linguistics anii syntax adverbials aspect aspectual reference ghana-togo-mountian language fieldwork cartographic theory
Abstract:
This thesis presents novel fieldwork and the first analysis of the adverbials shɩ, cɔɔ, and caa in Anii, an understudied Ghana-Togo-Mountian language spoken in Togo and Benin. Shɩ is a marker of aspectual emphasis, and emphasizes the aspectual reference of the clause. Cɔɔ is a marker of aspectual certainty, and marks that the speaker is certain of the aspectual reference of the clause. Caa is a marker of interdiction and mockery, and indicates that the speaker acknowledges that the action or state denoted by the predicate is contrary to the listener’s wants. Syntactically, these adverbials merge in the specifier position of the functional head they semantically relate to, following Cinque (1999). Shɩ and cɔɔ enter into a spec/head relation with AspP, and caa enters into a spec/head rela- tionship with ModP. This analysis accounts for the semantic meaning of each adverbial, as well as accurately predicting the observed word order of the markers.
