EDITORIAL BOOK CRITIQUE: A GRAMMAR OF KUSAAL
A MABIA LANGUAGE OF NORTHERN GHANA
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.4314/gjl.v9i2.434Keywords:
Kusaal, phonology, syntax, morphology, grammar, reviewAbstract
In this paper, we review Musah’s (2018) Grammar of Kusaal – a modern, carefully researched study of Kusaal, a Central-East Mabia language spoken in the Bawku Municipality and surrounding towns, and in parts of Burkina Faso and Togo. The review covers major topics in the book such as phonology, morphological affixes, syntax of nouns, verbs and modifiers, temporal and aspectual marking, argument
structure and grammatical relations, serialization, and focus constructions. The author makes an effort to situate the Kusaal language in the larger Mabia cluster in the analysis of the data. More importantly, he provides fresh data and analysis of Kusaal that incorporates ethnolinguistic knowledge. The book is written in a clear language and effort is made to limit theoretical labeling and jargon to a minimum thus, making it accessible to those with limited background in linguistics.
References
Abubakari, Hasiyatu. 2019. “The syntax and semantics of relative clauses in Kusaal.” Ghana Journal of Linguistics 8(2), 27–62.
Atipoka, Helen A. and Avea E. Nsoh. 2018. “Vowel harmony in GurenE.” Ghana Journal of Linguistics 7(2), 102–133.
Bresnan, Joan and Lioba Moshi. 1990. “Object asymmetries in comparative Bantu syntax.” Linguistic inquiry 21(2), 147–185.
Dixon, R.M.W. 2012. Basic linguistic theory, vol. 3: Further grammatical topics. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Dolphyne, Florence A. 1988. The Akan (Twi-Fante) language: Its sound systems and tonal structure. Accra: Black Mask Ltd.
Duah, Reginald Akuoko. 2019. Coordination, tense and focus, and the road in between: The case of the particle na in Akan. Talk at Synsem Colloquium, Potsdam Universit¨at. (April 21, 2019).
Duah, Reginald Akuoko and Obadele Kambon. 2020. “On the structure of analytic causatives in Akan.” Journal of West African Languages 47(2), 1–22.
Hartmann, Katharina and Malte Zimmermann. 2007. In place-out of place? Focus in Hausa. In On Information Structure, Meaning and Form: Generalizing Across
Languages. Benjamins, edited by Kerstin Schwabe and Susanne Winkler, 365–403. Amsterdam: John Benjamins.
Hiraiwa, Ken and Adams Bodomo. 2008. “Object-sharing as symmetric sharing: Predicate clefting and serial verbs in D`ag´a´ar`e.” Natural Language & Linguistic Theory
(4), 795–832.
Musah, Agoswin Anthony. 2018. A Grammar of Kusaal: A Mabia (Gur) Language of Northern Ghana. Frankfurt: Peter Lang GmbH, Internationaler Verlag der Wissenschaften.
Pylkkanen, Liina. 2000. “Representing causatives.” Semantics and Linguistic Theory, 10, 132–148.
Schwarz, Anne and Ines Fiedler. 2007. Narrative focus strategies in Gur and Kwa. Focus strategies in African languages. The interaction of focus and grammar in Niger-Congo and Afro-Asiatic, edited by Enoch Olad´e Aboh, Katharina Hartmann, Malte Zimmermann, 267–286. Berlin: De Gruyter.
Schwarz, Florian. 2013. “Different types of definites crosslinguistically.” Language and Linguistics Compass 7(10), 534–559.
Downloads
Published
How to Cite
Issue
Section
License
Copyright (c) 2020 R. Akuoko Duah
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.
The Ghana Journal of Linguistics is published by the Linguistics Association of Ghana, P. O. Box LG 61, Legon, Accra, Ghana.
LAG Email: linguisticsgh@gmail.com. Website: http://www.laghana.org
GJL Email: gjl@laghana.org Website: http://www.laghana.org/gjl
© Linguistics Association of Ghana and individual authors, 2023.
