Abstract
This paper discusses relative clauses in Akan. I examine, among others, the noun phrase positions, the positions that are accessible to relativization as well as the type of NPs that serve as heads in the relative clause. I show that, like most Kwa languages, the head noun does not require a determiner. In contrast, the relative clause itself embeds a clausal determiner. Another property of the relative clause in Akan is that it requires a resumptive pronoun. I show that this is not to repair subjacency violations as has been proposed by Chomsky (1981) because the resumptive pronoun in Akan also occurs in argument positions.
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Notes
- 1.
The following abbreviations have been used: Ak. = Akuapem; As. = Asante; CD. = clausal determiner; CONS. = consecutive marker; DEF. = definite determiner; Fa. = Fante; FM. = focus marker; INANIM. = inanimate; INDEF. = indefinite determiner; PL. = plural; PERF. = perfect aspect; POSS. = possessive; PRES. = present tense; PROG. = progressive aspect; PST. = past tense; REL. = relative complementizer; SG. = singular person.
- 2.
 The relative complementizer is represented by the letter a in Akan orthography but I will follow Schachter (1973:23) in representing it as áà to reflect its actual phonetic realization. This has the added advantage of distinguishing this particle from other particles in the language that are also represented in the orthography by the letter a.
- 3.
 There is an exception, namely extraposed relative clauses. These are discussed in Section 4.2.
- 4.
Tone marks in the original have been omitted here due to problems with my word processor.
- 5.
The following are examples of extraposed relative clauses in English:
-
i.
A man came in yesterday who lost his wallet. (Givon 2001:207, ex. 80b).
-
ii.
Something just happened that you should know about. (Kayne 1994:117, ex. 1).
-
i.
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Acknowledgment
A version of this paper was first presented at the 19th West African Languages Congress (WALC) held at the University of Ghana, Legon, April 2–6, 1990. Research for this version was supported by NUFU-sponsored Linguistics Project (Project id. No. PRO 47/96) jointly undertaken by the Departments of Linguistics at the Universities of Ghana and Trondheim, Norway. I thank reviewers of this volume for their useful suggestions comments on the draft which have been of immense help to me. All inadequacies are wholly mine.
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Saah, K.K. (2010). Relative Clauses in Akan. In: Aboh, E., Essegbey, J. (eds) Topics in Kwa Syntax. Studies in Natural Language and Linguistic Theory, vol 78. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-90-481-3189-1_5
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