Difference between revisions of "Typological Features Template for Attie"

Revision as of 13:00, 6 May 2010

by Joseph Bogny

Attie (ISO 639-3: ati) is one of the languages of the Côte d’Ivoire.

Feature

Description

Phonological Features

Vowel inventory

Attie, the name used by Ethnologue for what its speakers call Akye has a system of nine oral vowels: a e i o u ɛ ɔ ʌ ɤ and five nasal ones:an,in, ɛn, ɔn, ʌn. According to my recent works, the last two oral vowels are phonetic realisations of respectively ɛ and e. In the verb system when e or ɛ is suffixed to u it becomes ɤ or ʌ. Although phonemic in the following example where: ku-e > ku-ɤ (to be old+Past); ku-ɛ > ku-ʌ (to be old+Imperfect), they are not phonemic from a strictly phonological point of view. For example instead of using <<ku-e > ku-ɤ speakers use ku-o and ku-ɔ(aperture assimilation), and so ɔ instead of ʌ which means the + round feature of 'u' which replaces the -round of ʌ.

Since I consider the nasal feature as a syllable feature I assume there are no nasal vowels in Akye. In conclusion the vowel system of Attie is: i e ɛ a u o ɔ. It is the same system as we find in Baule.

Vowel harmony

Akye is not an ATR language. But we find [RO] (Round) and aperture harmony. Examples: ʃi-ɔ > ʃi-u > ʃu-u (ɔ took the aperture of i and changed into u in the middle realization; in the last realization, the Round feature of i is assimilated by the one of u so that i became round )]

Consonant inventory

p, t, c, k, kp, h, b, d,l, ɟ, gb, s,v, ʃ, j, w , ts, tʃ, dz, dʒ

Tone

Attie has three tones: H, M, L. We find and extra high tone as in Aŋlo but it is the merging of H tone associated with an immediate L or M tone. The three tones are lexical.

Syllable Structure

The basic syllable structure of Akye is CV.

Morpho-syntactic Features

Akye is an agglutinative language with both prefixes and suffixes.

derivational morphology (1)

The usual prefixes for noun derivation from verbs are a, o and e. The a stands for Agent, o stands for Theme related to an animate referent and e stands for Theme related to an inanimate referent. Notice that in (1a) the locative marker lá precedes the verb while in the deverbal form in (1b) it it a suffix that follows the verbal stem. The reason for this is the the nominal form is derived from the perfective form of the verb. (1a)

mɛ̀ mɛ̄ vı̋n lá yɛ̀

“I love my children”

mɛ̀

1SGIPFV

PN

mɛ̄

1SGPOSS

PN

vı̋n

children

N

lá

insideLOC

N

yɛ̀

love

V

(1b)

mɛ̄ àyɛ̀lá ā bʌ̀.

“My beloved comes”

mɛ̄

1SGPOSS

àyɛ̀lá
à	yɛ̀	lá
PFV	love	insideLOC
V

ā

IPFV

bʌ̀

come

V

inflectional morphology

Verbs, as most words in Akye, are monosyllabic. Tense, Aspect Mood marking follows two distinct paradigms dependent on the vowel quality of the verb's stem vowel:

Below we show the inflection for the verbs break and eat. The verb eat can only occur transitive unless it is negated.

baseform	imperfective	perfective	irrealis
bú "break"	búɔ	bùò	bú
(kà) shì "eat"	(kà) shɛ̀	shè (kà)	shì (kà)

Nominal Phrases

Noun	Adjective *	Numeral	{Demonstrative Determiner Quantifier}	Relative Clause
tree	green	one	this	that I planted

syntactic structure

Noun phrases in Akye are head initial and the specifier follows the modifiers. Relative clauses follow the specier. Adjectives of colour precede adjectives of quality or quantity. ; Numerals follow Adjectives. The genetival morpheme precedes the Noun its determines. When the Nominal Phrase has no overt definite it cannot have a corresponding pronominal agreement.

abijan ʃukusɔn dze ʃuku

“Students of Abidjan went to school”

abijan

Np

ʃukusɔn
ʃuku	sɔn
school	AGT
N

dze

goVstem

V

ʃuku

school

N

*abijan ʃukusɔn ba dze ʃuku

“Students of Abidjan went to school.”

*abijan

N

ʃukusɔn
ʃuku	sɔn
school	AGT
N

ba

They3PL

PN

dze

goVstem

V

ʃuku

school

N

abijan ʃukusɔn ba ba dze ʃuku

“The Abijan students go to school”

abijan

Np

ʃukusɔn
ʃuku	sɔn
school	AGT
N

ba

DEF

PN

ba

they3PL

PN

dze

go

V

ʃuku

school

N

*abijan ʃukusɔn ba dze ʃuku

*abijan

N

ʃukusɔn
ʃuku	sɔn
school	AGT
N

ba

DEF

PN

dze

go

V

ʃuku

school

N

nsafu-ɔn o boka mpɛtɛ-ɔ

“The soldier helped the orphan”

ǹsáfùɔ̄ɔ̀n
nsafu	ɔn
soldier	DEF
N

ò

o

3SG

PN

bōkà

boka

helped

V

mpɛtɛɔ
mpɛtɛ	ɔ
orphan	DEF
N

nsafu-ɔn o mpɛtɛ boka-a

“The soldier's helping of the orphan”

ǹsáfùɔ̄ɔ̀n
ǹsáfùn	ɔ̄	ɔ̀n
soldier	FOC	DEF
N

ó

his3SGPOSS

PN

mɛ̀pɛ́tɛ̀

orphan

N

bókàāà
bókà	ā	à
help		DEF
N

The second structure is rejected because there is no Definite within the Nominal Phrase and yet it possess a corresponding pronominal agreement. The fourth structure is rejected because since the Nominal Phrase has a Def within it is not followed by a corresponding pronominal agreement. The last structure is the nominal corresponding of the previous which is a sentence.

nominal modification

Nouns change from singular to plural. Most of the words in this language are monosyllabic. The vowel changes from singular to plural. The morpheme of the plural is ɔ. (e.g. Tsabi "human being" > tsabi-ɔ "human beings"). Some of them change their form: e.g. Bi "child" > vin "children"

nominal specification

possession

pronominal system

Verbal Phrases

word order

Attie is an SVO language; but in the inaccomplish Aspect the object precede the Verb; in this case the VP has the same pattern as the lexical structure of the Verb.

TAM

infinitival forms

verbal constructions

Adpositions

Complementation

Special Properties

@@ Line 66: / Line 66: @@
 {| border="1" cellpadding="2"
 |-valign="top"
-|width="20%"|Noun
+|Noun
-|width="20%"|Adjective *
+|Adjective *
-|width="20%"|Numeral
+|Numeral
-|width="20%"|{Demonstrative Determiner Quantifier}
+|{Demonstrative Determiner Quantifier}
-|width="20%"|Relative Clause
+|Relative Clause
 |-valign="top"
 |tree
@@ Line 81: / Line 81: @@
 |-
 |syntactic structure
-|In Attie the Definite is the last constituent of the Nominal Phrase. The Noun is the first constituent. Adjectives precede the Noun; Adjectives of color precede Adjectives of quality or quantity; Numerals follow Adjectives. The genetival morpheme precedes the Noun its determines. When the Nominal Phrase has no overt definite it cannot have a corresponding pronominal agreement.
+|Noun phrases in Akye are head initial and the specifier follows the modifiers. Relative clauses follow the specier.  Adjectives of colour precede adjectives of quality or quantity. ; Numerals follow Adjectives. The genetival morpheme precedes the Noun its determines. When the Nominal Phrase has no overt definite it cannot have a corresponding pronominal agreement.
 <Phrase>10336</Phrase>
 <Phrase>10337</Phrase>