A Grammar of Kusaal Agolle Dialect David Eddyshaw 2019 i Contents Preface.................................................................................................................... viii Abbreviations............................................................................................................. x Interlinear glossing...................................................................................................xi Transcription conventions........................................................................................xii Sources.................................................................................................................... xiii Other studies of Kusaal............................................................................................xv References............................................................................................................... xvi 1 Kusaal and the Kusaasi..............................................................................................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...................................................................................10 Morphophonemics....................................................................................................... 22 2 Preliminaries............................................................................................................ 22 2.1 Morae, syllables and stress...............................................................................22 2.2 Free and bound words......................................................................................22 2.3 Word division.................................................................................................... 23 3 Segments................................................................................................................. 26 3.1 Consonants........................................................................................................26 3.2 Vowels............................................................................................................... 29 3.2.1 Nasalisation...............................................................................................32 3.2.2 Glottalisation..............................................................................................33 3.3 Traditional orthography....................................................................................34 4 Tones........................................................................................................................ 36 5 Word segmental structure.......................................................................................41 5.1 Apocope............................................................................................................ 41 5.2 Roots, stems and flexions..................................................................................48 5.3 Root alternations...............................................................................................50 5.3.1 CV~CVV~CVC...........................................................................................50 5.3.2 CVVC~CVC................................................................................................55 5.4 Consonant cluster assimilation.........................................................................56 5.5 Diphthongisation before *-ya *-gʋ *-kkʋ *-ŋŋʋ..................................................59 5.6 Deletion of *g with vowel fusion.......................................................................61 ii 6 Word tonal structure................................................................................................63 6.1 Tone Patterns....................................................................................................63 6.2 Nominals...........................................................................................................64 6.2.1 Pattern H....................................................................................................64 6.2.2 Pattern L....................................................................................................66 6.2.3 Pattern A....................................................................................................67 6.2.4 Prefixes......................................................................................................68 6.3 Verbs................................................................................................................. 68 6.3.1 Pattern H....................................................................................................68 6.3.2 Pattern A....................................................................................................70 6.4 Particles............................................................................................................ 71 6.5 Tone in derivation.............................................................................................71 7 External sandhi........................................................................................................ 73 7.1 Prosodic clitics..................................................................................................73 7.1.1 Long Forms in clause adjuncts..................................................................75 7.2 Liaison............................................................................................................... 76 7.2.1 Vowel quality changes................................................................................79 7.2.2 The pronoun ya before liaison....................................................................82 7.3 Segmental contact............................................................................................83 7.4 Tone sandhi....................................................................................................... 86 7.4.1 Before prosodic clitics...............................................................................86 7.4.2 Before liaison.............................................................................................87 7.4.3 M spreading...............................................................................................91 7.4.4 M dropping................................................................................................93 Morphology.................................................................................................................. 97 8 Noun flexion............................................................................................................. 97 8.1 Noun classes.....................................................................................................97 8.2 Remodelled combining forms.........................................................................100 8.3 Paradigms....................................................................................................... 101 8.3.1 a|ba...........................................................................................................101 8.3.2 ga|sɛ.......................................................................................................... 104 8.3.3 gɔ|dɛ......................................................................................................... 107 8.3.4 rɛ|a+.........................................................................................................109 8.3.5 fɔ|ɩ+..........................................................................................................112 8.3.6 bɔ.............................................................................................................. 113 8.3.7 mm............................................................................................................ 113 8.4 Nàm plurals.....................................................................................................114 8.5 Nouns with apocope-blocking.........................................................................114 8.6 Loanwords....................................................................................................... 115 9 Adjective flexion.....................................................................................................116 10 Verb flexion.......................................................................................................... 120 10.1 Dual-aspect...................................................................................................120 10.2 Single-aspect.................................................................................................123 iii 11 Stem conversion...................................................................................................126 11.1 Nouns from verbs..........................................................................................126 11.1.1 Perfective gerunds.................................................................................126