Typological Features Template for Akan

By Lilian Haugereid

To cite this page see footnote

The following Typological Feature Template covers some phonological features of Akan.

Feature	Description
Phonological Features	In the following I will describe the phonological inventory of Akan and the features that its dialects share. Some of these dialects are Asante, Fante and Akuapem as well as Bono. Dialects of Akan are mainly characterized by phonological differences, but other difference can also be described. The account we are providing here is directed towards a description of the grammatical features that all dialects of Akan share.
Vowel Inventory	Vowels in Akan are described here under five headings: oral, nasalised, and long vowels, diphthongs, and vowel harmony (or vowel combinations across syllables). The table below shows an overview of the vowels in the language. Orthography Phonetic Symbols +ATR -ATR i i i e ɪ/e e ɪ ɛ ɛ ɛ a æ/a æ a ɔ ɔ ɔ o o/ʊ o ʊ u u u Oral Vowels Akan has 9 or 10 oral vowels, depending on the dialect: [e,ɔ,a,o,ɛ i,u,ɪ,æ,ʊ ]. Vowel [æ] is only used in the Asante and the Akuapem dialects. So you can see from the example below that, where Akuapem and Asante use [æ] Fante uses [e] Asante/Akuapem Ph.Trans Asante/Akuapem Fante PH.Trans Fante English ani /æni/ enyiwa /enyiwa/ 'eyes' In the orthography, the letters e and o represent two contrastive vowels each: e represents both [e] and [ɪ], and o represents both [o] and [ʊ]. For example 1: Akan Ph.Trans English Akan Ph.Trans English te(w) /tɪ(w)/ 'to tear' kɛsi /kɛsɪ/ 'big' fie /fie/ 'home' esiw/esie /(esiw)(esie)/ 'ant hill' to(w) /tʊw/ 'to throw' horo /hʊhʊ/ 'to wash' obi /obi/ 'someone' ako /ako/ 'parrot' NB"Ph.Trans" refers to phonetic transcription. As can be seen from example 1 above, the vowel e in orthography represents vowels /ɪ/ and /e/, and the vowel o represents /o/, and/ʊ/. Example 2a Bosome aso “The month has ended” Bosome bosome monthSBJ N aso a so be Up V Example 2b Me tu kwan bronya yi “I will travel this christmas” Me me meSBJ PN tu tu takeFUT Vtr kwan kwan travel N bronya bronya christmasOBJ N yi yi thisDEF DEM The two sentences above examplify the two contrastive vowels [e]=/e,ɪ/ and [o]= /o,ʊ/. They can be transcribed respectively as follows: 2a. /bʊsʊmɪ asʊ/ 2b. /me tu kwan bronya yi/ So in any written Akan text, you will find some of these 7 vowel letters: i e ɛ a ɔ o u, used in the Akan sentence below. Example 3: Esi bɛkɔ owura no hɔ “Esi will go to the gentleman” Ési´ Esi esiSBJ N bɛ́kɔ́ bɛ́ kɔ́ FUT go V oˋwuˋraˋ owura gentlemanOBJ N noˋ no DEF DET hɔ´ hɔ thereDXSDIST PN In example 3, we have the occurrence of all 7 vowel letters in Akan. It can also be mentioned here that the vowels carry tone(s). This will be discussed later under "Tone", However, the two different sets of Akan vowels based on ATR is discussed under "Vowel Harmony" below. B. Nasalised Vowels Nasalisation in Akan can be contrastive: as a result of assimilation nasality can spread to following vowels. There are five nasalised vowels in Akan; and they are: ἶ, ĩ, ã, ῦ, and ũ Example 4: Fante Asante Akuapem English hũ - hu hũ - hu hũw - huw see - blow (air) (Dolphyne 1988:4) In tha Akan word below; the nasal [ŋ] spreads to the sounds following it including the vowel [a]. nkwa: /ŋ̃kʷã/ - 'life' NB: Vowels [e, ɛ, ɔ, o] are not normally nasalised in Akan, however [ɛ], and [ɔ] can be nasalised in the Fante dialects when they occur as neighbours with nasal consonants, [m] and [n] in a word or a phrase. C. Long Vowels Long vowels can determine meaning. Akan orthography represents long vowels by doubling the letter that represents the vowel. Examples 5: Akan English Akan English da sleep daa everyday sa dance saa exactly kɔ go kɔɔ red The following table represents which Akan vowel can be lengthtend and which ones can be nasalised. Example 6: Vowels Oral vowel English Long vowel English Nasal English Long Nasal English * i ti head/chase tii chased tἷ scratch tἷἷ scratched * ɪ fɪ go out fɪɪ cameout fĩ ribs e hwe to suck hwee zero ɛ sɛ resempble sɛɛ resembled * u pu spit puu spat pũ reject/smoke pũũ rejected/smoked * ʊ tʊ throw tʊʊ threw tῦ bake/roast tῦῦ roasted/baked * a ka bite kaa bit kã drive/say kãã drove/said æ æni eyes dææbi no o som worship apoo cheating ɔ kɔ go kɔɔ went D. Diphthongs As can be seen in example 7, the verb 'dae' has the vowels [a] and and [ɪ] articulated by the tongue gliding from the central part of the mouth to the middle front part. Example 7: Yaa dae “Yaa slept” Yaa yaa YaaSBJ Np dae da e sleep PAST Vitr
Vowel harmony	Akan has +ATR and -ATR vowels: Set A(+ATR) [i, e, æ, o, u] Set B(-ATR) [ɪ, ɛ, a, ɔ, ʊ] The +ATR and -ATR vowels can not co-occur. There should be harmony in the occurence of the vowels in the same word, meaning that vowels of one set (either +ATR or -ATR) can co-occur. The +ATR vowels are produced by pushing the root of the tongue forward and the -ATR vowels on the other hand, are produced by pushing the root of the tongue backwards. Example 8 shows some Akan words where there is harmony of vowel as a result of the advanced tongue root restriction. Example 8: +ATR English -ATR English /koko/ 'chest' /kɔkɔ(w)/ 'red' /Kun(u)/ 'husband' /kʊn/ 'neck' /efie/ 'home' /afɪ/ 'year' /adi/ 'has eaten' /ædɪ/ 'thing' Harmony Exceptions: There are few words in Akan that deviates from the harmony rule. The unadvanced vowel /a/ is known to usually occur in such words. However /ɛ/ too does deviate sometime. The following are examples of such deviations. Akan English sika 'money' kura 'to hold' dua 'to plant' nyinsɛn 'to be pregnant' pinkyɛn 'come close' ohia 's/he needs' In summary, these are the vowels and their names in Akan: i Advanced High Front ɪ Unadvanced High Front e Advanced Mid Front ɛ Unadvanced Mid Front æ Advanced Low Central a Undvanced Low Central o Adavnced Mid Back ɔ Unadvanced Mid Back u Advanced High Back ʊ Unadvanced High Back
Consonant inventory	Akan has 16 consonants: [j, w, p, b, f, d, t, s, m, n, k, kʷ, h, hʷ, g, gʷ]. The table below gives the articulation of these consonants: Bilabial Labiodentals Alveolar Pre-palatal Palatal Velar Glottal Stop p,b t,d k/kʷ,g/gʷ ʔ Fricative f s ɕ(hy) h Labialized Fricatives (-Voice) ɕʷ(hw) Affricate ʥ(gy)/ʨ(ky) Labialized affricate ʨʷ,ʥʷ Lateral(voiced) l Nasal(voiced) m n ɲ(ny) ŋ(n) Labialized Nasal (voiced) ɲʷ(nw) ŋʷ(nw) Glide (voiced) r y w Some consonants are palatalized or labialized in Akan as in the words; kyerɛ - /ʨɪrɛ/, 'to show' and dwene - /ʥʷɪnɪ/ 'to think'. There is also free variation especially for the consonants [d],[r] and [l] as in the following Akan words: àkwàdàá, àkwàlàá or àkwàràá, all meaning 'a child'
Tone	Akan is a tone language and it also has downdrift. Tone can determine meaning in Akan. In the following Akan words, its is the tone that shows difference in the meaning of the words. Example 9: pàpà father pápá good pàpá fan Akan has two types of downsteps; automatic dwonstep and non-automatic downstep. In a sequence of a High-Low-High sequence, the second high tone is downstepped oir lowered in pitch than the first one. For example: 10 Ama fɛre “Ama is shy” Ama àmá amaSBJ N fɛ̀ré fɛ̀ré shy V Example 10 above has a tonal sequence: High-Low-ꜜhigh, meaning that the second high tone is downstepped as a result of the middle low tone. 11 below illustrates a gradual drop of tone in an Akan sentence with Low-High tone sequence. Example 11 Odi nokware dabiara “S/he is truthful all the time” Odi ò dí s/he3SG speak V nokware nokware truthOBJ N dabiara dabiara everyday ADVtemp
Syllable Structure	In Akan the syllable structure can be described in terms of tone apart from consonants (C), and vowels (V). It has V, CV and C syllables. The C syllable, which is a syllabic consonant always bears a tone. There are however no VC or CVC syllable types in Akan. Meaning that, it does not have syllables ending in consonants. Examples 12: a. V-syllable: ɔsa - ɔˋ-sá - 's/he dances' ohui- ò-hù-í - 'he saw it' b. CV-syllable: kɔ - kɔ´- 'go' c. C-syllable: nsuo - ǹ-sù-ó - 'water' som - sò-ḿ - 'hold it' nkwa - ŋˋ- kʷá - 'life' etsir - è-tsí-ŕ - 'head' Akan has syllabic nasals which are often realised as plural markers in nouns and negative markers in verbs. For example:13 Mbɔfra no anfa ntɛ no anto ambɔ wɔn “The children did not pick marbles and throw them at them.” Mbɔfra m bɔfra PL child N no no DEF DET anfa a n fa PAST NEG take V ntɛ n tɛ PL marble N no no DEF DET anto a n to PAST NEG throw V ambɔ a m bɔ PAST NEG hit V wɔn wɔn them3PLOBJ PN Asante has open syllables but Fante and Akuapem may have close syllables. For example; Asante: kai - 'to read' Fante and Akuapem: kan - 'to read'

References

Dolphyne, Florence A. 1988. The Akan (Twi-Fante) language: Its sound systems and tonal structure. Accra, Ghana: Ghana Universities Press. |-