A Grammar of Agolle Kusaal Revised Version David Eddyshaw i Contents Preface...................................................................................................................... ix Preface to the Revised Version..................................................................................xi Abbreviations........................................................................................................... xii Interlinear glossing.................................................................................................xiii Transcription conventions........................................................................................xv Sources.................................................................................................................... xvi Other studies of Kusaal.........................................................................................xviii References/Bibliography.........................................................................................xix 1 Introduction to Kusaal and the Kusaasi.....................................................................1 1.1 The Kusaasi people.............................................................................................2 1.2 The Kusaal language...........................................................................................4 1.2.1 Language status...........................................................................................4 1.2.2 Dialects........................................................................................................4 1.2.3 Related languages........................................................................................6 1.2.4 External infuences....................................................................................13 1.3 Orthography......................................................................................................14 1.3.1 Word division.............................................................................................15 1.3.2 Written materials.......................................................................................17 1.4 Outline of Kusaal grammar...............................................................................23 Morphophonemics....................................................................................................... 36 2 Words, morae and syllables.....................................................................................36 2.1 Word classes..................................................................................................... 36 2.2 Morae, syllables and stress...............................................................................36 2.3 Apocope............................................................................................................ 37 2.3.1 Superscript notation..................................................................................41 2.3.2 Predictability of Long Forms......................................................................44 2.4 Ordering of morphophonemic rules..................................................................46 3 Consonants............................................................................................................... 47 3.1 Inventory and symbols......................................................................................47 3.2 Consonant clusters............................................................................................52 4 Vowels...................................................................................................................... 55 4.1 Inventory and symbols......................................................................................55 4.1.1 Agolle Vowel Breaking...............................................................................56 4.2 Root vowels.......................................................................................................57 4.2.1 Nasalisation...............................................................................................58 4.2.2 Glottalisation..............................................................................................59 4.2.3 Diphthongs.................................................................................................60 4.3 Epenthetic vowels.............................................................................................62 4.4 Affix vowels.......................................................................................................63 ii 5 Tones........................................................................................................................ 65 5.1 Tonemes............................................................................................................65 5.2 Tautosyllabic delinking.....................................................................................66 5.3 Downstepping before H....................................................................................67 5.4 Heterosyllabic H spreading..............................................................................71 6 Word segmental structure.......................................................................................73 6.1 Roots, prefxes and suffixes..............................................................................73 6.1.1 Root alternations.......................................................................................76 6.1.1.1 CV~CVV~CVC....................................................................................76 6.1.1.2 CVVC~CVC.........................................................................................80 6.2 Consonant changes...........................................................................................81 6.2.1 Consonant clusters and epenthetic vowels................................................81 6.2.1.1 Consonant changes in derivation........................................................86 6.3 Vowel changes...................................................................................................89 6.3.1 Deletion of *g with vowel fusion................................................................89 6.3.2 Before *-ya *-gʋ *-kkʋ *-ŋŋʋ.......................................................................93 6.3.3 Length constraints.....................................................................................95 6.4 Apocope-blocking..............................................................................................96 7 Word tonal structure................................................................................................97 7.1 Tone Patterns....................................................................................................97 7.2 Nominals...........................................................................................................99 7.2.1 Pattern H..................................................................................................100 7.2.1.1 Tonal effects of deleted morae..........................................................101 7.2.1.2 Subpattern HL..................................................................................102 7.2.2 Pattern L..................................................................................................102 7.2.3 Pattern O..................................................................................................104 7.2.4 Noun prefxes...........................................................................................105 7.3 Verbs............................................................................................................... 106 7.3.1 Pattern H..................................................................................................107 7.3.2 Pattern LO................................................................................................108 7.3.3 Stative verbs............................................................................................109 7.4 Particles..........................................................................................................110 7.5 Tone in derivation...........................................................................................111 iii 8 External sandhi...................................................................................................... 113 8.1 Prosodic clitics................................................................................................114 8.1.1 Presubject Long Forms............................................................................117 8.2 Liaison............................................................................................................. 118 8.2.1 Liaison enclitics.......................................................................................118 8.2.1.1 3sg animate pronoun o......................................................................122 8.2.1.2 Postposed 2pl subject pronoun ya.....................................................123 8.2.2 Non-enclitic liaison words........................................................................125 8.2.2.1 Nominaliser-n...................................................................................128 8.2.2.2 Catenator-n.......................................................................................129 8.2.3 Tonemes before liaison............................................................................130