The Akan verb kɔ

To cite this page see footnote ^[1]

The verbs bɛ and kɔ

The verbs bɛ and kɔ occur as independent verbs, meaning come and go respectively. Sometimes however they are used to convey functional information, of aspectual nature, or information tied to deixis. There is a third use of kɔ which occurs when it proceeds a noun denoting a location. In this case Kɔ seems to express directionality. In the following we will only discuss kɔ, leaving the discussion of bɛ for another occasion.

TypeCraft hosts at this point (December 2012) 41 Akan sentences that contain kɔ.

The Akan corpus has 1029 sentences, 134 contain kɔ, either as a word or as a morpheme.--Dorothee Beermann 06:51, 3 October 2013 (UTC)
Te Akan  corpus contains 149 instances of  kɔ, either as a word or as a morpheme --Dorothee Beermann 20:14, 9 May 2014 (UTC)

Kɔ either is an independent verb, or a verbal prefix. You can search for phrases containing kɔ in several ways. For example enter kɔ into the field: 'Baseform' which you find under the heading Morpheme Level. A list of sentences containing kɔ will appear, the number of sentences found is displayed in the upper left corner of your browser. Each found sentence is listed together with information about the annotator and the date the information was changed last. For the following discussion we have exported relevant examples from corpus to this page. The EXPORT TO WIKI function is accessible for all annotators from the TC Editor. Go to "Phrases" on the tool tab, click and choose export to wiki.

Kɔ as an independent verb

Let us first look at sentence (1) and (2) which exemplify the use of kɔ as a main verb meaning go.

(1)

nkɔ

“Don't go.”

n`kɔ´
n	kɔ
NEGIMP	go
Vitr

The first sentence is a negated imperative while the second sentence shows kɔ in the cannonical position for Akan verbs in single headed sentences. Akan is an SVO language. As one would expect kɔ inflects like any other verb in Akan. In (2) the suffix is glossed as PAST standing for past tense. Osam argues in several articles that Akan verbs inflect for aspect rather than for tense ^[2] (2)

Kɔ as a spatial expression

The next three sentences illustrate that kɔ describes locomotion as well as 'directedness' towards a given endpoint. That kɔ also expresses a manner of motion seems back grounded.

(3) (3) means that Ato went with sɛnkuo to town.

(4)

hwansena no akɔ si papa no atifi.

“the fly has gone to sit on top of the man's head”

hwansena

3SGSBJ

N

no

DEF

DET

akɔ
a	kɔ
PRF	go
V1

si

descend

V2

papa

man3SGOBJ

N

no

DEF

DET

atifi
ati	fi
head	top
Nrel

Sentence (4) kɔ is used to express the sitting down aspect of the flies landing on the mans head.

Kɔ may combine with expressions of manner of movement as shown in sentence (5) where the verb dwane occurs.Dwaneintroduces the manner of movement while Kɔ introduces, as its argument, the noun that denotes the endpoint of the motion. In (5) Akan follows a satellite marking pattern, using Talmy's terminology [1975]. The only difference other cases of satellite-marking is that the 'satellite'-phrase is headed by a verbal predicate rather than by a prepositional one.

The third meaning of Kɔ

In its third function Kɔ appears as a grammatical marker of some sort. It seems that in this function it may either occur as an independent verb or as a verbal prefix. So far TC-annotators have chosen to gloss Kɔ when occuring in this capacity as INGR, standing for ingressive. Ingressive in this context means to 'entering into an event'. This classifies Kɔ as an aspectual marker.

However, we are at this point not sure if this is the right annotation and invite comments that will help us to do justice to what we call here the aspectual use of Kɔ . So please consider example (8) to (13) below

(8)

Nkansa atu akɔtena Ahafo sε nhwεsoni.

“Nkansa has travelled to live Ahafo as a caretaker.”

Nkansa

nkansa

Np

atu
a	tu
PFV	fly
V

akɔtena
a	kɔ	tena
CONS	DIR	sit
V

Ahafo

ahafo

N

sε

like

V

nhwεsoni
n	hwεson	ni
Npref	takingCare	SGNMLZAGT
N

(9)

Mmrahyεbεdwani he de nkondwa akɔma asɔre he.

“The member for parliment has donated chairs to the church.”

Mmrahyεbεdwani
mmra	hyε	bεdwa	ni
law	make	council	NMLZ
N

he

DEF

DET

de

use

V

nkondwa
n	kondwa
PL	chair
N

akɔma
a	kɔ	ma
PFV	INGR	give
V

asɔre

church

N

he

DEF

ART

(10)

Bɛɛkɔhwe aburaa no.

“They are going to drain the stream.”

bɛɛkɔhwe
bɛ	ɛ	kɔ	hwe
theySBJ	PROG	go	drain
V

aburaa

streamOBJ

N

no

the

DET

(11)

Monkɔ nkɔkyeakyea.

“Go and greet them.”

Monkɔ
mo	n	kɔ
2PLSBJ	OPT	go
V

nkɔkyeakyea
n	kɔ	kyea	kyea
OPT	INGR	greet	greet
V

(12)

Boakye rekɔgye aba abεdi.

“Boakye is going to collect it, come back and eat it.”

Boakye

boakye

B.SBJ

N

rekɔgye
re	kɔ	gye
PROG	INGR	collect
V

aba
a	ba
CONS	come
V

abεdi
a	bε	di
CONS	INGR	eat
V

(13)

Yεεkɔgye yaba yabεdi.

“We are going to collect it, come back and eat it.”

Yεεkɔgye
yε	ε	kɔ	gye
1PLSBJ	PROG	INGR	collect
V

yaba
y	a	ba
3PLSBJ	CONS	come
V

yabεdi
y	a	bε	di
1PLSBJ	CONS	INGR	eat
V

We are not quite sure how we should annotate Kɔ in these cases. Any suggestions?

References

↑ Dorothee Beermann. 2012. The Akan verb kɔ. TypeCraft Grammar squib. http://www.typecraft.org. Accessed [DATE].
↑ OSAM, E. Kweku. 2003. An Introduction to the Verbal and Multi-verbal System of Akan. In Dorothee Beermann and Lars Hellan (eds.), Proceedings of the Workshop on Multi-verb Constructions. Trondheim Summer School 2003. Available from: http://www.ling.hf.ntnu.no/tross/TROSS03-toc.html

[1] Dorothee Beermann. 2012. The Akan verb kɔ. TypeCraft Grammar squib. http://www.typecraft.org. Accessed [DATE].

[2] OSAM, E. Kweku. 2003. An Introduction to the Verbal and Multi-verbal System of Akan. In Dorothee Beermann and Lars Hellan (eds.), Proceedings of the Workshop on Multi-verb Constructions. Trondheim Summer School 2003. Available from: http://www.ling.hf.ntnu.no/tross/TROSS03-toc.html

[1]

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