Difference between revisions of "Typological Features Template for Akan"

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] Fanti uses [e]

         Asante/Akuapem   Ph.Trans  Fante    Ph.Trans     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)/   'tear'     kɛsi       /kɛsɪ/          'big'
         fie    /fie/     'home'     esiw/esie  /(esiw)(esie)/ 'anthill'
         to(w)  /tʊw/     'throw'     horo       /hʊhʊ/         '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/. So in any written Akan text, you will find these 7 vowel letters: i e ɛ a ɔ o u, as in the Akan sentence below.

Example 2:

In example 2, 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 is an important phonological feature in Akan. It can for example bring changes in meaning. There are five nasalised vowels and they are marked in transcription by placing (~), which is normally called the tilde, above the vowel.

These are the five nasalised vowels: ἶ, ĩ, ã, ῦ, and ũ

Example 3:
          Fante      Asante      Akuapem      English
          hũ - hu    hũ - hu     hũw - huw   see - blow (air) 
                                                
                                                (Dolphyne 1988:4)        

As a result of assimilation, a neighbouring nasal sound can give its nasalitiy quality to a vowel; as in this word:

            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.

 For Example 4:
           Akan   English    Akan     English
           

C. Long Vowels

Vowels in Akan can either be long or short. The length of the vowel can determine the meaning difference of some words in the language. In orthography, long vowels are represented by doubling them.

 Examples 5:
           Akan   English    Akan     English
           da      sleep     daa      everyday
           sa      dance     saa      exactly 
         * kɔ      go        kɔɔ      red

Verbs in Akan are inflected for completive aspect or past tense by lengthening the final vowel of the verb if it ends in a vowel. So in most of the verbs in completive aspect have long vowels at the end. This is exemplified in the last example with the asterisk under example 5.

It can also be mentioned here that all the oral vowels can be lenghtened. And all nasalised vowels except the unadvanced high front vowel [ɪ], can be lengthened. This is indicated by the examples below. The asterisks are on vowels that can be nasalised.

 Example 6:
           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 indicated above, the occurrence of identical vowels in an Akan word is considered as long vowels. There are also occurrence of sequences of nonidentical vowels. These are produced when the tongue glides from one articulation to another.

 Example 7:

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.

E. Disyllabic Vowel Combinations

The harmony of vowels is defined as the restriction on the occurence of certain vowels in the same word. In the production of Akan vowels, the position of the tongue determines whether a vowel has the feature "advanced tongue root" or "retracted tongue root", +ATR and -ATR respectively. The + Advanced Tongue root vowels are produced by pushing the root of the tongue forward. For the production of the unadvanced tongue root vowels. The root of the tongue is retracted or pushed backward.

           Set A(+ATR) [i, e, æ, o, u]

           Set B(-ATR) [ɪ, ɛ, a, ɔ, ʊ]

This feature places restrictions on the occurrence of vowels from set A and set B. Most Akan words have vowels from either set A or B.

Example 8:
           +ATR      English      -ATR      English
           /koko/   'chest'      /kɔkɔ(w)/   'red'
           /Kun(u)/ 'husband'    /kʊn/       'neck' 

           /efie/    'home'      /ɛfɪɛ/      'vomit'
          */adi/     'has eaten' /ædɪ/       'thing' 

So the vowels can be paired as below; those on the left +ATR and on the right -ATR. The front vowels are produced with the front, the central, the center of the tongue and the back, the back part of the tongue.

           Front    Central  Back
            i/ɪ      æ/a     o/ɔ
            e/ɛ              ʊ/u

Harmony Exceptions: The asterisk (*) placed on the last example under 'Example 8' is because of the occurrence of vowel /a/. In dialects that do not have /æ/, /a/ can occur in words with both Advanced or Unadvanced vowels.

The table below shows an overview of the vowels in the language.

   Orthography         Phonetic Symbols         Set A         Set B   
      i                   i                      i
      e                   ɪ                                   ɪ
      ɛ                   e                      e                 
                          ɛ                                   ɛ

      a                   æ                      æ
                          a                                   a
     
     
      ɔ                   ɔ                                   ɔ
      o                   o                      o
      u                   ʊ                                   ʊ
                          u                      u

In summary, these are the vowels and their names in Akan:

           i       Advanced High Front vowel
           ɪ       Unadvanced High Front vowel
           e       Advanced Mid Front vowel
           ɛ       Unadvanced Mid Front vowel
           æ       Advanced Low Central vowel
           a       Undvanced Low Central vowel
           o       Adavnced Mid Back vowel
           ɔ       Unadvanced Mid Back vowel
           u       Advanced High Back vowel
           ʊ       Unadvanced High Back vowel