User:Helen Atipoka

My name is Helen Atipoka Adongo and I am a lecturer at the department of Gur-Gonja Education at the University of education,Winneba-Ghana.

I have an MPhil in Phonetics. The topic of my thesis was spectrographic analysis of Gurene short oral vowels. I did an acoustic description of the vowels of five major dialects of Gurene.The vowels of individual speakers were described by measuring their formant frequencies. The effect of age on formants was investigated and male and female formants compared.

I am currently working on expressions in Gurene that are either prosodically or syntactically prominent and serve in some sense to establish discourse coherence or to stress what in generative grammar is referred to as 'new' information. Being in the first stage of the research, I will for the time being use the term Focus to refer to the phenomena that I am interested in.

Focus in Gurene can be marked by the particles mɛ, n, ya, ti, ni,la, kɔ’ɔmor nuuri, as well as by vowel lengthening with tone raising at the end of a word. At this point it is unclear if all these particles are really focus markers as some of them seem to have some other grammatical functions.

At present a work on a thorough description of the relevant formatives and their meaning. I will use TypeCraft for a morpheme level annotation of relevant samples of text and discourse and Praat for the phoneme level annotation.

I hope to find out the following;

1. how many of these particles are real focus markers in farefari ? 2. do all the particles claimed to be focus markers have other functions apart from marking focus?

(1)Mɛ : (a) Pɔka la dɔgɛ mɛ

     Woman  DEF  give birth      FOC
    The woman has given birth

(b) Tia la lu mɛ

    tree    DEF    fall       FOC-PERF
    the tree has fallen

(c) buraa la zu mɛ

    MAN  DEF      STILL     FOC-PERF
    The  man has stolen

(2)Ni ¬ (a) Ba nyɔkɛ ni e

     they    catch   FOC  him/her 
      they caught him/her
(b) Ba     nyɔkɛ      ni      e              mɛ 
     they     catch     FOC  him/her   FOC-PERF
     they caught him/her
	(c) ba      ŋmɛ     ni        e
    they    beat     FOC   him/her 
    they  beat him /her
	(d) ba     ŋmɛ    ni        e             mɛ 
    they    beat   FOC   him/her   FOC-PERF
    They beat him/her   

(3) la (a) Pkà (b) Pká lá (c) Pká láá? Woman woman DEF-FOC woman FOC? Woman the woman the woman ? (a) kùkà (b) kùká lá (c) kúká láá? Chair chair DEF-FOC chair FOC ? chair the chair the chair ? (a) Mùì (b) Mùí lá (c) múi láá? rice rice DEF-FOC rice FOC ? rice the rice the rice ? kɔ’ɔm (4) kɔ’ɔm (i) Mam kɔ’ɔm di dia la za’a

     I           FOC     eat    food  DEF   all
     I ate all the food

(ii) Kɔ’ɔm kina kalam kalam

      FOC       walk   quick    quick
      Walk hurriedly 
(5) Questions and statements in farefari
     The definite article ‘‘la’’  becomes a focus marker in responses to questions. ‘‘wa’’also changes to ‘‘la’’ to mark focus. Examples are as follows ;

(1) Azuma n soi lo-katɛ la

     Azuma      who  owns  lorry-big  DEF 
     It is Azuma who owns the big lorry  

(2) Atia n sɔi loore wa? Aai, la de la Aduŋɔ dinɛ

     Atia    who  own   lorry   DEF?   No,    FOC    is    Aduŋɔ   own
      does this lorry belong to Atia?  No, it is Aduŋɔ’s 
      Azuma      n      sɔi      yire         la?   Aai,   la       de la   Asibi n  sɔi
       Azuma    who  own  house    DEF?  No,   FOC         is    Asibi    own
      Is the house Azuma’s ?    no,  it  is Asibi’s
(4)  Akolgo    n      sɔi      fu mɔlega  la?     Aai, Akolgo   fuu   la    de la 
      pɛɛlega
      Akolgo    who  owns  dress red    DEF?  No, Akolgo dress  FOC  is 
      white
      Is the red dress Akologo’s ?  No, Akologo’s dress is white

Vowel Lengthening These are also in statement and question form where we can have a statement turned to a questiion. In the questions, tone is raised and the final sound lengthen to change the statement to question and the question tag added to the end. (i) a. yì (b) n yíí? (ii) a. à yì bìà là (b) á yí biá láá? (iii) a. nykɛ buà là (b) n nykɛ buá láá? (iv) a. à dì dìà là (b) á dí diá láá? (v) a. à yè là yire (b) á yé lá yíréé? (vi) a. à kùlì mὲ (a) á kúlí mέ ?

(6) nuuri is used in constructions to emphasise on what one intends to put across. To contrast idea Examples are ; (i) Mam nɔŋɛ nenɔ

    I        like   meat

(ii) Mam nuuri mam nɔgɛ la mui

     I          FOC       I       like    FOC   rice
    As for me I like  rice

(iii) Iŋa nuuri a nɔŋɛ la nyɔa

      him/her   FOC      s/he    like    FOC   yam
      as for him/her, he/she likes yam

(iv) tumam nuuri tumam nɔŋɛ la ki

     us     FOC        we         like     FOC   millet

as for us , we like millet (v) bamam nuuri bamam nɔŋɛ la ziirɔ

    them       FOC      they      like    FOC   soup
    as for they, they like soup