Typological Features Template for Akan (Twi)
Revision as of 15:31, 18 November 2009 by Joana Portia (Talk | contribs)
By Joana Portia Antwi-Danso
| Feature | Description |
| Phonological Features | In this field I describe the phonological inventory of Twi. |
| Vowel inventory | In this field I describe the vowels of Twi. See below:
Twi has ten vowels.They are /a, e, ɛ, ɪ, æ, u, ʊ, i, o ɔ/ Seven of them are written,/a, e, ɛ, i, u, o, ɔ/ but three/ɪ, æ, ʊ/ are not written. These three are normally represented by other vowel sounds autographically. |
| Vowel harmony | In this field I describe rule based assimilations involving vowels in [your language] |
| Consonant inventory | In this field you describe the consonants of [your language] |
| Tone | In this field you indicate if [your language] is a tone language and which tones are used; does [your language] have lexical tone? |
| Syllable Structure | In this field you indicate the basic syllable structures of [your language]. |
| Morpho-syntactic Features | In the following fields I describe some of the basic morpho-syntactic parameters of Twi |
| morphological classification (1) | Twi is mildly inflectional. There is a noun prefix and some verbal inflection indicating tense and aspect as well as negation. |
| morphological classification (2) | In Twi the subject and the verb do not agree.But there is some agreement with the nominal head in noun phrases. See below. |
| Nominal Phrases | In the following fields I describe some of the morpho-syntactic properties of nominal constituents |
| syntactic structure | In this field you describe the linear order of elements in the noun phrase |
| nominal modification | In this field you indicate the basic types of nominal modification (adjectives, relative clauses, adpositions...) |
| nominal specification | In this field you indicate the basic types of specification. Does [your language] have determiners, demonstratives (deixis), numerals, quantifiers. Are there affixes expressing reference, deixis. Are there nouns or other elements expression a portion of a noun that the co-occur with? |
| possession | In this field you describe how possession is expressed (for example, syntactically or by use of prepositions, through juxtaposition or morphologically) Does [your language] feature possessive pronouns? |
| pronominal system | In this field you indicate if [your language] has free pronoun forms? Are pronouns marked for their grammatical function (object versus subject pronouns)? Does your language have bound pronouns (affixes) or pronoun doubling? Are reflexives expressed by pronouns? |
| Verbal Phrases | In the following fields serve for the description of some of the basic morpho-syntactic properties of verbal constituents |
| word order | In this field you indicate the basic word order of your language (SOV, SOV ...) |
| TAM | In this field you indicate which tense and/or aspects are morphologically or tonally marked; does [your language] make use of periphrastic tense or aspect constructions? |
| infinitival forms | In this field you indicate if [your language] makes use of an infinitive marker? How many infinitival forms does your language have? |
| verbal constructions | In this field you indicate if [your language] has ditransitive constructions, serial verb constructions or complex verb forms composed of several verbs. Does your language have so called light verbs, perhaps only used to indicate a certain tense or aspect? |
| Adpositions | In this field you indicate if [your language[ makes use of prepositions or postpositions. Does your language have spatial nouns? Does your language use adpositions or particles to indicate grammatical relations between the verb and a nominal argument? |
| Complementation | In this field you describe complementation strategies. Does [your language] make use of complementizers? |
| Special Properties of [your language] | In this field you should mention properties of [your language] which did not fit into any of the other categories mentioned in this template |