ABSTRACT The study is a synchronic sociolinguistic analysis of personal names among Ewe people in Ghana. It treats as its background Egblewogbe’s (1977) thesis in which he describes vividly the various types of Ewe names, their linguistic structure and their semantics. In this study a variationist sociolinguistic analysis is made to determine age, gender and regional and variations in personal names being given among the Ewe people. Four types of data were collected: registers from three Se...
ABSTRACT This thesis examines some aspects of Kaakye grammar within the functionaltypological framework. These aspects primarily concern noun class system and animacy distinctions, relativization, complementation and serialization. Kaakye is one of the least studied Guan (Kwa, Niger Congo) languages, spoken in the northern part of the Volta Region of Ghana. The data collected for the study was mainly based on natural discourse from native speakers in the Kaakye speaking community. The corpus ...
ABSTRACT In this study, cubanía is to be understood from the focus of Cuba‘s cultural and human identities. From this perspective, the emphasis is laid on the black, his cultural contribution to cubanía as well as the historical context (that is to say, his days of slavery, colonialism and imperialism) that have moulded his human identity. In other words, the black becomes the nucleus in defining the essence of being Cuban. And for the purposes of this study, African religion, rhythm an...
ABSTRACT Jogo is one of the three Mande languages (Bisa and Wangara/Dyula) spoken in Ghana. Jogo is a dialect of the language commonly known as Ligbi, spoken in Banda and Menji, in the Banda and Tain Districts respectively. The other dialects of Ligbi are Weila, of Namasa; Ntɔleh of Kwametenten and Ntɔgɔleh (also referred to as Numu/Atumfuɔkasa) of Brohani, all of the Tain District of the Brong Ahafo Region of Ghana. This thesis investigates the sound system, the syllable type, and some...
ABSTRACT This thesis investigates “serial verb constructions” in Gurene, a Gur language spoken in the nortern part of Ghana. It examines the defining properties of SVCs, the semantic and the syntactic classification of SVCs in Gurene, using the prototype theory framework. The fundamental principles of the theory which include “prototypicality,” “resemblance” or “similarity to the prototype,” “gradation” and “cognitive economy” are applied in classifying the various typ...
ABSTRACT The thesis provides a detailed description of aspects of the phonology of Gurene, a Gur language under the language family of Niger-Congo and a dialect of Farefari spoken in the Upper East Region of Ghana. The aspects of Gurene phonology discussed in this thesis are the phonemic system, the syllable, tone, harmony and other phonotactic processes. The analyses were pursued within linear and non-linear phonology frameworks. Within the Linear Phonology approach, the Distinctive Featur...
ABSTRACT A general study of Dangme morphology has been done. However, the phenomenon of compounding has not been studied extensively as the previous studies just mentioned it as a kind of word formation process (eg., Hevi 2011; Owulah 2014). Considering the importance of compounding as a nominalisation process in Dangme, therefore, this study looked at the phenomenon to unravel the nature of compounding in Dangme and to attempt to show what they reveal about compounding in general. Data for...
ABSTRACT The study investigates spatial orientation in Ga, two frameworks were adopted for this work namely; Cognitive Semantics and grammaticalization. Cognitive semantics attaches more importance to conceptual structure and our embodied experience and also deals with extended meanings while grammaticalization accounts for meaning related to body parts, time and other grammatical notions. The main methodology adopted for this study is the Topological Relation Picture Series (TRPS), the (1993...
ABSTRACT The study investigates spatial orientation in Ga, two frameworks were adopted for this work namely; Cognitive Semantics and grammaticalization. Cognitive semantics attaches more importance to conceptual structure and our embodied experience and also deals with extended meanings while grammaticalization accounts for meaning related to body parts, time and other grammatical notions. The main methodology adopted for this study is the Topological Relation Picture Series (TRPS), the (1993...
ABSTRACT The study investigates spatial orientation in Ga, two frameworks were adopted for this work namely; Cognitive Semantics and grammaticalization. Cognitive semantics attaches more importance to conceptual structure and our embodied experience and also deals with extended meanings while grammaticalization accounts for meaning related to body parts, time and other grammatical notions. The main methodology adopted for this study is the Topological Relation Picture Series (TRPS), the (1993...
ABSTRACT This thesis presents aspects of the Phonology of Tùtrùgbù. The main focus of the study is the Syllable Structure, Tone, ATR Vowel harmony, and Loanword Phonology. The people of Nyagbo are called Bàtùgbù while the language is called Tutru ̀ ̀gbù. Tùtrugbu ̀ ̀ is one of the fourteen (14) languages classified as Ghana-Togo Mountain (GTM) languages of the Kwa family. Nyagbo communities are located in the new Afadzato West District of the Volta Region. From the Ghana et...
ABSTRACT Accra, the capital city of Ghana, is highly multilingual and has a fair representation of most of the major languages in the country. In this regard, a lot of intercultural activities are expected to occur. This study explores an underrated importance of language use in forming congenial relationships during intercultural encounters such as interethnic marriage ceremonies in Greater Accra. The study analyses how language is negotiated and used during these ceremonies. It reveals th...
ABSTRACT Marriage is a universal cultural practice. However, its enactment is culture specific. Among the Akans, the customary marriage is one important aspect of its culture which is celebrated to establish a lasting union between married couples. Since language and culture are highly interwoven, the importance of language in the contract of Akan customary marriage cannot be over-emphasized. This study does a linguistic analysis of the language of Akan customary marriage, focusing on how l...
ABSTRACT The focus of this thesis is to examine Ewe speakers’ linguistic organization of motion events and how such language patterns develop in Ewespeaking children. The work is situated within Talmy’s Theory of Lexicalization Patterns (which examines the conceptual structure of motion events as well as the typological patterns in which this conceptual structure is parceled out in languages), Slobin’s Thinking-for-Speaking Hypothesis (which explores how particular typological propertie...
ABSTRACT This study focused on the use of videos as teaching/learning materials in the study of French as a foreign language (FFL). Our main objectives were to find out the frequency of the use of videos in French teaching/learning, as well as the difficulties associated them. We also aimed at finding out the perceptions of teachers and students concerning the effective integration of these videos in the teaching/learning of FFL. We conducted an exploratory study in two secondary schools in t...