Difference between revisions of "Typological Features Template for Attie"

Revision as of 10:28, 9 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

The following template illustrates the word order within the noun phrase. Noun phrases in Akye are head-initial and the specifier follows the modifiers. The final element of the phrase is the relative clause. Determiners, demonstratives and quantifiers stand in complementary distribution.

Noun	Adjective *	Numeral	{DEM DET QUANT}	Relative Clause
dzākwɛ́	bı́ gbāgbā	mı̄	yı̋	kēé mɛ̀ tùn
tree	green, nice	alone	this	that I planted
dzākwɛ́	*gbāgbā bı́	mı̄	yı̋	kēé mɛ̀ tùn

Let me also note that adjectives of colour need to precede adjectives of quality or quantity, as shown above.

Akye nouns express 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"

Akye features pronoun doubling, that is, a definite noun phrase needs to co-occur with a pronominal with which it agrees. This is illustrated in the following.

(2a)

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

(2b)

*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

(2c)

*abijan ʃukusɔn ba dze ʃuku

*abijan

N

ʃukusɔn
ʃuku	sɔn
school	AGT
N

ba

DEF

PN

dze

go

V

ʃuku

school

N

The following sentences illustrate that a possessive nominalized verb such as his helping of orphans (3b) requires the occurrence of a noun phrase final definiteness marker.

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

pronominal system

Verbal Phrases

word order

Attie is an SVO language; but in the emphatic imperfective aspect the object precede the verb. This is illustrated below in (4). In this case the VP has the same structure as the verb in its citation form. The verb eat for example in its citation form is kà shì which means thing eat".

(4)

TAM

See under Inflectional Morphology

infinitival forms

Akye does not distinguish between the verb's base form and an infinitive form. In fact verbs in their base form can be used as nouns.

Special properties

Akye has serial verb constructions. One such construction is illustrated below:

(5)

mɛ̀ fè kpāŋ̀ shè

“I sold bread”

mɛ̀

I1SGPFV

PN

fè

buyPFV

V1

kpāŋ̀

bread

N

shè
shì	è
eat	PFV
V2

Bibliography

Adopo, F et Bogny Yapo, 1996, ‘La problématique du ton très haut en Akyé’ in CIRL n°31 pp.43-60, ILA, Université d’Abidjan Cocody.

Anguié, Florence, 1997, Esquisse phonologique d'un parler attié: le parler d'Afféry, Département des Sciences du Langage, Université de Cocody, Abidjan, (Maîtrise).

Atse N'Cho, Jean-Baptiste, 2000, L'akyé : une étude comparative du bodin, du kétin et du naindin, ILA, Université de Cocody, Abidjan (Maîtrise).

Bogny Yapo, J. 1988, Le système tonal du lépin, parler Akyé de Grand-Alépé, rapport de DEA, ILA, Abidjan, Université d’Abidjan.

Bogny, Yapo J. 1986, Esquisse phonologique du lépin : parler akyé de Grand-Alépé.

Mémoire de Maîtrise, dépt. De Linguistique, Université de Cocody, Abidjan

Kouadio, N. Jérémie, 1996, Description systématique de l’Attié de Memni,

(langue Kwa de Côte d’Ivoire), thèse d’Etat, 2 vol., Grenoble III.

Hood, Elizabeth and Constance Kutsch Lojenga. 1981. "Conte attié."
Kutsch Lojenga, Constance and Elisabeth Hood. 1983. "L’attié."
Kutsch Lojenga, Constance and Elizabeth Hood. 1981. "Proverbes attié."

@@ Line 135: / Line 135: @@
 |-
 |Bibliography
+|
+|Adopo, F et Bogny Yapo, 1996, ‘La problématique du ton très haut en Akyé’ in CIRL n°31 pp.43-60,   ILA, Université d’Abidjan Cocody.
+|Anguié, Florence, 1997, Esquisse phonologique d'un parler attié: le parler d'Afféry, Département des Sciences du Langage, Université de Cocody, Abidjan, (Maîtrise).
+|Atse N'Cho, Jean-Baptiste, 2000, L'akyé : une étude comparative du bodin, du kétin et du naindin, ILA, Université de Cocody, Abidjan (Maîtrise).
+|Bogny Yapo, J. 1988, Le système tonal du lépin, parler Akyé de Grand-Alépé, rapport de DEA, ILA, Abidjan, Université d’Abidjan.
+|Bogny, Yapo J. 1986, Esquisse phonologique du lépin : parler akyé de Grand-Alépé.
+|Mémoire de Maîtrise, dépt. De Linguistique, Université de Cocody, Abidjan
+|Kouadio, N. Jérémie, 1996, Description systématique de l’Attié de Memni,
+|(langue Kwa de Côte d’Ivoire), thèse d’Etat, 2 vol., Grenoble III.
 |
   Hood, Elizabeth and Constance Kutsch Lojenga. 1981. "Conte attié."
   Kutsch Lojenga, Constance and Elisabeth Hood. 1983. "L’attié."
   Kutsch Lojenga, Constance and Elizabeth Hood. 1981. "Proverbes attié."
+|
 |-
 |}