Gonja phonological and grammatical study
COLIN PAINTER GONJA A PHONOLOGICAL AND GRAMMATICAL STUDY Published by INDIANA UNIVERSITY, BLOOMINGTON Mouton & Co., The Hague Netherlands INDIANA UNIVERSITY PUBLICATIONS AFRICAN SERIES Editor:Carleton T. Hodge Volume 1 Copyright (c) 1970 by Indiana University All rights reserved standard Book Number: 87750-139-4 Library of Congress Catalog Card Number:71-626566 All orders from the United States of America and from Canada should be sent to Humanities Press, Inc., 303 Park Avenue South, New York 10010. Orders from all other countries should be sent to Mouton & Co., Publishers, The Hague, The Netherlands. Printed in the United States of America. ABSTRACT This study examines the phonology of Gonja, a dialect of North Guang spoken in the Northern Region of Ghana Section one includes a note on transcription, symbols, and punctuation, and an inventory of phonemes. Section three describes the consonants, drawing on auditory impressions, spectrograms, palatograms, and linguagram notes, with statistics based on an analysis of 205 spectrograms. Gonja has 20 consonant phonemes: p, b, f, m; t, d, s, n, l, r; c, j, y, ny; k, g, kp, gb, w, ng, described here firstly group by group, then consonant by consonant. Section four describes the vowels, beginning with an auditory vowel quadrilateral and a vowel formant quadrilateral, chart, and table. It then treats the vowels individually, giving their allophones with conditioning environments. The vowel phonemes of Gonja are: i, e, ɛ, a, ɔ, o, u; two syllable-centre tolls and four syllabel-centre nasals (word-initial only). Section five comprises 56 selected spectrograms and section six -34 selected paoatograms. words, and finally closed syllables. Section eight with its abundant illustrations and matrices comprises over half the study and examines the grammatical hierarchy at Morpheme. Word, Phrase, Serial-Verb, Clause, Serial-Clause, and Sentence Levels, being the first available full study of a West African language set within a tagmemic framework. The language has two discrete-leve base tones (often perturbed) in a register tone system, an automatic downdrift of noncontiguous high tones, and a nonautomatic downstep juncture feature, but in spite of many tonal minimal pairs and the not insignificant grammatical use of tone, it is seen that the functional load carried by pitch in Gonja is not heavy-pitch usually being just one of a a number of concurrent distinctive features. TThe study concludes with an appendix: a transcribed piece of oral literature analysed and annotated with reference to the foregoing description. CONTENTS 1. Introduction Page A. Aims 1 B. Gonja - Its distribution and classification. 3 Bibliographical References 6 C. Note on Transcription, Symbols, and Punctuation. 7 I Inventory of Consonants 7 II Inventory of Syllable Centre Contoids 7 III Inventory of Vowels 7 IV The Tonal System 7 V Other Symbols used 7 IV Punctuation 9 2. Minimal Pairs 11 A. Consonants 12 B. Vowels 18 C. Tone 20 3. A Description of the Consonants 23 General 25 A. The Plosives 31 B. The Affricates 37 C. The Fricatives 38 D. The Non syllabic Vocoids 39 E. The Nasals 40 F. The Lateral 50 G. The Flap 52 4. A Description of the Vowels 55 A. The System 57 B. Auditory Vowel Quadrilateral 57 C. Lip Rounding 58 D. E. I /i/ 65 II /u/ 67 III /a/ 70 IV /e/, /ɛ/, /ɔ/ 74 V The Syllabic Nasals 74 VI /r/ and /ɔr/ 74 F. Strong and Weak Position 86 G. Vowels Elision and Assimilation 86 5. The Spectrograms 101 6. The Palatograms 123 7. Phonotactics 137 A. Nouns 140 B. Verbs 160 C. Others 167 D. Closed Syllables 182 8. Tone 185 A. General Characteristics 187 I Introduction 187 II Down drift and Down step 187 III Three Pitch Phonomena 190 1. The Base Tones 190 2. The Intonation 191 3. The Juncture Feature 192 B. The Operation of Tone in the Grammatical Hierarchy 193 1 Morpheme Level Code 193 1. Noun Prefixes M1 194 2. Noun Suffixes M2 203 3. Noun Derivation M3 206 4. Pronoun Affixes M4 208 5. The Verb M5 208 6. Sex M6 209 7. Duplication M7 209 II Word Level 1. Noun Word List W1 215 2. Pronoun Word List W2 255 3. Verb Word List W3 256 4. Modifier Word List W4 265 5. Adverb Word List W5 271 6. Question Word List W6 273 7. Initiator Word List W7 274 8. Exphatic Concluder Word List, Noun phrase Expanders and various na W8 274 9. Ideophone Word List W9 276 10. Clause 2 and Clause B Introducer Word List W10 278 11. Numeral Word List W11 279 III Phrase Level III Phrase Level 1 The Noun Phrase P1A 281 A Nominal Subject PIA 281 B Pronominal Subject PIB 301 C Nominal Object PIC 307 D Pronominal Object PID 314 E Other remarks on the noun phrase PIE 319 2 The Verb Phrase A The High Tone Verb P2A 321 B The Low Tone Verb P2B 335 3 Introducers A Adverbial Introducers P3A 340 B Question Word Introducers P3B 347 C Emphatic Word na'2 P3C 350 D Intitiator Words P3D 352 4 The Adjectival and Nominal Predicate Phrase A Adjectival Predicate P4A 353 B Nominal Predicate P4B 357 5 The Adverbial Predicate Phrase P5 359 A i Adverbs of time P5Ai 359 A ii Adverbs of place P5Aii 361 A iii Adverbs of manner P5Aiii 366 A iv Adverbs of cause P5Aiv 368 Av Intrumentals P5Av 369 6 Concluders 370 A Comparative P6A 370 B Question Words P6B 373 C Emphatics P6C 374 IV Serial Verb-LevelSV1 380 1. ba’and y'a SV2 382 2.ti'ng V Clause Level 384 1.Transitive Clause C1 386 2. Ditransitive Clause C2 396 3. Intransitive Clause C3 398 4. Stative Clause C4 407 5. Predicative Clause C5 419 VI Serial-Clause Level 426 1. Introduced by n'a 1 SC1 428 2. Introduced by N' 2 SC2 430 3. Introduced by a’ SC3 435 VII Sentence Level 437 1 Unrestricted Coordinate Clause S1 438 SIA Clause 2 Introducer na’ 3 438 B Clause 2 Introducer Ń 2 441 C Clause 2 Introducer n'i 442 D Clause 2 Introducer a’ c ɔ’ or ‘a cɔ́ ngk’ 442 E Clause 2 Introducer .ámá 443 F Clause 2 Introducer ‘amá na’ 443 G Clause 2 Introducer hálé na’ 443 H Clause 2 Introducer ńgkɛ’ 444 I Clause 2 Introducer ńgko’ or ko’ 444 J Clause 2 Introducer ńgkáll 444 K Clause 2 Introducer pówéńg or pówéng ná 444 L Clause 2 Introducer ná…….pówéng…… 445 2 Restricted Coordinate Clause S2 445 S 2A Clause 2 Introducer ńsá! Á 445 B Clause 2 Introducer ńsá Ń 445 C Clause 2 Introducer ńgká! á 446 D Clause 2 Introducer ńgká N 446 E Clause 2 Introducer ńgkó! Á 446 F Clause 2 Introducer ńgkó! Ń 446 3 Clause 2 as object of Clause 1 S3 450 S4 A Clause 2 Introducer ńsá! Á 450 B Reported Speech 450 4 Clause 2 modifying a noun in Clause 1 S4 456 S4A Clause 2 Introduced by relative wó 456 B Clause 2 Introduced by relative other than wó 457 C Clause 2 Relative Introducer wó is optional 457 5 No Clause 2 Introducer S5 458 6 Clause I and Clause 2 have Different S6 459 Subjects 7 An Object in Clause 2 S7 459 S7A Coordinate Clauses 459 B Serial-Clauses 460 8 Minor Sentence Types S8 461 VIII Summary of the operation of tone in the grammatical hierarchy 462 APPENDIX Gonja story: The wolf, the baboon and the wasp 469 Grid for Spectrogram Measurements 525
