Abstract
This paper presents a detailed analysis of nasality in Dagbani, a Gur language of Ghana, and the role it plays in Dagbani prosody. It demonstrates that the nasal is at the centre of defining the range of what is possible in Dagbani prosodic patterns. Nasals provide the basis for determining the full range of syllable types and the tone bearing unit of Dagbani; nasals are the only coda consonants that licence vowel lengthening; and nasals provide the only cases of phonological non-vocalic geminates. The overall effects of the influence of nasality is the emergence of complex prosodic structures. Contrary to the crosslinguistically acclaimed marked position of the coda, the CVN syllable is the default, unmarked syllable in Dagbani.
Acknowledgements
We are grateful to the editors, Katarzyna Dziubalska-Kołaczyk and another (anonymous) reviewer for very useful comments. All errors remain ours.
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Articles in the same Issue
- Frontmatter
- Predicative possession across Western Iranian languages
- Nasality in Dagbani prosody
- Variable D-marking on proper naming expressions: A typological study
- Dogon reported discourse markers: The Ben Tey quotative topicalizer
- Spanish [auto + V + se] constructions
- Datives with psych nouns and adjectives in Basque
- Folklore as an evidential category
Articles in the same Issue
- Frontmatter
- Predicative possession across Western Iranian languages
- Nasality in Dagbani prosody
- Variable D-marking on proper naming expressions: A typological study
- Dogon reported discourse markers: The Ben Tey quotative topicalizer
- Spanish [auto + V + se] constructions
- Datives with psych nouns and adjectives in Basque
- Folklore as an evidential category