numbers begin with the nasal /n/. The counting form of the cardinal numbers is different from the modifying form. There is concord between the modifiers and the head nouns. Consider (17) below:

(17) n dam ‘one’

n yi ‘two’

n ta ‘three’

n nahi ‘four’

n nu five’

n yͻbu ‘six’

n pͻi ‘seven’

n nii ‘eight’

n wͻi ‘nine’

piya ‘ten’

University of Education Winneba http://ir.uew.edu.gh

From the above example in (17), counting cardinal numbers one to nine begin with the nasal /n/ while ten begins with the bilabial /p/. While the counting form takes /n/, the modifying forms take the /a/ except for yini ‘one’ and piya ‘ten’. Consider the modifier forms in (18) below:

(18) yini ‘one’

ayi ‘two’

ata ‘three’

anahi ‘four’

anu ‘five’

ayͻbu ‘six’

apͻi ‘seven’

anii ‘eight’

awͻi ‘nine’

piya ‘ten’

The counting form of the numerals between eleven and nineteen are formed with the word for ‘ten’ followed by a linker (ni) and the modified form of the cardinal numeral.

(19) Piya ni yini ‘eleven’ (ten and one)

Piya ni ayi ‘twelve’ (ten and two)

Piya ni ata ‘thirteen’ (ten and three)

Piya ni anah ‘fourteen’ (ten and four)

Piya ni anu ‘fifteen’ (ten and five)

Piya ni ayͻbu ‘sixteen’ (ten and six)

Piya ni apͻi ‘seventeen’ (ten and seven)

pishi ayi ka ‘eighteen’ (twenty two minus)

University of Education Winneba http://ir.uew.edu.gh

pishi yini ka ‘nineteen’ (twenty one minus)

Consider the counting form of multiples of ten in the following illustration in

(19) below.

(20) Piya ‘ten’

Pishi ‘twenty’

pihita ‘thirty’

pihinahi ‘fourty’

pihinu ‘fifty’

pihiyͻbu ‘sixty’

pisopͻi ‘seventy’

pihini ‘eighty’

pihiwͻi ‘ninety’

In Dagbani, multiples of hundred are formed by combining three morphemes: kobi ‘the root of hundred, shi the plural suffix of kobi ‘hundred’ and the cardinal number minus the first syllable or vawel /a/ of the cardinal number (i.e kobi-shi- cardinal number) while hundred is formed by combining the singular suffix –ga with the root of hundred kobi as (21) illustrates:

(21) kobiga ‘hundred’

Kobishiyi ‘two hundred’

Kobishita ‘three hundred’

Koshinahi ‘four hundred’

Kobishinu ‘five hundred’

kobishiyͻbu ‘six hundred’

kobishiyͻpoi ‘seven hundred’

kobishinii ‘eight hundred’

University of Education Winneba http://ir.uew.edu.gh

kobishiwͻi ‘nine hundred’

Multiples of thousand are formed when the root of thousand tu is added to the plural suffix of thousand sha and the modifying cardinal numeral except for thousand which is formed by adding the root of thousand tu and the singular suffix hili. Consider the examples in (22) below.

(22) tuhili ‘thousand’

tusha-ayi ‘two thousand’

tusha-ata ‘three thousand’

tusha-anahi ‘four thousand’

tusha-anu ‘five thousand’

tusha-ayͻbu ‘six thousand’

tusha-apͻi ‘seven thousand’

tusha-anii ‘eight thousand’

tusha-awͻi ‘nine thousand’

4.1.2.2 Ordinal numbers

The ordinal numbers second to tenth in the language are formed by combining the relative markers ŋun ‘animate’ or din ‘inanimate’ the verb pahi ‘add to’ and a cardinal number. The ordinal numbers, first and last, do not follow this structure. The former is expressed by tuuli or piligu two, while the ordinal number, last, is expressed two forms ŋun bahindi ( for animates) and din bahindi (for inanimates)

(23) Animate Inanimate Gloss

tuuli/ piligu tuuli/piligu first

ŋun pahi ayi din pahi ayi second

ŋun pahi ata din pahi ata third

ŋun pahi anahi din pahi anahi fourth

University of Education Winneba http://ir.uew.edu.gh

ŋun pahi anu din pahi anu fifth

ŋun pahi ayͻbu din pahi awͻbu sixth

ŋun pahi ayͻpͻi din pahi ayͻpͻi seventh

ŋun pahi anii din pahi anii eighth

ŋun pahi awͻi din pahi awͻi nineth

ŋun pahi piya din pahi piya tenth

ŋun bahindi nyanga din bahindi nyanga last

Ordinal numbers do not express concord with the head noun. See the examples in

(24).

(24)a. bi’ ŋun pahi ata la

child REL.ANIM.nex three DEF

‘The third child’

b. soli din pahi ata la

path REL.INANIM.next three DEF

‘The fourth path’

c. *bia din pahi ata la

child INANIM.next third DEF

In (24a) the head noun bia ‘child’ (animate) selects the animate ordinal number ŋun pahi ata ‘third’ while in (24b) the head noun soli ‘path (inanimate)’ selects the inanimate ordinal number din pahi anahi ‘fourth’. Therefore, in (24c) it is ungrammatical for the noun bia ‘child’ animate to use inanimate ordinal number as a modifier in a construction.

University of Education Winneba http://ir.uew.edu.gh

4.1.3 Relative Clause

A relative clause is a clause which begins with a relative maker such as who, which, whose, that, when and where (Wiredu, 2009). A relative clause provides more information about the head noun. Dagbani has four relative makers (animate and inanimate). The relative markers ŋun and ban are used to respectively to relativize singular and plural animate head nouns while din and dinnima are used for their singular and plural inanimate counterparts respectively. See the examples in (25).

(25)a. bu’ so ŋun zaya ŋͻ

Goat.SG INDEF REL stand.CONT this

‘The goat which is standing’

b. bu shɛŋa ban zaya ŋͻ

goats.PL INDEF REL stand.CONT this

‘The goats which are standing’

c. alapele din kamana

plane.SG REL come.PST

‘The plane that came’

d. alapele dinnima kamana

plane.PL REL came

‘Which of the planes came?’

University of Education Winneba http://ir.uew.edu.gh

Dagbani shows evidence of both restrictive and non-restrictive relative clause, as illustrated in (26) and (27) respectively.

(26)a. bi’ so ŋun be duu la

child.SG INDEF REL in room DEF

‘The child who is in the room’

b. buku shεli din be duu la

book.SG INDEF REL in room DEF

‘The book which is in the room’

In (26a & b), the referents bia ‘child’ and buku ‘book’ are known to the interlocutors in the conversation respectively. observe that while the relative maker is

ŋun because the head noun bia ‘child’ is animate, it is din because the noun buku

‘book’ is inanimate.

A non-restrictive relative clause is a clause type which does not add any essential information to the antecedent noun it modifies. The clause only adds little information to the noun hence it is placed after a noun which is already defined. Non- restrictive clause is non-defining. See illustrations in (27) below:

(27)a. linjin’ kpen’ so ŋun kana nti bu tayihisi la

military commander INDEF REL come.PST and beat.PST thief. DEF

‘The military commander who came and beat the thieves’

b. alaafei minisa so ŋun lε ti baŋsim zaŋkpa maŋ sabita tibu la

health minister INDEF REL feed us knowledge about personal neatness

give DEF

‘The health minister who sensitised us on personal hygiene’

University of Education Winneba http://ir.uew.edu.gh

In (27a & b), the relative marker (ŋun) ‘who’ which begins the relative clause can be omitted without significantly affecting the NP because the head noun linjin’ kpema ‘military commander’ and alaafei minisa ‘health minister’ are definite.

4.1.3.2 Noun + Relative clause

(28)a. do’ so ŋun kana kpe la

man.SG INDEF REL come.PST here DET

‘The man who came here’

b. bi’ so ŋun guuri la

child.SG INDEF REL run.CONT DET

‘The child who runs’

c. *ŋun guuri la bia

REL run.CONT DET child

In examples (28) the nouns doo ‘man’ and bia ‘child’ precede the relative clauses

ŋun kana kpe la ‘who came here’ and ŋun guuri la ‘who runs’ respectively. In

(28c) it is ungrammatical because in Dagbani a relative clause does not precede a noun in noun phrases.

4.1.3.3 Adjective + Relative clause.

As stated earlier, the adjective is among the other elements in an NP construction which immediately follows the head noun. The study reveals the adjective follows the noun and precedes the relative clause in the NP construction in

Dagbani. Below are some examples

(29)a. paɣ’ viεl’ shεba ban kama na Woman.PL beautiful INDEF REL come.PST DEF

‘The beautiful woman who came’

University of Education Winneba http://ir.uew.edu.gh

b. loory kar’ shεli din ʒi tia gbuni la

car.SG big INDEF REL sit tree.SG under DET

‘The big car which is under the tree’

c. *bi’ so ŋun chaŋ la waɣili

child.SG INDEF REL go.PST DEF tall

‘The tall child who went’

In example (29a), the adjective viεla ‘beautiful’ comes before the relative clause ban kama na ‘who came’. In (29b) also, the adjective karili ‘big’ precedes the relative clause shεli din ʒi ti’ gbuni la ‘which is under the tree’. When the relative clause ŋun chaŋ la ‘who went’ precedes the adjective waɣili ‘tall’ in (29c) the construction becomes ungrammatical in the language.

4.1.3.4 Numera + Relative clause.

Numerals also occur with relative clauses in Dagbani. Unlike adjectives, the order of appearance of the numeral has no fixed position in the NP. It can either be positioned before the relative clauses or after relative clauses. Because a numeral has different positions its meanings and interpretations also differs. A numeral that precedes a relative clause differs from a numeral that comes after a relative clause.

Consider examples in (30) below.

(30)a. dabba anahi ban zo la

man.PL four REL leave.PST DET

‘The four men who bolted away’

University of Education Winneba http://ir.uew.edu.gh

b. karim bi’ shεba ban gban-a viεla la niriba ata

school.SG children.PL INDEF REL paper-PL good DET man.PL three

‘Three of the students who passed the exams’

c. karim bi-hi ata shɛba ban gban-a viɛla la

school.SG child-PL three INDF REL paper-PL good. DET

‘The three of the students who passed the exam’

d. karim bi-hi ata ban gban-a viɛla la

school.SG child-PL three REL paper-PL good DET

‘The three students who passed the exam’

In (30a), the numeral anahi ‘four’ precedes the relative clause ban zo la ‘who ran away’ and in (30b), the numeral ata ‘three’ is preceded by relative clause ban gbana viεla ‘who passed’ while in (30) the relative clause ‘ban gbana viɛla la’ is preceded by the numeral ata . In (30a), the total number of people who ran way are four, but in (30b) the total number of students who passed is not known or more than three. This means that when the exact number of the entity is known in the NP and relative clause construction, the number precedes the relative clause; the opposite is true when the number is preceded by the relative clause exact number of the entity is unknown. More examples are presented in (31).

(31)a. nanima anu shεba ban kana la

chief.PL anu IDEF REL come.PL DET

‘The five chiefs who came’

b. na’ shεba ban kana la niriba anu

chief INDEF.PL REL come.PST DEF man.PL five

University of Education Winneba http://ir.uew.edu.gh

‘Five of the chiefs who came’

In (31a) the numeral anu ‘five’ comes before the relative clause ban kana la

‘who came’ while in (31b) the relative clause ban kana la who came’ precedes the numeral anu ‘five’. This means that the numeral (31a) describes the head noun while in (31b) the numeral modifies only the head noun nanima ‘chiefs’.

4.1.3.4. Adjective + Numeral + Relative Clause

Unlike Gichode (David, 2015, pp. 60) and other languages where adjectives and numerals occurrences in sentences are interchangeable; that is, an adjective can precede a numeral and a numeral can also precede an adjective. In Dagbani, the position of adjectives and numerals are not interchangeable. An adjective always precedes a numeral and a relative clause as well. See examples in (32).

(32)a. paɣ’ viεla ata ban kana la

woman.PL beautiful three REL come.PST DEF

‘The three beautiful women who came’

b. *paɣaba ata viεla ban kana la

Woman.PL three beautiful REL come.PST DEF

‘The three beautiful women who came’

Whereas (32a) is acceptable because the adjective viɛla ‘beautiful’ comes before the numeral ata, (32b) is unacceptable because the adjective viɛla ‘beautiful’ comes after the numeral ata ‘three’.

4.1.4 Determiner

In Dagbani noun phrases, most determiners are post nominals and occur after all the elements in the NP accept quantifiers and intensifiers. The use of a particular determiner in any construction shows the level of information shared by the interlocutors.

University of Education Winneba http://ir.uew.edu.gh

Dagbani has two definite markers la and maa and both mean ‘the’ (Wilson,

1972; Olawsky, 1999). Most often these markers replace each other in discourse. The choice of la or maa in any construction is determined either semantically or pragmatically. See examples in (33).

(33)a. bi’ viεla la

child.PL beautiful DET

‘The beautiful children'

b. bi’ viεla ata maa

child.PL beautiful three DET

‘The three beautiful children’

c. bi’ viεla ayͻbu la pirigili.

child.PL beautiful six DET half

‘Half of the six beautiful children.’

In (33a) the definite maker la ‘the’ comes after the noun bihi ‘children’ and the adjective viεla ‘beautiful’ and (33b & c) the definite makers maa ‘the’ and la ‘the’ respectively also come after noun bihi ‘children’, the adjective viεla ‘beautiful’ and numeral ayͻbu ‘six’ but precedes the quantifier pirigili ‘half’. These affirm that in

Dagbani NP the definite determiner follows the noun, the adjective and the numeral but precedes the quantifier.

4.1.4. 1 Indefiniteness

Indefinite constructions mean that the speaker has no information about the reference of the noun. Nouns used in the indefinite sense are generic; they are not specific to a particular member of the class. Dagbani has plural and singular animate

University of Education Winneba http://ir.uew.edu.gh

and inanimate indefinite markers. That is so ‘singular’ and shεba ‘plural’ for animate and shεli ‘singular’ and shεŋa ‘plural’ for inanimate. Consider the examples in (34).

(34)a. paɣa so

woman.SG SG.INDEF

‘A certain woman’

b. bi’ shεba

child.PL PL.ANM.IDEF

‘Some children’

c. ti’ shεli

tree SG.ANM.INDEF

‘A certain tree’

d. ti’ shεŋa

tree.PL PL.INANM.INDEF

‘Some trees’

4.1.4. 2 Demonstrative

Bobuafor (2013) defines demonstratives as “deictic expressions used to indicate which entities a speaker refers to in order to distinguish those entities from others”. She notes that they are used to show whether the entities referred to are close or far, in space or time, from the speaker at the moment of speaking. Demonstratives can be used independently as pronouns. Dagbani has two demonstrative particles that is ŋɔ ‘this’ for proximal and ŋɔ ha/sa ‘that/this’ for distal. But both demonstratives indicate definiteness and also agree with the head noun. Consider the illustration in

(35).

(35)a. paɣa ŋɔ

University of Education Winneba http://ir.uew.edu.gh

woman.SG PDD

‘This woman’

b. paɣ’ viεla ata ŋͻ

woman.PL beautiful three PDD

‘These three beautiful women’

4.1.4.2.1 Distal demonstrative

In Dagbani a distal demonstrative is formed by adding ha/sa to the proximal demonstrative maker ŋɔ. This is shown in (36)

(36)a. paɣaba ŋɔ ha

woman.PL this DIST

‘Those women over there’

b. paɣaba ŋɔ ha biε

woman.PL this DIST good.NEG

‘Those women over there are not good.’

4.1.5 Quantifiers

Quantifiers are also elements that modify the head noun in a noun phrase in

Dagbani. Quantifiers are words used to express the quantity of an entity or measure the nouns they modify. Quantifiers are postnominals, but they are preceded by both adjectives and determiners in a noun phrase construction in Dagbani. I will critically examine the types and position of the quantifiers in relation to other modifiers.

Examples of some quantifiers in Dagbani include.

(37)a. shεli/ shεba/shεŋa some

Biεla few/little

zaa all

University of Education Winneba http://ir.uew.edu.gh

pirigili semi/half

pam many/plenty

ko only

saɣisi enough b. bε zaa

person.PL all.QUAN

‘All of the people’ c. yi pam

2PL plenty.QUAN

‘Plenty of you’ d. bihi maa pirigili child.PL DET half.QUAN

‘Half of the children’ e. ti biεla

1PL few.QUAN

‘Few of us’ f. Ziblm ko

Ziblim only.QUAN

‘Only Ziblim’ g. buhi shεba goat.PL some.QUAN

‘Some goats’

h. be saɣisiya

3PL enough.QUAN

University of Education Winneba http://ir.uew.edu.gh

‘They are enough’

4.1.5.1 Adjective + Determiner + Quantifier

In cases where you have a quantifier, a determiner and adjective in the same

NP, the following order is observed: Adjective + determiner + quantifier.

(38)a. paɣ’ viεla la pirigili

woman.PLU beautiful DEF half

‘Half of the beautiful woman’

b. karimba maŋa la zaa

teacher.SG good DEF all

‘All the good teachers’

c. bi’ yͻya la biεla

child.PL bad DEF few

‘Few of the bad children’

In (38a-c) the quantifier pirigili ‘half’, zaa ‘all’ and biεla ‘few’ respectively come after the adjective viεla ‘beautiful’, maŋa ‘good’ and yͻya ‘bad’ and the determiners la ‘the’ respectively.

4.1.5.2 Quantifiers versus Relative Clauses

Quantifiers in Dagbani have no fixed position in relation to relative clauses in

NPs. They can either be positioned after the head nominal or at the end of the relative clause. Irrespective of the position of the quantifier the semantic interpretation is the same. See examples in (39).

(39)a. pal’ shεŋa din maali la

road.PL some REL construct.PST DEF

‘Some of the roads which are constructed’

University of Education Winneba http://ir.uew.edu.gh

b. palla din malli la shεŋa

road.PL REL construct.PST DEF some.QUAN

‘Some of the roads which are constructed’

In (39a) the quantifier shεŋa ‘some’ precedes the relative marker din ‘which’ while in

(39b) the same shεŋa is found at the end of the relative clause. The change in position of the quantifier does not change the meaning of the constructions.

4.1.6 Intensifiers

According to Dorvlo (2008) intensifiers add emphasis to the meaning of a word or phrase. Usually, an intensifier combined with an adjective to form an adjectival phrase. Semantically, “the intensifiers serve the function of amplifying or down-toning the lexical meaning of the modified adjective by placing it at a point on a scale higher or lower than the norm” (Boadi, 2010, p.61). The class of intensifiers in

Dagbani include: pam or paa ‘very much or plenty’, biεlifu ‘very small or little or few’, liinga or nyiinga or piinga ‘smallest’ or ‘extremely small’. The intensifier pam

‘very much’ is however more frequently used by the people (Dagbamba) than paa.

This is because it appears that whereas the pam ‘very much’ is a native word, paa

‘very much’ is a loanword from Akan. Paa is usually used among the youth who travel or study in southern Ghana. But both are accepted in the language (Dagbani).

Consider the examples in (40) which illustrate the occurrence of the adjective phrase as a modifier of the head noun.

(40)a. yɛltͻɣa kara pam n niŋ

Matter big really INDEF do.PERF

‘A really big affair has happened.’

University of Education Winneba http://ir.uew.edu.gh

b. di miiya paa ti ma

it STAT. hard really Stat.give 1SG

‘It is really hard for me.’

In example (40) the bolded-face expressions are adjective phrases whose respective heads are kara ‘big’ and miiya ‘not easy’ and the modifiers are the intersifiers pam and paa ‘really’. These examples demonstrate that in Dagbani adjectives come before the intensifiers in NPs.

Thus far, our attention has mainly focussed on the simple noun phrase in

Dagbani. In the following sub-sections, we will be focussing more on the Dagbani complex noun phrase where we discuss phrase including compound noun phrase, appositive phrase and possessive phrase.

4.2 Compound Noun Phrases

A compound noun phrase is the linking of two or more nouns by means of a conjunction. That is when a noun or a pronoun is conjoined with another noun or pronoun. Dagbani linkers are; mini ‘and’ to conjoin two two noun phrases, ni ‘in addition to’ to conjoin three noun phrases and pahi ‘addition’ to conjoin four or more noun phrases. Each noun may or may not have modifiers. See examples in (41).

(41)a. noo mini wubiga

fowl CONJ hawk

‘Fowl and hawk’

b. kawana mini banchi

maize CONJ cassava

‘maize and cassava’

University of Education Winneba http://ir.uew.edu.gh

c. banch mini kawana ni nyuli

cassava CONJ maize CONJ yam

‘cassava, maize and yam’

d. bi’ viεli la mini o ba la

child.SG beautiful DET CONJ her/his father DET

‘The beautiful child and the father’

e. Alasani mini Adam ni Bawa nti pahi Amina

Alasani CONJ Adam CONJ Bawa and CONJ Amina

‘Alasani, Adam and Bawa in addition to Amina’

In (41a) two bare nouns noo ‘fowl’ and wubiga ‘hawk’ are conjoined by a linker

‘mini’ ‘and’ in (41b) the bare noun kawana ‘maize’ and banchi ‘cassava’ form a compound noun phrase using the conjunction mini ‘and’. For (41c) two conjunctions mini ‘and’ ‘ni’ ‘in addition’ are used to connect the nominal phrases banchi

‘cassava’, kawana ‘maize’ and nyuli ‘yam’; while in (41d) the two noun phrases bi’ viεli la ‘The beautiful child’ and o ba la ‘his/ her father’ are conjoined by a connecter mini ‘and’.

4.3 Complex nominal phrase

Ameka (1991) defines complex nominal phrases “involve two or more phrases linked by various connectives in which one of the phrases is the head and the rest are modifiers”. A complex noun phrase has two major types: appositive phrase and possessive phrase.

University of Education Winneba http://ir.uew.edu.gh

4.3.1 Appositive phrase

An appositive phrase modifies another noun phrase immediately beside it. It is usually include personal names. Consider (42) below.

(42)a. Abdul-Kayum duroba

Abdul-Kayum driver

‘Abdul-Kayum driver’

b. *duroba Abdul-Kayum

driver Abdul-Kayum

driver, Abdul-Kayum

As stated earlier in (42a & b) the head duroba ‘driver’ is modified by Abdul-Kayum which serves as a modifier.

4.3.2 Possessive phrase

Possessive noun phrases are made up of at least two noun phrases one serves as the possessor and other as the possessed. In Dagbani, the possessor or associative noun precedes the head noun or possessed noun. Dagbani has no affixes or markers that coordinate or link the possessor and the possessed, and also tone has no function to play like some languages. See the examples in (43).

4.3.2.1 Noun + possessed phrase

(43)a. Ziblim yili

Ziblim house

‘Ziblim’s house’

b. Yakubu gͻɣili

Yakubu shirt

‘Yakubu’s shirt’

University of Education Winneba http://ir.uew.edu.gh

c. m ba

my.1SG father

‘My father’

d. a buku

your.2SG book

‘Your book’

In (43) the possessor nouns Ziblim and Yakubu and the possessor pronouns m ‘my’ and a ‘your’ modify the head noun yili ‘house’, gͻɣili ‘house’, ba ‘father’ and buku

‘book’ respectively.

Unlike Nkami, where Asante (2016, p. 131) notes that “whenever the possessor noun is animate, an independent possessive pronoun mʊ is overtly juxtaposed after the possessor noun to mark possession; but, when the possessor noun is inanimate, mʊ does not appear”. In Dagbani no particle comes between the possessor and the possessed. Consider the examples in (44).

(44)a. doo maa ni dahimi

man DET body dirty

‘The man is dirty.’

b. adaka maa ni dahimi.

box DET body dirty

“The box is dirty.”

The illustration in (44a & b) clearly demonstrates that there is no linker or coordinator between the possessor nouns doo ‘man’ and adaka ‘box’ and the possessed niŋgbona ‘body’ and ni ‘body’ in the possessive pronoun. Equally, the possessor noun doo ‘man’ and adaka ‘box’ can be substituted for pronouns, as in

(45a & b).

University of Education Winneba http://ir.uew.edu.gh

(45)a. o ni dahimi.

He/her body dirty

‘She/He is dirty (lit. her body is dirty)’

b. di ni dahimi.

it body dirty

‘It is dirty.’

In (45a) the antecedent possessor noun phrase doo ‘man’ is animate, and it is being replaced by the 3SG possessor pronoun o ‘she/he’, and there is no linker between it and its possessed niŋgbona ‘body’. In (45b) the antecedent possessor noun adaka

‘box’ is inanimate and is replaced by the 3SG possessor pronoun din ‘it’, and it also has no coordinator between it and its possessed ni ‘body’

4. 4 Pronouns

According to Murthy (1998), pronouns are words that are used in place of nouns. In Dagbani, pronouns have morphological differentiation between grammatical cases such as nominative and accusative cases. Pronouns in Dagbani however, have number (singular and plural), person (first, second and third) and animacy distinction.

Finally, gender does not play a role in Dagbani pronouns. In the following section I discuss personal pronoun, demonstrative pronoun, interrogative pronoun and possessive pronoun.

4. 4. 1 Personal Pronouns

Dagbani makes a distinction between subject and object pronouns. The table below shows the personal pronouns in Dagbani.

University of Education Winneba http://ir.uew.edu.gh

Table 2: Personal Pronouns in Dagbani.

Person Singular Singular Plural Plural

Subject Object Subject Object

1st n, m, ŋ ma ti ti

2nd a a yi ya

3rd o o bε ba

3rd INANIM di li ŋa ŋa

From the table above, it can be seen that some pronouns vary in forms and others are not. The pronouns differ in distributional and semantic properties. The context in which they occure dictetes the meaning they encode. Consider the examples below.

4.4.1.1 First Person Singular Subject and Object Pronouns: n, m, ŋ, ma

The first person singular and object varied in case. Consider the examples in (46):

(46)a. ŋ kana kpe

1SG come.PST here

‘I came here’

b. m be daani

1SG be.at market

‘I am at market’

c. Yakubu bu ma

Yakubu beat.PST 1SG

‘Yakubu beat me.’

In (44a & b) the singular pronouns n, m, and ŋ ‘I’ have the same case and number.

The only difference, however, is assimilation. Therefore the constructions determine the form of the pronoun to be used.

University of Education Winneba http://ir.uew.edu.gh

4. 4.1.2. Second Person Singular Subject and Object pronoun: (a)

The second person singular is the same for subjective and objective cases. See the following examples:

(47)a. a kana

2SG.SUBJ come.PERF

‘You have come.’

b. Subaha yeli a Subaha tell.PERF 2SG.OBJ

‘Subaha has told you’

Both the second personal subject and object pronouns are expressed by the same form a. There is no phonological difference.

4. 4.1.3 Third Person Singular and Object pronoun: (o)

The first person plural for both subject and object is the same. It does not have differences in meaning in either of the cases.

(48)a. o ko chaŋya

3SG only go.PST

‘She/He went alone’

b. Aminu ko bu o

Aminu only beat.PERF 3SG.

‘Only Aminu has beaten him/her’

The third person singular prooun o is the same for subjective and objective positions.

4. 4.1. 4 First Person Plural Subject and Object pronoun: (ti)

The first person plural is the same for subjective and objective cases. Consider the following examples:

University of Education Winneba http://ir.uew.edu.gh

(49)a. ti nyεla niriba ata ko

1PLU.SUBJ be.at person.PL three only

‘We are only three people’

b. o yeli ti

3SG.she/he tell.PST 1PL.OBJ

‘He/She told us’

In the examples (49) above, the pronoun ti ‘we’ is the same form for both subjective and objective cases.

4.4.1.5 Second Person Plural Subject and Object pronoun: (yi and ya)

Unlike the other persons, the 2PL subject and object pronouns cases are different.

Consider the following examples:

(50)a. yi niriba anu ko n-yeli Ziblim

2PL person.PL five only tell.PST Ziblim

‘Only five of you told Ziblim’

b. o yeli ya zaa

she/he tell.PST 2PLU.OBJ all

‘He/She told you all’

In (50a), unlike the other persons, the morphological structure of the 2PL subject and object pronouns are different.

4. 4.1.6 Third Person Plural Subject and Object pronoun: (bε and ba)

The 3PL subjective and objective cases are defferent.

University of Education Winneba http://ir.uew.edu.gh

(51)a. bε bu karimbia

3PLU.SUBJ beat.PERF student.SG

‘They have beaten a student’

b. Seidu boli ba

Seidu call.PERF 3PL.OBJ

‘Seidu has called them’

Unlike the other person, the morphological structure of the 3PL subject and object pronoun are different.

4.4.2 Demonstrative pronouns

Demonstratives pronouns are used to point out the thing or person we talk about (Murthy, 1998). Dagbani has two proximal demonstratives ŋͻ kpe ‘this’,

ŋͻnima kpe ‘these’ and two distal demonstrative pronouns ŋͻ ha ‘that’ and ŋͻnima ha ‘those’. These are exemplified in (52) below.

(52)a deema ŋͻ kpe

collect this here

‘Collect this one (proximal).’

b. deema ŋͻnima kpe

collect these here

‘Collect these ones (proximal)’.

c. deema ŋͻ ha

collect that there

‘Collect that one there (distal)’.

d. deema ŋͻnima ha

collect those there

University of Education Winneba http://ir.uew.edu.gh

‘Collect those ones there (distal)’.

In (52a-d) the locationaladverbial morphemes kpe ‘here’ and ha ‘there’ are added to the demonstratives ŋͻ ‘this’, ŋͻnima ‘these’ to show the distance with regard to the

`referents. Equally, demonstrative pronouns can also be used without adding the locational adverbial morphemes, in such case the referent is proximal. See examples in (53)

(53)a. kpuɣimi ŋͻ

take this

‘Take this’

b. kpuɣimi ŋͻnima

take these

‘Take these’

The examples in (53) are equally acceptable in Dagbani without adding the locational adverbial morpheme.

4.4.3 Interrogative Pronouns

According to Saah (1988) as cited in David (2015) interrogative pronouns are words or pronouns used to ask questions. Dagbani has animate and inanimate interrogative pronouns and some interrogatives are used for both animates and inanimates. The interrogatives for animate are ŋuni and banima ‘who’ for singular and plural respectively and the inanimate interrogatives dini ‘which.SG’ and dinima

‘which.PL’ for singular and plural respectively. The interrogative makers for both animate and inanimate are wula ‘why or how’, ya‘ where’ and bͻ ‘what’. Below are some examples in (54).

(54)a. ŋuni ka a yeli

who.SG FOC 2SG tell.PST

University of Education Winneba http://ir.uew.edu.gh

‘Who did you tell’?

b. banima ka a yeli

who.PL FOC 2SG tell-PST

‘Who did you tell’?

c. dini ka o ʒi

which FOC 3SG carry.PST

‘Which one did she or he carry’?

d. dinima ka o ʒi

which FOC 3SG carry.PST

‘Which ones did she or he carry’?

e. wula ka yi chaŋ

how FOC 2PL go.PST

‘How did you go’?

f. ya ka bε be

where FOC 3PL in

‘Where are they’?

g. bͻ ka yi niŋ

what FOC 2PL do.PST

‘What did you do’?

In the examples in (54), the interrogatives ŋuni ‘who’, banima ‘who’, dini ‘which’, dinima ‘which’, wula ‘why’, ya ‘where’, and bͻ ‘what’ are all in subjective positions because they occur before the verb. However, when they occur after the main verb, they have objective interpretations as the following show in (55)

University of Education Winneba http://ir.uew.edu.gh

(55)a. a yeli ŋuni?

2SG tell.PST who.SG

‘Whom did you tell’?

b. a yeli banima ?

2SG tell who.PL

‘Whom did you tell?’

c. o ʒi dini?

3SG.she/he carry.PST which

‘Which one did she or he carry?’

d. o ʒi dinima?

3SG carry.PST which

‘Which ones did she or he carry?’

e. di chaŋ wula?

it go.PST how

‘How did it go?’

f. bε be ya?

They in where

‘Where are they’?

g. yi niŋ bͻ?

2PL do what

‘What did you do?’

The example in (54-55) clearly showed that in Dagbani interrogative pronouns maintain their form in both subject and object functions.

University of Education Winneba http://ir.uew.edu.gh

4.4.4 Possessive pronouns

In Dagbani, the pronominal possessor precedes the possessed and the possessor is juxtaposed to the possessed noun phrase without any linker or coordinator. The possessive pronoun is the same as personal subject pronouns in

Dagbani. The structure of possessive pronouns in Dagbani also has singular-plural number distinction, as (56) shows.

(56)a. m bia

1SG child

‘My child’

b. ti bia

1PL child

‘Our child’

c. a bia

1SG child

‘your child’

d. yi bia

2PL child

‘your child’

e. o bia

3SG child

‘His/Her child’

f. bɛ bia

their child

‘Their child’

University of Education Winneba http://ir.uew.edu.gh

The examples in (56a-f) demonstrate that in possive pronoun the possessors m

‘I’, ti ‘we’, a ‘you’, yi ‘you’, o ‘He/Her and bε ‘they’ precede the possessed bia

‘child’ and there is no linker between the possessor and the possessed.

4.4.5 The possessed pronoun (deni/beni)

Another way of codifying possession in Dagbani is the use of a pronominal deni/beni. It occurs immediately after its nominal possessor. Consider the example in

(57b) which responses to (57a) below.

(57)a. ŋun buku?

whoPOSS.book

‘Whose book?’

b. Aminu deni/beni

Aminu POSS.PRO

‘It is Aminu’s’

From the example (57) above, deni/beni is used in reference to the possessed noun buku ‘book’. Consider the possessor pronouns with the possessed pronoun deni in

(58).

(58)a. n beni barigiya

1SG POSS.PRO lose.PST

‘Mine is lost.’

b. a deni sahimya

2SG POSSPRO spoil.PST

‘Yours is spoilt.’

University of Education Winneba http://ir.uew.edu.gh

c. o deni kpiya

3SG POSSPRO die.PST

‘His/Hers is dead.’

d. ti deni kpiya

1PL POSS.PRO die.PST

‘Ours is dead.’

e. yi deni borigiya

2PL POSS.PRO lose.PST

‘Yours is lost.’

f. be deni sahimya

3PL POSS.PRO spoil.PST

‘Theirs is spoilt.’

4.6 Summary of the Chapter

I have discussed the nature and various elements that modify the noun head in a noun phrase and their distribution in relation to one another in Dagbani. The modifiers discussed include: adjectives, relative clauses, numerals, determiners, quantifiers, and intensifiers. The study has shown that all the modifiers are postnominals except for the reference particle lala ‘that’ which is only prenominal in

Dagbani and none of the modifiers can be the head of the noun phrase except the head noun which is obligatory. The study also revealed that the order of modifiers in a noun phrase construction is:

(REFERENCE PARTICLE) – NOUN – (ADJECTIVE) – (NUMERAL) –

(RELATIVE CLAUSE) – (DETERMINER) – (QUANTIFIER) – (INTENSIFIER).

The study also looked at compound and complex noun phrases as well as the pronominals.

University of Education Winneba http://ir.uew.edu.gh

The pronominals I discussed are personal pronouns, demonstrative pronouns, interrogative pronouns and possessive pronoun. The study examined the syntactic positions (i.e. subjective and objective cases of the pronouns). It was observed that some pronouns have the same form in both nominative and accusative cases while others vary their form.

University of Education Winneba http://ir.uew.edu.gh

CHAPTER FIVE

SUMMARY OF FINDINGS AND RECOMMANDATIONS

5.0 Introduction

This chapter presents a summary of the findings from the study and offers appropriate recommendations for future researchers. The chapter begins with a summary of the findings and recommendations.

5.1 Summary of Findings

This study has discussed the morphosyntax of the Dagbani nominal phrase. It was guided by the following objectives:

(a) identify the constituents of the Dagbani nominal phrase.

(b) identify the morphological processes that take place in the Dagbani nominal phrase.

From the data analysis, the Dagbani Noun phrase consists of an obligatory head noun and several other optional modifiers including adjective, number, relative clause, quantifier and intensifier. Apart from these modifiers, which occur postnominally, there is another modifier, lala ‘that’, which (Boadi, 2010) calls a reference particle, that occurs prenominally. The identification of lala as a premodifier is quite instructive because until this study the general assumption in Dagbani linguistics (cf. Issah, 2013) was that all nominal modifiers in the language are post-modifiers. The structure of the

Dagbani nominal phrase is schematized as follows:

University of Education Winneba http://ir.uew.edu.gh

(1) (REFERENCE PARTICLE) - NOUN – (ADJECTIVE) – (NUMERAL) –

(RELATIVE CLAUSE) – (DETERMINER) – (QUANTIFIER) –

(INTENSIFIER)

The study also revealed that the Dagbani nominal phrase can have a string of adjectives (cf. Bodomo, 2004; Issah, 2013), as (2) below further illustrates, contrary to

Bendor-Samual’s (1971) observation that Gur languages do not have a string of adjectives.

(2) do’ waɣinli kari’ ʒe’ gͻŋ la

man.SG tall fat red bend DEF

‘The fat tall bends fair

Like other Gur-languages, the bearer of the plural marker in the Dagbani nominal phrase is the adjective. The plural morpheme shifts from the noun unto the adjective when they co-occur in the same nominal phrase. For example:

(3)a buhi la

Goat.PL DET

‘The goats’

b. bu’ ʒe-hi la

goat.PL red-PL DET

‘The red goats’

From the above construction in (3a) because there is no adjective modifying the noun buhi the suffix –hi is attached to the base but in (3b) the plural suffix -hi moves from the noun bu-hi ‘goats’ unto the adjective ʒe-hi ‘red’ in other to make the construction grammatical.

The study also revealed that nouns can perform the function of modifiers. That is in Dagbani, noun can modify another noun in an NP. Interestingly when a noun

University of Education Winneba http://ir.uew.edu.gh

modifies another noun, the nominal modifier immediately precedes the head without any intervening linker. In such a case the nominal modifier bears the plural marker.

The study also demonstrated that the cardinal and ordinal numerals differ in their syntactic realisations with the head noun. Cardinal numerals immediately follow the head noun while ordinal numerals are always introduced by a relative clause marker, ŋun ‘who’ or din ‘which’ with the exception of tuuli/piligu ‘first’.

The finding demonstrated that the quantifiers in Dagbani have no fixed position in relation to relative clauses in NPs. They can either be positioned after the head nominal or at the end of the relative clause. Irrespective of the position of the quantifier, the semantic interpretation is the same.

The study reveals that the head noun only takes the number marker when there is no adjective in the nominal phrase.

Another interesting thing that was noted is that, some pronouns maintain their form regardless of whether they occur in nominative (subject) or accusative (object) slots. The context in which they occur will determine the meaning they encode. And also, gender does not play any role in pronouns in Dagbana: both female and male pronoun take the same form.

Another finding worth mentioning is the issue of the resumptive pronoun.

Unlike some Kwa languages such as Akan (Saah, 2010, p. 92) and Nkami (Asante and

Ma, 2016), which use an obligatory resumptive pronoun in relativization, Dagbani speakers do not use a resumptive pronouns in their relative clauses.

It is also demonstrated that Dagbani has two demonstratives, that is, proximal demonstrative ŋɔ ‘this’, which indicates that a referent is closer to the speaker and distal demonstrative ŋɔ ha/sa ‘that’ which indicates that the speaker is not closer to the

University of Education Winneba http://ir.uew.edu.gh

referent(s). But both demonstratives indicate definiteness and also agree with the head noun.

The study again revealed that the Dagbani compound noun phrase can be expressed by introducing Dagbani connectors, that is, mini ‘and’, ni ‘and addition to’ and pahi ‘addition’, between the NPs. And each noun may or may not have modifiers and it could or could not occur with modifiers. Also, the study shows that in possessive noun phrases in Dagbani the possessor or associative noun precedes the head noun or possessed of the phrase and has no affixes or markers that coordinate or link the possessor and the possessed.

5.2 Recommendations

Though the study has provided some insight into the structure and the relationship of the constituents of the noun phrase and the pronominal system of

Dagbani, there are still some issues that deserve further investigation. I, therefore recommend that further researchers could investigate:

i. the syntactic analysis of nominalized noun phrase, that is, finiteness and

nominalization, nominalization and indirect objects, and typological variation in

nominalized structures.

ii. morphological analysis of Dagbani nouns.

iii. pronominal syntax into detail including what I have discussed in this study.

University of Education Winneba http://ir.uew.edu.gh

REFERENCES

Abawi, K. (2013). Data collection instruments (questionnaire & interview). Geneva training in sexual and reproductive health research 2013. Geneva. Retrieved : March 15, 2018. Website: hhtps://www.gfmer.ch/SRH-Course-2013/ Genev- Workshop/Data –collection-instrumts –Abawi-2013.htm.

Abdul-Rahama, F. (2005). A spectrographic analysis of Dagbani vowels. (Mphil Thesis). University of Education, Winneba, Ghana.

Abdul- Rahman, F. (2013). Elision in Dagbani vowels. International Journal of linguistic, 5 (1), 19-230.

Aboh, E. O. (2004). The Morphosyntax of Complement-Head Sequences. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Aboh, E. O. (2010a). The morphosyntax of the noun phrase. In E.O. Aboh & J. Essegbey (Eds.). Topics in Kwa Synta,. (pp.193-197). London & New York: Springer Dordrecht Heidelberg.

Aboh, E. O. & Michel, D. (2014). Some notes on nominal phrases in Haitian Creole and in Gungbe. In E.O. Aboh & D. Michel (Eds.), The Sociolinguistics of grammar, (PP. 203-236). Amsterdam: A transatlantic sprachbund perspective.

Adebileje, A. (2016). Forms and functions of the English noun phrase in selected Nigerian texts. Journal of Humanities and Social Science. 21 (2). 45-49.

Allen, C. (1995). Linguistic background: An Outline of English Syntax. Retrieved: February 20, 2018. Website: http://www uni- giessen.de/~g91062/Seminare/gk-cl/Allen95/al199502.html.

Ameka, F. K. (1991). Ewe: Its grammatical constructions and illocutionary devices. (Doctoral thesis). Australian National University, Canberra, Australia.

Ansah, A. M. (2014). The morphosyntax of the Leteh simple noun phrase. California linguistic not, 39 (1), 1-23. Antwi, J. P. (2005). Some morphological process in Akwapin Twi. (Mphil thesis). University of Education, Winneba.

Aronoff, M. & Fuderman, K. (2005). What is morphology? Oxford, UK: Blackwell Publishers.

Aronoff, M. (1992). Morphology by itself, stems and inflectional classes. Massachusetts: Institute of Technology.

Asante, R. K. (2016). Nkami language: Description and analysis. (Doctoral thesis). Tongji University, Shanghai, China.

University of Education Winneba http://ir.uew.edu.gh

Asante, R. K. (2017). Introducing Nkami: A forgotten Guang language and people of Ghana. Legon Journal of Humanities. 28 (2): 73-104.

Asante, R, K. & Akanlig-Pare, G. (2015). Animacy in Nkami. Ghana Journal of Linguistics. 4 (2): 64-91.

Asante, R. K. & Ma, Q. (2016). Relative clause constructions in Nkami. Studies in African Linguistic, 45 (1 & 2). 27- 59

Baah, A. K. (2011) The semantics of nominal and verbal phrases in Akan proverbs. (Mphil theses). University of Education, Winneba, Ghana.

Bendor-Samuel, J. T. (1971b). Niger-Congo, Gur. In J. T. Sebeok (Ed.). Current Trends in Linguistics. (pp. 141-178). Hague, Mouton.

Bendor-Samuel, J. T. (1971a). Niger-Congo languages. A classification and description of Africa langest language family. Lanham: university press.

Boadi, A. L. (2010). Akan noun phrase: Its structure and meaning. Accra, Ghana: Black Mask Ltd.

Boateng, R. (2015). Research made easy. Accra, Ghana: PRF Publishing.

Bobuafor, M. (2013). A grammar of Tafi. Utrecht, Netherlands: LOT Publications.

Bodomo, A. (2004). The syntax of nominalized complex verbal predicates in Dagaare. Studia Linguistic,. 58 (1). 1-22. Borer, Hagit (2005). Structuring Sense vol. 1. Oxford: Oxford University Press. . Chomsky

Buer, L. (1988). Introducing linguistic morphology. Edinburgh, UK: Edinburgh University Press.

Carnie, A. (2007). Syntax: A generative introduction. 2nd ed. Oxford, UK: Blackwell Publishers. Chomsky, N. (1995). The Minimalist Program. Massachusetts: The MIT Press.

Creswell, J. W. (2013). Research design: qualitative, quantitative and mixed method approaches. Califonia: Sage Publications.

Crossman, A. (2017). Understanding purposive sampling. Retrieved: July 6, 2018. Website Hhtps://www.thougtco. com/purposive-sampling – 3026727.

David, S. (2015). The structure of the Gichode noun phrase. (MPhil Thesis). University of Ghana, Accra, Ghana.

Delsing, L- O. (1993). The internal structure of noun phrases in the Scandinavian languages. A comparative study: Institutionen för nordiska språk, Lunds universitet, Sweden.

100

University of Education Winneba http://ir.uew.edu.gh

Dixon, R.M.W. (2004). Adjective classes in typological perspective. In R.M.W. Dixon & A.Y. Aikhenvald (Eds.). Adjectives classes: A cross-linguistic typology (pp. 1-49). Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press.

Dixon, R. M.W. (2009). Basic linguistic theory. Methodology. Vol. I. Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press. Dixon, R. M.W. (2010). Basic linguistic theory.Vols.1 II, III. Oxford, UK: Oxford

University Press.

Dixon, R. M.W. (2012). Basic linguistic theory. Further grammatical topics. Vol. III. Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press.

Dorvlo, K. (2008). A grammar of Logba( Ikpana). Utrecht, Netherlands: LOT Publications.

Dorvlo, K. (2009). Does Logba Have an Adjective Class? In M. Matondo, F. M. Laughlin, & E. Potsdam (Eds.). Selected Proceedings of the 38th Annual Conference on African Linguistics, (pp. 95-105). Somerville, MA: Cascadilla Proceedings Project.

Dorvlo, K. (2013). Ewe borrowing into Logba. Intenational Journal of Bilingulism. 18 (4): 428-446.

Dӧrnyei, Z (2011). Research methods in applied linguistic qualitative, quantitative and mixed methodologies. Oxford, UK. Oxford press.

Dryer, M. S. (2006). Descriptive theories, explanatory theories, and basic linguistic theory. In F. Ameka, A. Dench, & N. Evans (Eds.). Catching language: issues in grammar writing. (pp. 207-234). Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter.

Eba, G. & Eva, P. (2003). A Swedish grammar for word prediction. (Msc Thesis). Uppsala University, Uppsala, Sweden.

Gay, L. (1981). Educational research: for analysis and application. Georg town, UK: Charles E. Mairill Publishing Company.

Gelles, D. B (2010). On the structure of nominal phrases in Dzongkha. (M.A Thesis). San Diego State University. San Diego.

Ghana Statistical Service. (2000). Population and housing census. Accra, Ghana: Ghana Statistical Service.

Ghana Statistical Service (2010). Population and housing census. Accra, Ghana: Ghana Statistical Service.

Givon, T (2001). Syntax: An introduction. Vols. I and II. Amsterdam, Netherlands: John Benjamins Publication Company.

101

University of Education Winneba http://ir.uew.edu.gh

Gómez, P.I (2009). Nominal modifiers in noun phrase structure: Evidence from contemporary English. Universidade de Santiango, Assomada, Cape Verde.

Kayne, R. (1994). The Antisymmetry of Syntax. Massachusetts:MIT Press. Kenstowicz, Micheal & George Akanlig-Pare (eds.) (2003). Studies in Buli Gammar: Working Papers on Endangered and Less familiar Languages 4 (pp. 117-130). Massachusetts: MiTWPL. Kröger

Hudu, F. A. (2005). Number marking in Dagbani. (MSc Thesis). University of Alberta, Canada.

Hudu, F. A. (2010). Dagbani tongue-root harmony: A formal account with ultrasound investigation. (Doctoral thesis). University of British Columbia, Canada.

Issahaku, A. (2006). English loanwords in Dagbani. (MPhil Thesis). University of Education, Winneba, Ghana.

Issah, A. S. (2011). Reflexive pronoun in Dagbani. Legon Journal of Humanitie,. 22. 129-146.

Issah, A. S. (2013). The structure of the Dagbani simple noun phrase. South African Journal of African Languages. 33 (2): 203-212.

Katamba, F. & Stonham, J. (2006). Morphology. 2nd ed. London, UK: Palgrave.

Katamba, F. (1989). An Introduction to Phonology. London, UK: Longman Publishing Group.

Katamba, F. (1993). Morphology. Oxford, UK: Blackwell publishers.

Kim, J-B & Sells, P. (2008). English syntax: An introduction. Stanford: CSLI Publications.

Kombo, D. & Tromp, D. (2006) Thesis and thesis writing: An introduction. Makuyu, Kenya: Don Bosco Press.

Krimmer, J. (2003). The Arabic noun phrase: A minimalist approach. Utrecht, Netherlands: LOT Publications.

Lisekelo, A. (2009). The structure of the Nyakyusa noun phrase. Nordic Journal of African Studies. 18 (4): 305-331.

Litosseliti, L. (2010). Research methods in linguistics. London, UK: Continuum International Publishing Group.

Mahama, I. (2004). History and tradition of Dagbon. Tamale, Ghana. GILLBT Press.

Mahama, I. (2010). English- Dagbani Dictionary. Tamale, Ghana. GILLBT Press.

102

University of Education Winneba http://ir.uew.edu.gh

McCracken, C. (2013). Relative clauses in Asante Twi. Rice Working Papers in Linguistics. 4: 1-28.

Murthy, D. J (1998) Contemporary English grammar. Lagos, Nigeria. Book palace.

Naden, A. (1989). Gur. In J. Bendor-Samuel (Ed.). The Niger-Congo languages: A classification and description of Africa’s largest language family (pp.141– 168). Lanham, MD: University Press of America.

Naden, T. (1988). The Gur Languages. In M. E. K. Dakubu (Ed.). The languages of Ghana, (pp. 12–49). London. UK: Kegan Paul.

Niggli, U. (2014). The structure of Burkina Faso Kusaa. Dft ed. Ouagadougou, Bukina Faso: SLI, B. P.

Nsoh, A. E. (2002). Classifying the noun in the Gurenε dialect of Farefare of Northern Ghana. Journal of Dagaare Studies: 83–95.

Nsoh, A. E. (2011). Lexical-functional syntax of the adjective in the Farefare language. (Doctoral thesis). University of Ghana, Accra, Ghana.

Ochieng, A. L. (2013). A description of the morphosyntactic structure of the Suba language. (M.A. Thesis). Egerton University, Nakuru, Kenya.

Ofori, K (2014) A grammar of Anum. (Doctoral thesis). University of Education, Winneba, Ghana.

Olawsky, J. K. (1999). Aspects of Dagbani grammar: with special emphasis on phonology and morphology. Muenchen. LINCOM EUROPA.

Osam, E.K. (1996). Animacy distinction in Akan grammar. Studies in Linguistic Science. 23: 153-164.

Pazzack, Z. A. (2007). Some word formation processes in Dagbani. (MPhil Thesis). University of Education, Winneba, Ghana.

Pazzack, Z. A. (2012). Notes on Dagbani Grammar: Bachituɣa mini Yɛltͻɣa. University Education, Winneba, Ghana.

Polit, D. F. & Hungler, B. P. (2013). Nursing research principles and methods. 6th ed. Philadelphia: JB Lippincott York.

Rijkhoff, J (2002) The noun phrase. Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press.

Rivierre, J. (1992). Text collection. In L. Bouquiaux & J. Thomas (Eds.) Studying and describing unwritten languages. (pp. 56-63). Dallas: SIL.

Saah, K. (2010). Relative Clauses in Akan. In Aboh, Enoch O. & James Essegbey (Eds.), Topics in Kwa Syntax. (Pp. 91-108). New York: Springer.

103

University of Education Winneba http://ir.uew.edu.gh

Saanchi. J. (1980). The noun phrase of Dagaare. (BA Dissertation) University of Ghana, Accra, Ghana.

Samarin, W. (1967) Field linguistics. A guide to linguistic fieldwork. New York: Holt Rinehart & Winston.

Sekyi-Baidoo, Y. (2002). Semantics: An introduction. Cape coast, Ghana: Passion Printing Press.

Sekyi-Baidoo, Y. (2003). Learning and communication. Cape coast, Ghana: Passion Printing Press.

Simpson, A. (2005). Classifiers and DP Structure in Southeast Asia. In Cinque, Guglielmo & Richard, Kayne (eds.), The Oxford Handbook of Comparative Syntax (pp.806-838). Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Spencer, A. (2003). Morphological theory. Oxford, UK. Blackwell Publishers.

Sulemana, A. (2012). The structure of the determiner phrase in Buli. (MPhil thesis). University of Ghana., Accra, Ghana.

Thakur, D. (2009). Linguistic simplified: Morphology. New Delhi, India: Bharati Bhawan Publishers & Distributors.

Vangsnes, Ø. A. (2014). Noun phrase introduction. Nordic Atlas of Language Structures Journal. 1: 4-9.

Wang, H. (2012). The syntactic structure of Chinese nominal phrase. (Doctoral thesis). Northwestern University, Evanton.

Watanabe, A. (2006). Functional Projections of Nominals in Japanese: Syntax of Classifiers. Natural Language & Linguistic Theory 24, 241–306.

Welmers, W. (1973). African language structures. Berkeleyː University of California Press.

Wilson, W. A. .A. & Bendor-Samuel, J.T. (1969). The phonology of the nominal in Dagbani. Linguistics. 52: 56–82.

Wilson, W. A.A. (1972). An introductory course on Dagbani. Ghana Institute of Linguistic, Literacy and Bible Translation. Tamali, Ghana.

Wiredu, F. J. (2009). Organised English structure. A self-study and Practice book for students of training Collages, the Polytechnics and the Universities. 2nd ed. Accra, Ghana: Academic Publication Limited.

104

University of Education Winneba http://ir.uew.edu.gh

Yahaya R. M. (1979). The Dagbani noun phrase.The structure and functions in Dagbani clause structure. (Graduate diploma). University of Ghana, Legon, Ghana .

Ziblim, Y. (2013). Piɛli mini Yɛltͻɣitaɣimalisi. (Project work). University of Education, Winneba. Ghana.

Ziblim, Y. (2015). Bimbilla nam zaba piligu. (BA dissertation). University of Education. Winneba. Ghana.

105