This book provides an account of the structure of A-bar constructions, focusing on wh-questions and fragment answers in Dagbani, a Mabia (Gur) language spoken in Northern Ghana. It demonstrates that Dagbani wh-phrases occur in two distinct positions, ex-situ and in-situ, except for subject wh-phrases, which only occur in the former position. It provides a theoretical analysis of the distribution of the wh-phrases couched within minimalism (Chomsky 1995). Finally, the book gives an account of the structural correlation between wh-questions and their answers with the focus on the syntactic…mehr
This book provides an account of the structure of A-bar constructions, focusing on wh-questions and fragment answers in Dagbani, a Mabia (Gur) language spoken in Northern Ghana. It demonstrates that Dagbani wh-phrases occur in two distinct positions, ex-situ and in-situ, except for subject wh-phrases, which only occur in the former position. It provides a theoretical analysis of the distribution of the wh-phrases couched within minimalism (Chomsky 1995). Finally, the book gives an account of the structural correlation between wh-questions and their answers with the focus on the syntactic derivation of fragment answers. The author contends that the derivation of fragment answer involves two processes: A-bar movement together with PF-deletion
Produktdetails
Produktdetails
Schriften zur Afrikanistik / Research in African Studies 30
Samuel Alhassan Issah is a senior lecturer at the College of Languages Education, University of Education, Winneba/Ghana. He holds a PhD in linguistics awarded by the Goethe University, Frankfurt am Main, and a Master of Philosophy in Theoretical Linguistics awarded by the University of Tromsoe, Norway. His research interests include information structure (focus realizations) of Dagbani and related languages, structure of Dagbani and related languages, the syntax of elliptical phenomena, and the syntax of anaphoric expressions.
Inhaltsangabe
General introduction
The grammar of the Dagbani interrogative DP
The syntax of Dagbani ex-situ wh-questions
A syntactic analysis of Dagbani wh-in-situquestions
Constraints on wh-movement in Dagban
On the syntax of answers to wh-questions and the derivation of fragment answers