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Typological Features Template of Krache

Revision as of 14:47, 19 November 2009 by Mark Dundaa (Talk | contribs)

byMark Dundaa

Feature Description
Phonological Features In the following fields you describe the phonological inventory of [Krache]
Vowel inventory Krache has nine phonemic vowels. Each vowel also has a contrastive lengthened counterpart. The central vowel/ʌ/ is not listed as a phoneme, because in Krache it does not occur in CV words or in word-final position. It occurs in closed syllable positions with both +ATR and –ATR vowels (cf. kʌ-ma ‘back’, , kʌ-jɩ ‘day’), but since a rule governing its occurrence has not yet been discovered, its occurrence is very difficult to predict. According to Snider (1990), in the Guang languages /a/ never occurs in closed syllables and /ʌ/ never occurs in open syllables . He even suggests /ʌ / to be in complementary distribution with /ɛ/, /ʌ / occurring only in non-final positions and /ɛ/ occurring only finally . This is however not established in Krache.
Vowel Phonemes
Front Mid Back
HIGH (+ATR) i u
HIGH(-ATR) ɩ ʋ
LOW(+ATR) e o
LOW(-ATR) ɛ a ɔ



HIGH LOW (+ATR) e o LOW (-ATR) ɛ a ɔ

Vowel harmony The concept of ATR Vowel Harmony presupposes that, the vowels in the language can be grouped into two sets: Advanced Tongue Root (+ATR) and Unadvanced tongue Root (-ATR).The vowel harmony found in Krache is of the kind found in many Ghanaian languages.The vowels in Krache therefore fall into two separate sets:Those pronounced with an expanded pharynx{i u e o},and those produced with a retracted pharynx namely{ɩ,ʋ,ɛ,ɔ}. the vowel [a] however can occur with either of the sets.
                 Set (1)                      Set (2)                  Neutral Vowel
                 i    u                       ɩ     ʋ                   
                 e    o                       ɛ     ɔ                       a

There is therefore a restriction in the distribution which does not allow the vowels of set (1) to occur in the same word with vowels in set (2). So in a simple word in Krache only vowels from one set can occur.

Consonant inventory Consonants in Krache fall into two categories: Plain and Labialized.

PLAIN CONSONANTS: LABIAL ALVEOLAR ALVEO-PALATAL VELAR LABIO-VELAR GLOTAL voiced: b d dz (g) voiceless: p t ts k


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].
Morpho-syntactic Features In the following fields you describe some of the basic morpho-syntactic parameters of [your language]
morphological classification (1) [Your language] could be an isolating language (not (or nearly not) making use of morphology, agglutinative, such as the Bantu languages of Africa, or synthetic, such as the Saami languages of Scandinavia, or even polysynthetic such as Greenlandic. In this field you classify [your language] according to these parameters if possible.
morphological classification (2) Linguists have distinguished between head- and dependent-marking languages. Semitic languages are head marking languages; it is the head of the noun phrases that needs to have a special form when followed by a dependent noun; in the Germanic languages it is the head of the verb phrase that expresses person-number features of its subject. Grammatical dependencies on the other hand are in some of the Germanic languages expressed on the dependent noun phrases in form of case. [Your language] might be both, head- and dependent-marking, depending on the category of speech and or the type of feature expressed. This is what you can describe in this field.
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 you describe the linear order of elements in the noun phrase
nominal modification In this field you indicate the basic types of nominal modification (adjectives, relative clauses, adpositions...)
nominal specification In this field you indicate the basic types of specification. Does [your language] have determiners, demonstratives (deixis), numerals, quantifiers. Are there affixes expressing reference, deixis. Are there nouns or other elements expression a portion of a noun that the co-occur with?
possession In this field you describe how possession is expressed (for example, syntactically or by use of prepositions, through juxtaposition or morphologically) Does [your language] feature possessive pronouns?
pronominal system In this field you indicate if [your language] has free pronoun forms? Are pronouns marked for their grammatical function (object versus subject pronouns)? Does your language have bound pronouns (affixes) or pronoun doubling? Are reflexives expressed by pronouns?
Verbal Phrases In the following fields serve for the description of some of the basic morpho-syntactic properties of verbal constituents
word order In this field you indicate the basic word order of your language (SOV, SOV ...)
TAM In this field you indicate which tense and/or aspects are morphologically or tonally marked; does [your language] make use of periphrastic tense or aspect constructions?
infinitival forms In this field you indicate if [your language] makes use of an infinitive marker? How many infinitival forms does your language have?
verbal constructions In this field you indicate if [your language] has ditransitive constructions, serial verb constructions or complex verb forms composed of several verbs. Does your language have so called light verbs, perhaps only used to indicate a certain tense or aspect?
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 you describe complementation strategies. Does [your language] make use of complementizers?
Special Properties of [your language] In this field you should mention properties of [your language] which did not fit into any of the other categories mentioned in this template