Volume 70, Issue 2 - Special Issue: The Ghana-Togo Mountain languages, Issue Editor: Felix K. Ameka

The genetic unity and lineage of a group of fifteen languages spoken in the mountains of the Ghana-Togo border with an outlier across the Togo-Benin border have been debated for over a century. Some have concluded that they are not a genetic group. Instead they are a geographical and socio-cultural grouping (see Ian Maddieson 1998, Collapsing vowel harmony and doubly-articulated fricatives: Two myths about the phonology of Avatime. In Ian Maddieson & Thomas J. Hinnebusch (eds.), Language history and linguistic description in Africa , 155–166. Trenton: Africa World Press) or a typological grouping masquerading as a genetic unit (Roger Blench 2009, Do the Ghana-Togo mountain languages constitute a genetic group? Journal of West African Languages 36(1/2). 19–36). This paper investigates the latter claim. We argue that even though the languages share some typological features, there is enormous diversity among the languages such that they do not constitute a typological grouping by themselves. We examine four phonological and twelve morpho-syntactic features to show the convergence and divergence among the languages. We argue that while some of the features are inherited from higher level proto languages e.g. the noun class systems, others are contact-induced and yet others in their specificities could be seen as arising due to internal parallel development in the individual languages.

The linguistic history of the Ghana-Togo Mountain (GTM) languages, spoken in southeastern Ghana and the southern half of Togo, has been the subject of detailed research for more than a century. Nevertheless, there are still problems both with the external and the internal classification of the group. The present paper provides a state of the art overview of this research field. It is argued that linguistic reconstructions that can claim to provide credible hypotheses on genetic relationship patterns among languages are best based on the application of the comparative method.

This paper is concerned with defining the genetic position of the Ghana-Togo Mountain (GTM) languages, formerly known as the Togorestsprachen , later the Central Togo languages, in relation to what are currently known as the Kwa languages. It explores the possible genetic relationship of the languages now referred to as “Ghana-Togo Mountain” languages to the Potou-Tano languages, as an initial step towards defining their relationship towards all the languages of the area. Probably nobody today questions that the languages are all related, all being classifiable as Niger-Congo, but the problem is, how are they related? The paper does not conclusively prove that GTM languages belong to the family denoted by the node label “Potou-Tano”, but evidence adduced makes it seem very likely. It also shows that on the basis of several sound shifts it is reasonable to regard GTM as a genetic group within Potou-Tano. There is no clear evidence that the NA group of GTM is any more closely related to Tano than the KA group. An obvious next step is a proper comparison of the Tano and GTM noun class systems.

In the typology of motion lexicalization, two types of languages have traditionally been distinguished: satellite-framed and verb-framed. Serializing languages are difficult to fit into this typology and have been claimed to belong to a third type: equipollently framed. In this paper I use grammatical criteria to show that Avatime, a serializing language, should indeed be classified as equipollently framed. I also study motion descriptions in narratives. Avatime is similar to other serializing languages with respect to path elaboration, but unlike other serializing languages, it has low manner saliency. Equipollently framed languages thus do not behave as a single type.

Siwu, a Ghana-Togo Mountain language spoken in Volta Region, Ghana, is a lexical tone language with three level tones, Low, High and Extra-high. Siwu has three distinct end-tones to mark positive-imperatives, non-WH-interrogatives, and negatives, and an additional end-tone to mark emphatic questions. All words form four tone classes – those with final Low tones which do not affect following tones, and three other classes, two of which assimilate following tones, and one which dissimilates following High and Extra-high tones. Two floating tones are posited: an Extra-high tone as an emp marker and a High tone as a poss marker to explain the changes affecting NP poss +NP structures.

Ideophones are often described as words that are highly expressive and morphosyntactically marginal. A study of ideophones in everyday conversations in Siwu (Kwa, eastern Ghana) reveals a landscape of variation and change that sheds light on some larger questions in the morphosyntactic typology of ideophones. This article documents a trade-off between expressiveness and morphosyntactic integration, with high expressiveness linked to low integration and vice versa. It also describes a pathway for deideophonization and finds that frequency of use influences the degree to which ideophones can come to be more like ordinary words. The findings have implications for processes of (de)ideophonization, ideophone borrowing, and ideophone typology. A key point is that the internal diversity we find in naturally occurring data, far from being mere noise, is patterned variation that can help us to get a handle on the factors shaping ideophone systems within and across languages.