Documenting the Ikpana interrogative system

Jason Kandybowicz; Bertille Baron Obi; Philip T. Duncan; Hironori Katsuda

doi:10.1515/jall-2021-2016

Article

Documenting the Ikpana interrogative system

Jason Kandybowicz , Bertille Baron Obi , Philip T. Duncan and Hironori Katsuda

Published/Copyright: October 14, 2021

Published by

Become an author with De Gruyter Brill

Submit Manuscript Author Information Explore this Subject

From the journal Journal of African Languages and Linguistics Volume 42 Issue 1

Abstract

This article provides a comprehensive treatment of the interrogative system of Ikpana (ISO 639-3: lgq), an endangered language spoken in the southeastern part of Ghana’s Volta region. The article features a description and analysis of both the morphosyntax and intonation of questions in the language. Polar questions in Ikpana are associated with dedicated prosodic patterns and may be segmentally marked. As for wh- interrogatives, Ikpana allows for optional wh- movement. Interrogative expressions may appear clause-internally in their base-generated positions or in the left periphery followed by one of two optionally droppable particles with distinct syntactic properties. In this way, wh- movement structures are either focus-marked constructions or cleft structures depending on the accompanying particle. We identify an interesting wh- movement asymmetry – unlike all other wh- movement structures, ‘how’ questions may not be formed via the focus-marked or cleft strategy. We document a number of other attested wh- structures in the language, including long-distance wh- movement, partial wh- movement, long-distance wh- in-situ, and multiple wh- questions. We argue that by allowing our documentation efforts to be shaped and guided by theoretically driven research questions, we reach deeper levels of description than would have been possible if approached from a purely descriptive-documentary perspective.

Abstract in Ikpana

Utrɔme ɔme uflɛ ibugo ilɔwɔ kpɛ ilɔŋɔnyigowɔ Ikpana nu, uvufɛ ugbewago ɔkpɛ xe obo Ghana ivantsi okunkpɛ xe ibo Volta ivantsi okunkpɛ xe ibo etsibanu evibume. Iŋɔnyigoe igbla iɖɔgo kpɛ itsigo xe itsi "ugbeɛɖutsi" (morphosyntax) kpɛ "ugbeɛ idzugo" (intonation) xe itsi "aguzɔgo" (polar questions) kpɛ ɔmɔ, mɛ, imɔa, mɛɔkple (wh- questions) ibugowɔ xe itsi ugbeɛ nuɛ. Aŋɔnyibi ɔgbanu atsi ziɛ iɖu ɔgbanugblago ta ivanunago ilɔ bugo gu ugbe yo. Atsi he ilɔ tɛ ɔgbanu ɔmɛ ɔmla wu imuigoe xe iɖɔgoe xe ibo ugbeɛ nu fie ɔgbanu kpoyi xe ami xe miɖu ivanunago ilɔbugo ɔgbanuwɔ.

Keywords: cleft constructions; endangered language documentation; focus constructions; Ikpana; interrogative intonation; polar questions; wh- interrogatives; wh- movement; wh- in-situ

Corresponding author: Jason Kandybowicz, Linguistics Program, The Graduate Center, City University of New York, 365 Fifth Ave., Room 7407, New York, NY, 10016, USA, E-mail: jkandybowicz@gc.cuny.edu

Funding source: National Science Foundation

Award Identifier / Grant number: BCS EAGER DEL – 1748590

Acknowledgments

We extend our sincere gratitude to our native speaker consultants: Mary Akum, Kwami Amedzro, Vivian Anka, Edward Antwi, Raymond Dzakpo, Nelson Howusu, Peace Kordzokpo, and Dickson Ogordor. We would also like to thank Kofi Dorvlo for material, scholarly, and logistical support, the audience of ACAL 50 at the University of British Columbia, and two very helpful anonymous JALL reviewers. Any and all errors in this article are our responsibility.

Research funding: The research for this article was supported by a grant from the National Science Foundation (BCS EAGER DEL – 1748590), which we gratefully acknowledge. Our project, “Training and Text Collection as a Vehicle for Recruiting and Retaining Endangered Language Fieldworkers,” also included work on Avatime (ISO 639-3: avn), in collaboration with Harold Torrence, Travis Major, Blake Lehman, and Kerrianne Devlin.

References

Aboh, Enoch. 2004. The morphosyntax of complement-head sequences: Clause structure and word order patterns in Kwa. Oxford: Oxford University Press.10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195159905.001.0001Search in Google Scholar

Baron Obi, Bertille. 2019a. Vowel hiatus and prosodic structure in Ikpana (Logba). Ms. Georgetown University.Search in Google Scholar

Baron Obi, Bertille. 2019b. Vowel hiatus and prosodic structure in Ikpana. Poster presented at the 50th annual conference on African linguistics. Vancouver: University of British Columbia.Search in Google Scholar

Boersma, Paul & David Weenink. 2017. Praat: doing phonetics by computer [Computer program]. Version 6.0.31. Search in Google Scholar

Corver, Norbert. 1990. The syntax of left branch extractions. Tilburg: Katholieke Universiteit Brabant dissertation.10.1515/9783110849998-004Search in Google Scholar

d’Avis, Franz-Josef. 1995. On wh- islands in German. In Uli Lutz & Jürgen Pafel (eds.), On extraction and extraposition in German, 89–120. Amsterdam: John Benjamins.Search in Google Scholar

d’Avis, Franz-Josef. 2000. On the wh- expletive was in German. In Uli Lutz, Gereon Müller & Arnim von Stechow (eds.), Wh- scope marking, 131–155. Amsterdam: John Benjamins.10.1075/la.37.06davSearch in Google Scholar

d’Avis, Franz-Josef. 2001. On the interpretation of certain wh-clauses in German. In Klaus von Heusinger & Kerstin Schwabe (eds.), Information structure and the referential status of linguistic expressions, 1–21. ZAS Papers in Linguistics 23.10.21248/zaspil.23.2001.108Search in Google Scholar

Dorvlo, Kofi. 2004. A preliminary phonology of Logba. In Mary E. Kropp Dakubu & E. Kweku Osam (eds.), Studies in the languages of the Volta basin 2, 239–249. Legon: Department of Linguistics, University of Ghana.Search in Google Scholar

Dorvlo, Kofi. 2007. Serial verb construction in Logba. In Pepijn Hendiks, Felix Rau, Katerǐna Součkova & Jenneke van der Wal (eds.), Leiden papers in linguistics, Vol. 4, 1–16.3.Search in Google Scholar

Dorvlo, Kofi. 2008. A grammar of Logba (Ikpana). Leiden University dissertation. Utrecht: LOT.Search in Google Scholar

Dorvlo, Kofi. 2009a. Focus in Logba. Journal of West African Languages 36. 91–106.Search in Google Scholar

Dorvlo, Kofi. 2009b. Noun class system and agreement patterns in Logba (Ikpana). In Leo Wetzels (ed.), The linguistics of endangered languages: Contribution to morphology and morpho-syntax, 243–266. Utrecht: LOT.Search in Google Scholar

Dorvlo, Kofi. 2010. Property verbs in Ikpana. In Mary E. Dakubu, Nana Aba Amfo, Kofi K. Saah & Akanlig-Pare George (eds.), Studies in the languages of the Volta basin 6, part 1: Verbs and adjectives, 1–10. Legon: Department of Linguistics, University of Ghana.Search in Google Scholar

Dorvlo, Kofi. 2011a. Logba-English-Ewe dictionary. Accra: University of Ghana Press.Search in Google Scholar

Dorvlo, Kofi. 2011b. Locative constructions and positional verbs in Logba. Legon Journal of the Humanities 22. 107–128.Search in Google Scholar

Duncan, Philip T., Harold Torrence, Travis Major & Jason Kandybowicz. To appear. Managing data for theoretical syntactic study of a language. In Andrea Berez-Kroeker, Bradley McDonnell, Eve Koller & Lauren Collister (eds.), Open handbook of linguistic data management, 524–530. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.Search in Google Scholar

Eberhard, David M., Gary F. Simons & Charles D. Fennig. 2019. Ethnologue: Languages of the world, 22 edn. Dallas, TX: SIL International.Search in Google Scholar

Fanselow, Gisbert. 2006. Partial movement. In Martin Everaert, Henk van Riemsdijk, Rob Goedemans & Bart Hollebrandse (eds.), The Blackwell companion to syntax, vol. 3, 437–492. London: Blackwell Publishing.10.1002/9780470996591.ch47Search in Google Scholar

Green, Lydia J. 2009. A preliminary linguistic analysis of plant names in Ikpaná (Logba), an endangered Ghana-Togo Mountain language. Independent Study Project (ISP) Collection. 751.Search in Google Scholar

Hartmann, Katharina & Tonjes Veenstra. 2013. Cleft structures. Amsterdam: John Benjamins.10.1075/la.208Search in Google Scholar

Henderson, Brent. 2011. African languages and syntactic theory: Impacts and directions. In Eyamba G. Bokamba, Ryan K. Shosted & Bezza Tesfaw Ayalew (eds.), Selected proceedings of the 40th annual conference on African linguistics, 15–25. Somerville, MA: Cascadilla Proceedings Project.Search in Google Scholar

Kandybowicz, Jason. 2017. On prosodic variation and the distribution of wh- in-situ. Linguistic Variation 17. 111–148. https://doi.org/10.1075/lv.17.1.06kan.Search in Google Scholar

Kandybowicz, Jason. 2019. Diagnosing restrictivity and non-restrictivity in (Ikpana) relative clauses. Talk presented at New York University. November 22.Search in Google Scholar

Kandybowicz, Jason. 2020. Anti-contiguity: A theory of wh- prosody. New York: Oxford University Press.10.1093/oso/9780197509739.001.0001Search in Google Scholar

Kandybowicz, Jason & Philip T. Duncan. 2020. Diagnosing restrictivity and non-restrictivity in Ikpana relative clauses. Ms. The Graduate Center, CUNY and University of Kansas.Search in Google Scholar

Kandybowicz, Jason & Harold Torrence. 2017. The role of theory in documentation: Intervention effects and missing gaps in the Krachi documentary record. In Jason Kandybowicz & Harold Torrence (eds.), Africa’s endangered languages: Documentary and theoretical approaches, 187–205. New York: Oxford University Press.Search in Google Scholar

Katsuda, Hironori. 2020. Tonal structure and boundary intonation in Ikpana (Logba). Los Angeles: Ms. University of California.Search in Google Scholar

Potsdam, Eric. 2009. Austronesian verb-initial languages and wh-question strategies. Natural Language and Linguistic Theory 27. 737–771. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11049-009-9078-0.Search in Google Scholar

Rizzi, Luigi. 2001. On the position int(errogative) in the left periphery of the clause. In Guglielmo Cinque & Giampaolo Salvi (eds.), Current studies in Italian syntax: Essays offered to Lorenzo Renzi, 287–296. Amsterdam: Elsevier North-Holland.10.1163/9780585473949_016Search in Google Scholar

Shlonsky, Ur & Gabriela Soare. 2011. Where’s ‘why’? Linguistic Inquiry 42. 651–669. https://doi.org/10.1162/ling_a_00064.Search in Google Scholar

Torrence, Harold & Jason Kandybowicz. 2015. Wh- question formation in Krachi. Journal of African Languages and Linguistics 36. 253–286. https://doi.org/10.1515/jall-2015-0011.Search in Google Scholar

Torrence, Harold, Kerrianne Devlin, Blake Lehman & Travis Major. 2019. Wh- interrogatives in Avatime. Talk presented at the 50th annual conference on African linguistics. Vancouver: University of British Columbia.Search in Google Scholar

Westermann, Diedrich. 1903. Die Logbasprache in Togo kurzer abriss der grammatik und texte. Zeitschift für afrikanische ozeanische und ostasiatische Sprachen: mit besonderer Berucksichtigung D. Deutschen Kolonien vol. 7, 23–39.Search in Google Scholar

Published Online: 2021-10-14

Published in Print: 2021-05-26

You are currently not able to access this content.

Articles in the same Issue

https://doi.org/10.1515/jall-2021-2016

Keywords for this article

cleft constructions; endangered language documentation; focus constructions; Ikpana; interrogative intonation; polar questions; wh- interrogatives; wh- movement; wh- in-situ