Adjectives in Esahie
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.4314/gjl.v11i2.527Keywords:
Keywords: Esahie, Sehwi, Adjective, Attributive, PredicativeAbstract
The study of adjectives has attracted attention in much of the linguistic literature (Adjei 2012; Akrofi-Ansah 2013; Caesar 2019; Danti 2007; Dorvlo 2008; Naden 2007; Osam 2003; Pokua et al. 2007). This follows Dixon’s (2004,2010) assertion that all languages should have a distinguishable class of adjectives if they have a distinguishable class of nouns and verbs. This study describes the nature of adjectives in Esahie, a Kwa language, spoken by the people of Sehwi in the Western North region of Ghana. The paper shows that like other Kwa languages, Esahie has a class of words called adjectives which may be underived or derived. In the derived form, the words used as adjectives undergo morphological changes such as reduplication as they alter to function in the adjectival category. It further shows that syntactically, adjectives in Esahie function in a relative construction using a relative marker bɔ, while, they predicatively occur with a copular verb te or yɛ. The adjectives also display degrees of comparison using the exceed markers tra or paa.
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