User:Johnson
Name: Johnson Baah
Programme: MPhil in Linguistics
Institution: Norwegian University of Science and Technology(NTNU), Trondheim, Norway
Nationality: Ghanaian
MA thesis: THE MEANING OF BONO (BRONG) VERBS (2008). Norwegian University of Science and Technology.
Background: Bono is a dialect of Akan spoken in the Brong Ahafo Region and in Ivory Coast. An alternative name for Bono is Brong, which is quite popular among Ghanian linguists. Within the Brong Ahafo Region, every traditional area attaches its name to the dialect thus reflecting the various sub-dialects of Bono. For example, Dormaa Bono, Techiman Bono, Nkronza Bono etc.
The dialect of Bono spoken in Ivory Coast is called ABRON, and it seems that this name has received more international recognition than BONO (BRONG). See for example the following entry on Ethnologue
The Meaning of Bono Verbs- Abstract
Three major issues are central to this study: inherent complement verbs, defective verbs and transitive-ditransitive alternations that cause semantic ambiguity. The thesis is descriptive. The data treated can be viewed in TypeCraft by searching for Abron.
Investigating the meaning of 30 verbs in context I try to identify homonyms and to describe polysemy. In same cases semantic concepts that underlie seemingly distinct meanings could be identified.
The verbs bu ‘respect’, boa ‘lying’, de ‘called’, ho ‘get it’ are so-called defective verbs, that is, they do not allow all inflectional forms available to Bono verbs but may only occur in the present form or in an imperative construction.
Finally, some ditransitive verbs may occur in a transitive frame which may lead to additional ambiguity. This makes their interpretation difficult, and I discuss some of these alternations and their semantic implications.