Personal Attribute Nominals in Akan: A Constructionist Perspective
This paper provides a constructionist account of Akan constructions of the form àhòɔ̀déń ‘strength’ and àsòɔdéń ‘disobedience’ which had been previously analysed as compounds. Through the analysis of previously cited examples in the relevant literature and additional e...
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| Format: | Article |
| Language: | English |
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University of Ghana
2017-10-01
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| Series: | Legon Journal of the Humanities |
| Subjects: |
| _version_ | 1818509394597380096 |
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| author | Clement Kwamina Insaidoo Appah |
| author_facet | Clement Kwamina Insaidoo Appah |
| author_sort | Clement Kwamina Insaidoo Appah |
| collection | DOAJ |
| description | This paper provides a constructionist account of Akan constructions of the form
àhòɔ̀déń ‘strength’ and àsòɔdéń ‘disobedience’ which had been previously analysed as compounds. Through the analysis of previously cited examples in the relevant literature and additional examples collected purposively from written sources, is shown that the constructions exhibit a constellation of formal and semantic/pragmatic properties that get masked in a straightforward compounding analysis. Also posited is a constructional idiom whose formal structure is motivated by atypical syntactic construction (predicate adjective construction) and a prefixation schema, through the process of template
unification. Thus, some of the properties of this construction are motivated by already existing constructions, even though their properties may not be entirely predictable from those other constructions, confirming that language is a network. It is shown that the construction has limited productivity because of some stringent restrictions on possible constituents. Finally, a broad semantic classification of the constructions is provided and
some properties of the major classes discussed. |
| first_indexed | 2024-12-10T22:44:56Z |
| format | Article |
| id | doaj.art-158ee2afb2b249d58fa74918882e7001 |
| institution | Directory Open Access Journal |
| issn | 2458-746X |
| language | English |
| last_indexed | 2024-12-10T22:44:56Z |
| publishDate | 2017-10-01 |
| publisher | University of Ghana |
| record_format | Article |
| series | Legon Journal of the Humanities |
| spelling | doaj.art-158ee2afb2b249d58fa74918882e70012022-12-22T01:30:36ZengUniversity of GhanaLegon Journal of the Humanities2458-746X2017-10-01282497210.4314/ljh.v28i2.3Personal Attribute Nominals in Akan: A Constructionist PerspectiveClement Kwamina Insaidoo Appah 0University of Ghana, Legon, Ghana This paper provides a constructionist account of Akan constructions of the form àhòɔ̀déń ‘strength’ and àsòɔdéń ‘disobedience’ which had been previously analysed as compounds. Through the analysis of previously cited examples in the relevant literature and additional examples collected purposively from written sources, is shown that the constructions exhibit a constellation of formal and semantic/pragmatic properties that get masked in a straightforward compounding analysis. Also posited is a constructional idiom whose formal structure is motivated by atypical syntactic construction (predicate adjective construction) and a prefixation schema, through the process of template unification. Thus, some of the properties of this construction are motivated by already existing constructions, even though their properties may not be entirely predictable from those other constructions, confirming that language is a network. It is shown that the construction has limited productivity because of some stringent restrictions on possible constituents. Finally, a broad semantic classification of the constructions is provided and some properties of the major classes discussed.AkanConstruction Morphologyconstructional idiomnominal compoundschema |
| spellingShingle | Clement Kwamina Insaidoo Appah Personal Attribute Nominals in Akan: A Constructionist Perspective Legon Journal of the Humanities Akan Construction Morphology constructional idiom nominal compound schema |
| title | Personal Attribute Nominals in Akan: A Constructionist Perspective |
| title_full | Personal Attribute Nominals in Akan: A Constructionist Perspective |
| title_fullStr | Personal Attribute Nominals in Akan: A Constructionist Perspective |
| title_full_unstemmed | Personal Attribute Nominals in Akan: A Constructionist Perspective |
| title_short | Personal Attribute Nominals in Akan: A Constructionist Perspective |
| title_sort | personal attribute nominals in akan a constructionist perspective |
| topic | Akan Construction Morphology constructional idiom nominal compound schema |
| work_keys_str_mv | AT clementkwaminainsaidooappah personalattributenominalsinakanaconstructionistperspective |