On the structure of A-bar constructions in Dagbani: Perspectives of «wh»-questions and fragment answers

Samuel Alhassan Issah

On the structure of A-bar constructions in Dagbani: Perspectives of «wh»-questions and fragment answers

by Samuel Alhassan Issah (Author)
©2020, Thesis, 238 Pages
Science, Society & Culture

Series: Schriften zur Afrikanistik / Research in African Studies, Volume 30

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

Cover
Title
Copyright
About the author
About the book
This eBook can be cited
Acknowledgments
Contents
Abstract
List of abbreviations
Chapter one General introduction
- 1.0 Introduction
- 1.1 The language and its speakers
- 1.2 The objectives of the research
- 1.3 Sources of data and orthography
- 1.4 Theoretical insights of the analysis
- 1.5 Word order and clause structure of Dagbani
  - 1.5.1 The aspect and tense system of Dagbani
  - 1.5.2 On the syntactic status of kà and ń in Dagbani
  - 1.5.3 A theory of focus and pragmatic uses of focus constructions
  - 1.5.4 Predicate focus in Dagbani
- 1.6 The structure of the dissertation
- 1.7 Interim summary
Chapter two The grammar of the Dagbani interrogative DP
- 2.0 Introduction
- 2.1 Wh-phrases as question operators in wh-questions
- 2.2 Previous studies of Dagbani wh-phrases
  - 2.2.1 A novel account on the inventory of Dagbani wh-phrases
  - 2.2.2 On wh-pronouns and wh-determiners in Dagbani wh-phrases
- 2.3 The grammatical characterization of Dagbani wh-phrases
  - 2.3.1 Distinction between human and non-human wh-phrases
  - 2.3.2 Number as a functional category of Dagbani wh-phrases
  - 2.3.3 Accounting for why -nìmá heads the functional NumP in the interrogative DP
  - 2.3.4 Ambiguities in Dagbani wh-phrases
- 2.4 Interim summary
Chapter three The syntax of Dagbani ex-situ wh-questions
- 3.0 Introduction
- 3.1 Review of previous studies on Dagbani wh-questions
- 3.2 The movement of wh-phrases within matrix/root clauses
  - 3.2.1 Syntactic evidence motivating focus movement of wh-phrases
  - 3.2.2 Pied-piping and feature checking in syntactic movement
- 3.3 Extraction out of wh-phrases in embedded clauses in ex-situ wh-questions
  - 3.3.1 Extraction of subject wh-phrases out of embedded clauses
  - 3.3.2 Extraction of non-subject wh-phrases from embedded clauses
  - 3.3.3 Accounting for the reflexes of movement in ex-situ wh-questions
  - 3.3.4 Linguistic properties of resumptive pronouns
  - 3.3.5 Novel account on the spell-out of the focus heads in ex-situ wh-questions
- 3.4 Typology of focus heads inventory in the Mabia languages
- 3.5 Intermediate summary
Chapter four A syntactic analysis of Dagbani wh-in-situ questions
- 4.0 Introduction
- 4.1 Review of previous studies on Dagbani in-situ wh-questions
- 4.2 Counterevidence for analysis of lá as a contrastive focus marker
- 4.3 Dagbani wh-in-situ questions
  - 4.3.1 The descriptive facts on Dagbani in-situ wh-questions
  - 4.3.2 A minimalist analysis of Dagbani in-situ wh-questions
  - 4.3.3 An account for the ban on in-situ subject wh-phrases
- 4.4 On the syntax of Dagbani wh-questions: Some typological insights
- 4.5 Interim summary
Chapter five Constraints on wh-movement in Dagbani
- 5.0 Introduction
- 5.1 Island effects in Dagbani wh-constructions
  - 5.1.1 The complex NP constraint (CNPC)
  - 5.1.2 The syntactic properties of the Dagbani relative clause
  - 5.1.3 Extraction of wh-phrases from Dagbani relative clauses
  - 5.1.4 Extraction of wh-phrases out of the complex NP
- 5.2 The coordinate structure constraint
- 5.3 Interim summary
Chapter six On the syntax of answers to wh-questions and the derivation of fragment answers
- 6.0 Introduction
- 6.1 On the structural correlation between wh-questions and their answers
  - 6.1.1 Context-induced focus and question/answer correlation in Dagbani
  - 6.1.2 The projection of focus heads in ex-situ question/answer pairs
  - 6.1.3 Congruence of question/answer pairs
- 6.2 Introduction to fragment answers
  - 6.2.1 An overview of the notion of fragment answers
  - 6.2.2 The syntactic derivation of Dagbani fragment answers
- 6.3 Arguments in support of movement plus ellipsis account of Dagbani fragments
  - 6.3.1 The sensitivity of fragments to locality constraints
  - 6.3.2 Evidence in favor of analyzing fragment answers as an instance of elliptical process
- 6.4 Semantic recoverability of fragment answers: the PF theory of fragment answers
  - 6.4.1 Semantic recoverability of fragment answers
  - 6.4.2 The PF theory of fragment answers and the [E];-feature
  - 6.4.3 Dagbani fragment answers and the [E];-feature
- 6.5 Interim summary
Chapter seven Summary and conclusions
- 7.0 Introduction
- 7.1 Summary of the findings of the dissertation
- 7.2 Summary of the contributions/significance of the dissertation
- 7.3 Open issues for future research
Appendix
List of tables
References
Series index

Pages:

238

Year:

2020

ISBN (HARDBACK):

9783631805480 (Active)

ISBN (EPUB):

9783631825402 (Active)

ISBN (PDF):

9783631825396 (Active)

DOI:

10.3726/b17097

Language:

English

Published:

Berlin, Bern, Bruxelles, New York, Oxford, Warszawa, Wien, 2020. 238 pp., 6 tables.

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.

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On the structure of A-bar constructions in Dagbani: Perspectives of «wh»-questions and fragment answers

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