Typological Features Template for Akan

By Lilian Haugereid

Feature	Description
Phonological Features	In the following I will describe the phonological inventory of Akan and the features that its dialects share. Some of these dialects are Asante, Fante and Akuapem as well as Bono. Dialects of Akan are mainly characterized by phonological differences, but other difference can also be described. The account we are providing here is directed towards a description of the grammatical features that all dialects of Akan share.
Vowel Inventory	Vowels in Akan are described here under five headings: oral, nasalised, and long vowels, diphthongs, and vowel harmony (or vowel combinations across syllables). Oral Vowels Akan has 9 or 10 oral vowels, depending on the dialect: [e,ɔ,a,o,ɛ i,u,ɪ,æ,ʊ ]. Vowel [æ] is only used in the Asante and the Akuapem dialects. So you can see from the example below that, where Akuapem and Asante use [æ] Fanti uses [e] Asante/Akuapem Ph.Trans Fante Ph.Trans English ani /æni/ enyiwa /enyiwa/ 'eyes' In the orthography, the letters e and o represent two contrastive vowels each: e represents both [e] and [ɪ], and o represents both [o] and [ʊ]. For example 1: Akan Ph.Trans English Akan Ph.Trans English te(w) /tɪ(w)/ 'to tear' kɛsi /kɛsɪ/ 'big' fie /fie/ 'home' esiw/esie /(esiw)(esie)/ 'ant hill' to(w) /tʊw/ 'to throw' horo /hʊhʊ/ 'to wash' obi /obi/ 'someone' ako /ako/ 'parrot' NB"Ph.Trans" refers to phonetic transcription. As can be seen from example 1 above, the vowel e in orthography represents vowels /ɪ/ and /e/, and the vowel o represents /o/, and/ʊ/. Bosome aso “The month has ended” Bosome bosome monthSBJ N aso a so be Up V Me tu kwan bronya yi “I will travel this christmas” Me me meSBJ PN tu tu takeFUT Vtr kwan kwan travel N bronya bronya christmasOBJ N yi yi thisDEF DEM The two sentences above examplify the two contrastive vowels [e]=/e,ɪ/ and [o]= /o,ʊ/. They can be transcribed respectively as follows: /bʊsʊmɪ asʊ/ /me tu kwan bronya yi/ It can be seen that the letter [o] is /ʊ/ in "bosome" in the first sentence and /o/ in "bronya" in the second sentence. The letter [e] is transcribed as /ɪ/ in "bosome" and remains /e/ in the second sentence. So in any written Akan text, you will find some of these 7 vowel letters: i e ɛ a ɔ o u, used in the Akan sentence below. Example 2: Esi bɛkɔ owura no hɔ “Esi will go to the gentleman” Ési´ Esi esiSBJ N bɛ́kɔ́ bɛ́ kɔ́ FUT go V oˋwuˋraˋ owura gentlemanOBJ N noˋ no DEF DET hɔ´ hɔ thereDXSDIST PN In example 2, we have the occurrence of all 7 vowel letters in Akan. It can also be mentioned here that the vowels carry tone(s). This will be discussed later under "Tone", However, the two different sets of Akan vowels based on ATR is discussed under "Vowel Harmony" below. B. Nasalised Vowels Nasalisation is an important phonological feature in Akan. It can for example bring changes in meaning. There are five nasalised vowels and they are marked in transcription by placing (~), which is normally called the tilde, above the vowel. These are the five nasalised vowels: ἶ, ĩ, ã, ῦ, and ũ Example 3: Fante Asante Akuapem English hũ - hu hũ - hu hũw - huw see - blow (air) (Dolphyne 1988:4) As a result of assimilation, a neighbouring nasal sound, can give its nasalitiy quality to a vowel; as in this word: nkwa: /ŋ̃kʷã/ - 'life' NB: Vowels [e, ɛ, ɔ, o] are not normally nasalised in Akan, however [ɛ], and [ɔ] can be nasalised in the Fante dialects when they occur as neighbours with nasal consonants, [m] and [n] in a word or a phrase. For Example 4: Akan English Akan English C. Long Vowels Vowels in Akan can either be long or short. The length of the vowel can determine the meaning difference of some words in the language. In orthography, long vowels are represented by doubling them. Examples 5: Akan English Akan English da sleep daa everyday sa dance saa exactly * kɔ go kɔɔ red Verbs in Akan are inflected for completive aspect or past tense by lengthening the final vowel of the verb if it ends in a vowel. So in most of the verbs in completive aspect have long vowels at the end. This is exemplified in the last example with the asterisk under example 5. It can also be mentioned here that all the oral vowels can be lenghtened. And all nasalised vowels except the unadvanced high front vowel [ɪ], can be lengthened. This is indicated by the examples below. The asterisks are on vowels that can be nasalised. Example 6: Oral vowel English Long vowel English Nasal English Long Nasal English * i ti head/chase tii chased tἷ scratch tἷἷ scratched * ɪ fɪ go out fɪɪ cameout fĩ ribs -- -- e hwe to suck hwee zero -- -- -- -- ɛ sɛ resempble sɛɛ resembled - -- -- -- * u pu spit puu spat pũ reject/smoke pũũ rejected/smoked * ʊ tʊ throw tʊʊ threw tῦ bake/roast tῦῦ roasted/baked * a ka bite kaa bit kã drive/say kãã drove/said æ æni eyes dææbi no -- -- -- -- o som worship apoo cheating -- -- -- -- ɔ kɔ go kɔɔ went -- -- -- -- D. Diphthongs As indicated above, the occurrence of identical vowels in an Akan word is considered as long vowels. There are also occurrence of sequences of nonidentical vowels. These are produced when the tongue glides from one articulation to another. Example 7: Yaa dae “Yaa slept” Yaa yaa YaaSBJ Np dae da e sleep PAST Vitr As can be seen in example 7, the verb 'dae' has the vowels [a] and and [ɪ] articulated by the tongue gliding from the central part of the mouth to the middle front part. E. Disyllabic Vowel Combinations
Vowel harmony	The harmony of vowels is defined as the restriction on the occurence of certain vowels in the same word. In the production of Akan vowels, the position of the tongue determines whether a vowel has the feature "advanced tongue root" or "retracted tongue root", +ATR and -ATR respectively. The + Advanced Tongue root vowels are produced by pushing the root of the tongue forward. For the production of the unadvanced tongue root vowels. The root of the tongue is retracted or pushed backward. Set A(+ATR) [i, e, æ, o, u] Set B(-ATR) [ɪ, ɛ, a, ɔ, ʊ] This feature places restrictions on the occurrence of vowels from set A and set B. Most Akan words have vowels from either set A or B. Example 8: +ATR English -ATR English /koko/ 'chest' /kɔkɔ(w)/ 'red' /Kun(u)/ 'husband' /kʊn/ 'neck' /efie/ 'home' /afɪ/ 'year' /adi/ 'has eaten' /ædɪ/ 'thing' So the vowels can be paired as below; those on the left +ATR and on the right -ATR. The front vowels are produced with the front, the central, the center of the tongue and the back, the back part of the tongue. Front Central Back i/ɪ æ/a o/ɔ e/ɛ ʊ/u Harmony Exceptions: There are few words in Akan that deviates from the harmony rule. The unadvanced vowel [a] is known to usually occur in such words. However [ɛ] too does deviate sometime. The following are examples of such deviations. Akan English sika 'money' kura 'to hold' dua 'to plant' nyinsɛn 'to be pregnant' pinkyɛn 'come close' The table below shows an overview of the vowels in the language. Orthography Phonetic Symbols Set A Set B i i i e ɪ ɪ ɛ e e ɛ ɛ a æ æ a a ɔ ɔ ɔ o o o u ʊ ʊ u u In summary, these are the vowels and their names in Akan: i Advanced High Front vowel ɪ Unadvanced High Front vowel e Advanced Mid Front vowel ɛ Unadvanced Mid Front vowel æ Advanced Low Central vowel a Undvanced Low Central vowel o Adavnced Mid Back vowel ɔ Unadvanced Mid Back vowel u Advanced High Back vowel ʊ Unadvanced High Back vowel
Consonant inventory	In this field you describe the consonants of [your language]
Tone	In this field you indicate if [your language] is a tone language and which tones are used; does [your language] have lexical tone?
Syllable Structure	In this field you indicate the basic syllable structures of [your language].

Typological Features Template for Akan - morpho-syntax