A Grammar of Kusaal Agolle Dialect David Eddyshaw 2019 i Contents Preface...................................................................................................................... vi Abbreviations.......................................................................................................... viii Interlinear glossing...................................................................................................ix Transcription conventions..........................................................................................x Sources...................................................................................................................... xi Other studies of Kusaal...........................................................................................xiii References............................................................................................................... xiv 1 Introduction............................................................................................................... 1 1.1 The Kusaasi people.............................................................................................1 1.2 The Kusaal language...........................................................................................4 1.2.1 Status...........................................................................................................4 1.2.2 Dialects........................................................................................................4 1.2.3 Related languages........................................................................................5 1.2.4 Grammatical sketch.....................................................................................9 2 Sound system...........................................................................................................20 2.1 Consonants........................................................................................................20 2.2 Vowels............................................................................................................... 22 2.3 Stress................................................................................................................ 26 2.4 Tone................................................................................................................... 26 2.5 Traditional orthography....................................................................................31 3 Word structure......................................................................................................... 32 3.1 Word boundaries...............................................................................................32 3.2 Apocope............................................................................................................ 35 3.3 Roots, stems and flexions..................................................................................41 3.4 Root alternations...............................................................................................43 3.5 Consonant clusters............................................................................................48 3.6 Vowel changes before *-ya *-gʋ *-kkʋ *-ŋŋʋ.....................................................51 3.7 Consonant deletion and vowel fusion...............................................................52 3.8 Tone Patterns....................................................................................................54 3.8.1 Nouns and adjectives.................................................................................55 3.8.2 Verbs.......................................................................................................... 59 3.8.3 Other word classes....................................................................................61 3.8.4 Derivation..................................................................................................62 4 External sandhi........................................................................................................ 64 4.1 Prosodic clitics..................................................................................................64 4.2 Liaison............................................................................................................... 66 4.3 Segmental contact............................................................................................72 4.4 Tone sandhi....................................................................................................... 74 4.4.1 Before prosodic clitics...............................................................................74 4.4.2 Before liaison.............................................................................................76 4.4.3 M spreading...............................................................................................79 4.4.4 M dropping................................................................................................81 ii 5 Noun flexion............................................................................................................. 85 5.1 Noun classes.....................................................................................................85 5.2 Remodelled combining forms...........................................................................88 5.3 Paradigms......................................................................................................... 89 5.3.1 a|ba............................................................................................................ 89 5.3.2 ga|sɛ...........................................................................................................92 5.3.3 gɔ|dɛ...........................................................................................................95 5.3.4 rɛ|aa...........................................................................................................97 5.3.5 fɔ|ɩɩ........................................................................................................... 100 5.3.6 bɔ............................................................................................................. 101 5.3.7 mm...........................................................................................................101 5.4 Nàm plurals.....................................................................................................102 5.5 Loanwords....................................................................................................... 102 6 Adjective flexion.....................................................................................................103 7 Verb flexion............................................................................................................ 107 7.1 Dual-aspect.....................................................................................................107 7.2 Single-aspect...................................................................................................110 8 Stem conversion.....................................................................................................113 8.1 Nouns from verbs............................................................................................113 8.1.1 Perfective gerunds...................................................................................113 8.1.2 Concrete nouns........................................................................................116 8.2 Nominals from nominals.................................................................................116 9 Derivation by suffixes.............................................................................................118 9.1 Verbs............................................................................................................... 118 9.1.1 From verbs...............................................................................................118 9.1.2 From nominals.........................................................................................122 9.1.2.1 Single aspect.....................................................................................122 9.1.2.2 Dual aspect.......................................................................................123 9.2 Nominals.........................................................................................................124 9.2.1 From verbs...............................................................................................124 9.2.1.1 Agent nouns......................................................................................124 9.2.1.2 Adjectives..........................................................................................128 9.2.1.3 Instrument nouns..............................................................................130 9.2.1.4 Imperfective gerunds........................................................................131 9.2.1.5 Others...............................................................................................133 9.2.2 From nominals.........................................................................................134 10 Prefixes................................................................................................................ 136 10.1 Nouns and adjectives....................................................................................136 10.2 Quantifiers and adverbs................................................................................139