Typological Features Template for Akan

Feature

Description

Phonological Features

In the following I will describe the phonological inventory of Akan and the features that its dialects share. Some of these dialects are Asante, Fante and Akuapem as well as Bono. Dialects of Akan are mainly characterized by phonological differences, but other difference can also be described. The account we are providing here is directed towards a description of the grammatical features that all dialects of Akan share.

Vowel Inventory

Vowels in Akan are described here under five headings: oral, nasalised, and long vowels, diphthongs, and vowel harmony (or vowel combinations across syllables).

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] Fante uses [e]

Asante/Akuapem	Ph.Trans Asante/Akuapem	Fante	PH.Trans Fante	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)/	'to tear'	kɛsi	/kɛsɪ/	'big'
fie	/fie/	'home'	esiw/esie	/(esiw)(esie)/	'ant hill'
to(w)	/tʊw/	'to throw'	horo	/hʊhʊ/	'to 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/.

Example 2a

Bosome aso

“The month has ended”

Bosome

bosome

monthSBJ

N

aso
a	so
be	Up
V

Example 2b

Me tu kwan bronya yi

“I will travel this christmas”

Me

me

meSBJ

PN

tu

takeFUT

Vtr

kwan

travel

N

bronya

christmasOBJ

N

yi

thisDEF

DEM

The two sentences above examplify the two contrastive vowels [e]=/e,ɪ/ and [o]= /o,ʊ/. They can be transcribed respectively as follows:

      2a. /bʊsʊmɪ asʊ/
      
      2b. /me tu kwan bronya yi/

So in any written Akan text, you will find some of these 7 vowel letters: i e ɛ a ɔ o u, used in the Akan sentence below.

Example 3:

Esi bɛkɔ owura no hɔ

“Esi will go to the gentleman”

Ési´

Esi

esiSBJ

N

bɛ́kɔ́
bɛ́	kɔ́
FUT	go
V

oˋwuˋraˋ

owura

gentlemanOBJ

N

noˋ

no

DEF

DET

hɔ´

hɔ

thereDXSDIST

PN

In example 3, 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:

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:

Vowels	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:

Yaa dae

“Yaa slept”

Yaa

yaa

YaaSBJ

Np

dae
da	e
sleep	PAST
Vitr

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.

Vowel harmony

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'	/afɪ/	'year'
/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: There are few words in Akan that deviates from the harmony rule. The unadvanced vowel /a/ is known to usually occur in such words. However /ɛ/ too does deviate sometime. The following are examples of such deviations.

Akan	English
sika	'money'
kura	'to hold'
dua	'to plant'
nyinsɛn	'to be pregnant'
pinkyɛn	'come close'
ohia	's/he needs'

We can see from the above examples that vowels /a/ occurred with the advanced vowels /i, u, o/ and /ɛ/ which is also -ATR, occurred with +ATR vowel /i/.

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

Consonant inventory

Akan is known to have 16 consonants: [j, w, p, b, f, d, t, s, m, n, k, kʷ, h, hʷ, g, gʷ]. The table below gives the general overview of these consonants:

             Bilabial   Labiodentals   Alveolar   Pre-palatal   Palatal   Velar      Glottal 
 Stop          p,b        --             t,d          --           --     k/kʷ,g/gʷ    ʔ
 
 Fricative     --         f              s            ç(hy)        --     --           h
 
 Labialized    --         --             --           çʷ(hw)       --     --          --              
 Fricatives
 (Voiceless)

 Affricate     --         --             --           ʨ(ky)        --     --          --                
                                                      ʥ(gy)
 Labialized
 Affricate     --         --             --           ʨʷ,ʥʷ        --     --          --

 Lateral
 (voiced)      --         --             l            --           --     --          --

 Nasal
 (voiced)      m          --             n            --           ɲ(ny)  ŋ(n)        --

 Labialized            
 Nasal         --         --             --           --           ɲʷ(nw) ŋʷ(nw)      --
 (voiced)

 Glide         --         --             r            --           y       w          --
 (voiced)

Akan consonants, just like other consonants in other languages are named depending on where they are produced in the mouth, the manner by which they were produced and whether there is the presence of voicing or not. Based on the above table, the consonants will be discussed in terms of the following:

A. Place of articulation: where the name of the consonant depends on which part of the mouth it is articulated.

 [p, b, m] are the Bilabial consonants because the are articulated with the two lips
 Example n:
           Akan   English   Akan    English    Akan    English
           /papa/  'father'  /ɔbaa/  'girl'     /maame/  'mother'

 [f] is the only Labio-dental consonant in Akan. It is articulated with the lower lip and the upper teeth.
 Example n:
           Akan   English  
           /fɛrɪ/   'shy'
  
 [t, d, s, l, n, r] are known as the Alveolar consonants because they are articulated with the tip of the tongue and the alveolar ridge.
 Example n:
           Akan   English   Akan    English    Akan    English
          /atadeɛ/ 'clothe' /sɪrɪ/  'laughs' /ɛnora/  'yesterday'
 
 [hy, hw, ky, gy]

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].

Typological Features Template for Akan - morpho-syntax