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Typological Features Template for Dangme

Revision as of 16:25, 19 November 2009 by Regina Caesar (Talk | contribs)

BY REGINA OFORIWAH CAESAR


Feature Description
Phonological Features In the following fields I describe the phonological inventory of the Dangme.
Vowel inventory In this field I describe the vowels of Dangme. See below:
 Dangme has seven vowels. These are /i, e,ε, a,כ,o,u/. All the seven vowels of Dangme can be 
 lenghtened as they appear in the following words: 
   te   ‘to fly’                             yá         ‘net’          
   Agbee ‘a diety’                           ejakaa     ‘because’
   to  ‘goat’                                lε   ‘firewood’               
   loo  ‘weaves’                             bεε   ‘sweeps’
   pu  ‘burry’                               nini   ‘shadow’
   sukuu ‘school’                            mii     ‘sunk’
   kɔ  ‘fist’
   tsɔɔ ‘to teach’
Vowel harmony In this field I describe rule based assimilations involving vowels in Dangme. Vowel harmony
 occurs mildly in Dangme. It is mostly realised in the formation of some negatives in Dangme.
 Vowel harmony occurs in Verb stems that take the suffix [-i]in their negative formation.For 
 instance, verb stems that end in /u/ select the high front rounded vowel as their negative 
 marker. By so doing, the front and back vowel /i,u/ agree in height. See below:
     Verb Stem                                Negative Suffix [-i]
    tu 'jump'                                    tui 'did not jump'
    pu ' burry'                                  pui 'did not burry'
    ku 'break'                                   kui 'did not break'
 Also, verbs stems which end in the vowel /o/, raises the /o/ from mid-high to high position in 
 their negative formations before the negative marker /i/ is attached. For example:
      Verb Stem            Rise in vowel height   Negative Suffix [-i]
                             /o/ = /u/
     ko 'pound'              ko  = ku                     kui 'did not pound'
     lo 'weave'              lo  = lu                     lui 'did not weave'
     po 'cut'                po  = pu                     pui 'did not cut'
    
Consonant inventory In this field I describe the consonants of Dangme.
 Dangme has a total of twenty three consonants. These are: d, d, f, g, gb, h, j, k, kp, l, 
 m, n, ng, ny, ngm, p, s, t, v, w, y, z. Each of these consonants can occur at word initial, and 
 at word medial positions. But 'm' can also occur at word final position. Words formed with 
 consonant 'm' at the final position function as adverbs.See below: 
        pampam, tamtam, kamkam, tomtom.     
Tone In this field I describe the tone pattern in Dangme. Dangme is a tone language.It has three tone
levels: high tone (́), mid tone (̀), and low tone (ˉ). These tones function lexically and 
grammatically to distinguish meaning among words and phrases in the Dangme language. For example:
 Lexical Tone      	              Meaning/Gloss
   	bá                            come! = Imperative
   	bā                            came = Past
       bà                            leaf = noun  


       má                        dough = noun
       mā                        herrings = noun
       mà                        town  = noun



   Grammatical Tone                Meaning
 Á  kpè piɔ.                           They should meet now! 
 À  kpè hiε.                           They have met yesterday.                   
 À  kpé lo ɔ.                          They chewed the meat


Syllable Structure In this field I indicate the basic syllable structures of Dangme. The syllable types in Dangme are the V, CV, CVC, CVCV, CVVCVV,CCVCV,CVCCV, CVCCVCV etc.
 These pronouns fall under the V structural type. The raised (t) represents tone:
  i : Vt 
  a : Vt 
  e : Vt 
  o : Vt
 CVt Type examples:
     gbe, to, pa, we, bo, sa, ngma, kpe, gbe 
 CVtC type examples:  pam, kam, tom, kom, vam
 CVtCVt Type examples:  kake, Dede, Tsatsu, kutsa, baba, doti
Morpho-syntactic Features In the following fields I describe some of the basic morpho-syntactic parameters of Dangme.
morphological classification (1) Dangme is mildly inflectional. There are some few nominal prefixes and verbal inflection
indicating tense, aspect and negation. example:
          VERB                     NOUN
 a-     + kpasa              =       Akpasa
 PREFIX   lean against...            a kind of chair
 o-     +  hia               =       ohia
 PREFIX    in need                   poverty


morphological classification (2) In Dangme, the subject and verb do not agree. But there is some agreement with the nominal head in
noun phrases and with adjectives they co-occur with. The determiners also agree in number with 
nouns.
Nominal Phrases In the following fields follows a description of some of the basic morpho-syntactic properties of nominal constituents
syntactic structure In this field I describe the linear order of elements in the noun phrase involves pre-head
modifiers such as possessive pronouns, demonstratives, cardinal and distributive numerals and 
epithet.  
nominal modification In this field I indicate the basic types of nominal modification (adjectives and relative clauses.
Adjectives such as colour adjectives, derived adjectves, distributional adjectives,adjective of 
height, size and many others are used to modify nominals.
nominal specification In this field i indicate the basic types of specification in Dangme. Dangme have determiners
 such as :ko = singular, komε = plural (indefinate markers) and the definate maikers include: a = 'the' singulr, ɔ= 'the' singular and amε and ɔmε =plural markers.
demonstratives include: jamε a = 'that', and kikεmε a = 'this' 
In this field I describe how possession is expressed (for example, by the use of nouns and pronouns)
pronominal system In this field I indicate that Dangme has free pronoun forms. The pronouns are marked for their grammatical function (object versus subject pronouns. Dangme does not have bound pronouns. (Pronouns are used to express reflexives.
Verbal Phrases
word order The basic word order of your Dangme is SVO.
TAM Dangme make uses of Periphrastic tense and aspect constructions?
verbal constructions In this field I indicate that Dangme has ditransitive constructions, serial verb constructions or complex verb forms composed of several verbs.
Adpositions In this field you indicate if [your language[ makes use of prepositions or postpositions. Does your language have spatial nouns? Does your language use adpositions or particles to indicate grammatical relations between the verb and a nominal argument?
Complementation In this field I describe complementation strategies. Dangme makes use of complementizers.
Special Properties of Dangme.