Misplaced Pages

#178821

57-517: The general and accepted name for the language is Kusaal . The name Kusasi Is mostly used to refer to the people who speak the language, and it is not accepted by native speakers to refer to the language. The language is a fairly typical representative of the Western Oti–Volta low-level grouping within Gur, which includes several of the more widely spoken languages of Northern Ghana, and also Moore ,

114-522: A consonant cluster or vowel sequence that is not permitted by the phonotactics of a language. Regular or semi-regular epenthesis commonly occurs in languages with affixes . For example, a reduced vowel /ɪ/ or /ə/ (here abbreviated as /ᵻ/ ) is inserted before the English plural suffix -/z/ and the past tense suffix -/d/ when the root ends in a similar consonant: glass → glasses /ˈɡlæsᵻz/ or /ˈɡlɑːsᵻz/ ; bat → batted /ˈbætᵻd/ . However, this

171-422: A diachronic analysis would see the original n disappearing except if a following vowel required its retention: an > a . However, a synchronic analysis, in keeping with the perception of most native speakers, would (though incorrectly) see it as epenthesis: a > an . In Dutch , whenever the suffix -er (which has several meanings) is attached to a word already ending in -r , an additional -d-

228-400: A glottal stop ) [V₁ʔV₁] , as in buʼud "beating", for 56 monophthongs in some dialects. Glottalized vowels may be distinct from the glottal stop as a consonant, usually in the form [V₁ʔV₂] as in kuʼom "water". Glottal also marks some monosyllabic verbs buʼ "beat". In addition, some vowels are contrastively nasalised and others nasalised through the influence of nasal consonants . In

285-420: A stop consonant is often added as a transitional sound between the parts of a nasal + fricative sequence: The three short syllables in reliquiās do not fit into dactylic hexameter because of the dactyl 's limit of two short syllables so the first syllable is lengthened by adding another l . However, the pronunciation was often not written with double ll , and may have been the normal way of pronouncing

342-729: A consonant in a medial cluster: - h j- . Some dialects, like Savo and Ostrobothnian , have epenthesis instead and use the preceding vowel in clusters of type -l C - and -h C - , in Savo also -nh- . (In Finnish linguistics, the phenomenon is often referred to as švaa ; the same word can also mean ' schwa ' , but it is not a phoneme in Finnish so there is usually no danger of confusion.) For example, Pohjanmaa ' Ostrobothnia ' → Pohojammaa , ryhmä → ryhymä , and Savo vanha → vanaha . Ambiguities may result: salmi ' strait ' vs. salami . (An exception

399-484: A default, epenthetic consonant in the intervocalic position". Epenthesis of a vowel is known as anaptyxis ( / ˌ æ n ə p ˈ t ɪ k s ɪ s / , from Greek ἀνάπτυξις ' unfolding ' ). Some accounts distinguish between "intrusive" optional vowels, vowel-like releases of consonants as phonetic detail, and true epenthetic vowels that are required by the phonotactics of the language and are acoustically identical with phonemic vowels. Many languages insert

456-412: A diachronic (historical) analysis, since epenthetic consonants are not used regularly in modern Japanese, the epenthetic /s/ could be from Old Japanese . It is also possible that Old Japanese /ame 2 / was once pronounced */same 2 /; the /s/ would then be not epenthetic but simply an archaic pronunciation. Another example is kosame ( 小雨 （こさめ） , 'light rain') . A complex example of epenthesis

513-400: A different pattern in particular syntactic constructions, e.g., main verbs in positive main clauses become all-low-tone. Many words also cause tone changes in closely connected following or preceding words by "tone spreading". The tonal system is a terracing system with two tones and emic downsteps , but with the H! sequence being realized as extra-high in some contexts. The domain of tone is

570-500: A feature only of the spoken language. A consonant may be added to separate vowels in hiatus, as is the case with linking and intrusive R in English. A consonant may be placed between consonants in a consonant cluster where the place of articulation is different (such as if one consonant is labial and the other is alveolar ). A vowel may be placed between consonants to separate them. While epenthesis most often occurs between two vowels or two consonants, it can also occur between

627-550: A few traces of the old system (as in Gurmanche) whereby the adjective took the singular/plural endings appropriate to the class of the preceding noun, but the system is completely unproductive in Kusaal now. Verbal flexion is agreeably simple, as in other Western Oti–Volta languages and unlike less closely related Gur languages. Most verbs have five flexional forms. (a) no ending, used for perfective aspect: M gos buug la. "I've looked at

SECTION 10

#1732890582179

684-452: A long time. The New Testament orthography, however, spells "goat" boog , and the vowel is intermediate between u and o , phonetic [ʊ] . It is adequate for mother-tongue speakers but does not suffice to distinguish the seven distinct vowel qualities of Agole Kusaal, does not mark tone, and has partly inconsistent word-division conventions due to the complications produced by the Kusaal final vowel loss/reduction phenomena. Since 2013, however,

741-1066: A phonetic detail, it is usual to find a schwa vowel in sequences of a consonant followed by a flap. For instance, vinagre 'vinegar' may be [biˈnaɣɾe] but also [biˈnaɣᵊɾe] . Many Indo-Aryan languages carry an inherent vowel after each consonant. For example, in Assamese , the inherent vowel is "o" ( অ ), while in Hindi and Marathi , it is "a" ( अ ). Sanskrit words like maaŋsa ( ' meat ' , মাংস ), ratna ( ' jewel ' , ৰত্ন ), yatna ( ' effort ' , যত্ন ), padma ( ' lotus ' , পদ্ম ), harsha ( ' joy ' , হৰ্ষ ), dvaara ( ' door ' , দ্বাৰ ) etc. become moŋoh ( মাংস > মঙহ ), roton ( ৰত্ন > ৰতন ), zoton ( যত্ন > যতন ), podum ( পদ্ম > পদুম ), horix ( হৰ্ষ > হৰিষ ), duwar ( দ্বাৰ > দুৱাৰ ) etc. in Assamese. Other, non- Tatsama words also undergo anaptyxis, for example,

798-449: A separate cause: the pronunciation of nuclear as nucular ( /ˈn(j)ukjəlɚ/ ) in some North American dialects arises out of analogy with other - cular words ( binocular , particular , etc.) rather than from epenthesis. In colloquial registers of Brazilian Portuguese, [i] is sometimes inserted between consonant clusters except those with /l/ ( atleta ), /ɾ/ ( prato ) or syllable-ending /s/ ( pasta ; note syllable-final /s/

855-401: A single form. The verb is preceded by a chain of invariable particles expressing tense, polarity and mood. Serial verb constructions are common and important, as in many West African languages. Object pronouns can be severely reduced in form by the Kusaal final-vowel-loss rules, surfacing as single consonants, or even zero; they are preceded by a reduced vowel ending the previous word, which

912-464: A so-called prop vowel at the end of a word, often as a result of the common sound change where vowels at the end of a word are deleted. For example, in the Gallo-Romance languages , a prop schwa /ə/ was added when final non-open vowels were dropped leaving /Cr/ clusters at the end, e.g. Latin nigrum '(shiny) black' > * [ˈnegro] > Old French negre /ˈnegrə/ 'black' (thus avoiding

969-471: A speaker finds a cluster difficult or impossible to pronounce. A vowel sound that is nonexistent in Lojban (usually /ɪ/ as in ' hit ' ) is added between two consonants to make the word easier to pronounce. Despite altering the phonetics of a word, the use of buffering is completely ignored by grammar. Also, the vowel sound used must not be confused with any existing Lojban vowel. An example of buffering in Lojban

1026-538: A unified orthography of the language has been in use and is used across various sectors including education at the University of Education, Winneba (Ajumako campus) and by translators who recently (2015) succeeded in revising the New Testament as well as translating the complete Old Testament into the language using the set of guidelines provided in the current orthography. Materials on Kusaal have gradually increased over

1083-465: A vowel and a consonant or at the ends of words. For example, the Japanese prefix ma- ( 真〜（ま〜） , 'pure …, complete …') transforms regularly to ma'- ( 真っ〜（まっ〜） , (gemination of following consonant)) when it is followed by a consonant, as in masshiro ( 真っ白（まっしろ） , 'pure white') . The English suffix -t , often found in the form -st , as in amongst (from among + -st ),

1140-452: A word starting in rel- rather than a poetic modification. A limited number of words in Japanese use epenthetic consonants to separate vowels. An example is the word harusame ( 春雨 （はるさめ） , 'spring rain') , a compound of haru and ame in which an /s/ is added to separate the final /u/ of haru and the initial /a/ of ame . That is a synchronic analysis. As for

1197-415: A word, especially in the beginning syllable ( prothesis ) or in the ending syllable ( paragoge ) or in-between two syllabic sounds in a word. The opposite process, where one or more sounds are removed, is referred to as elision . The word epenthesis comes from epi- ' in addition to ' and en- ' in ' and thesis ' putting ' . Epenthesis may be divided into two types: excrescence for

SECTION 20

#1732890582179

1254-658: Is massao ( 真っ青 （まっさお） , 'deep blue, ghastly pale') , from ma- ( 真 〜（ま〜） , 'pure, complete') + ao ( 青 （あお） , 'blue') . It exhibits epenthesis on both morphemes: ma- ( 真〜（ま〜） ) → ma'- ( 真っ〜（まっ〜） , (gemination of following consonant)) is common (occurring before a consonant), and ao ( 青（あお） ) → sao ( 青（さお） ) occurs only in the example; it can be analyzed as maao → masao (intervocalic) → massao ; akin to kirisame ( 霧雨 （きりさめ） , 'drizzle, light rain') from kiri ( 霧 （きり） , 'fog, mist') + ame ( 雨 （あめ） , 'rain') . One hypothesis argues that Japanese /r/ developed "as

1311-470: Is a synchronic analysis as the vowel was originally present in the suffix but has been lost in most words. Vocalic epenthesis typically occurs when words are borrowed from a language that has consonant clusters or syllable codas that are not permitted in the borrowing language. Languages use various vowels, but schwa is quite common when it is available: Epenthesis most often occurs within unfamiliar or complex consonant clusters. For example, in English,

1368-522: Is a portmanteau of the two lexical innovations ma - 'mother' + bia 'child'. The following is a classification of the Central Mabia languages from Bodomo (2017), as cited in Bodomo (2020). Bodomo's Central Mabia group consists of 7 subgroups. Svarabhakti In phonology , epenthesis ( / ɪ ˈ p ɛ n θ ə s ɪ s , ɛ -/ ; Greek ἐπένθεσις ) means the addition of one or more sounds to

1425-458: Is a reduced form of that word's own underlying final vowel, preserved before the enclitic pronoun: M boodi f. "I love you." traditionally written M bood if. M boodu. "I love him/her." traditionally written M bood o. Word order is strictly SVO, but clefting is common. Within the noun phrase, except for the typical noun-adjective Gur compounding, the rule is that associative modifier (possessive, genitive) precedes

1482-401: Is an example of terminal excrescence. Excrescence is the epenthesis of a consonant. In French , /t/ is inserted in inverted interrogative phrases between a verb ending in a vowel and a pronoun beginning with a vowel: il a ('he has') > a-t-il ('has he?'). There is no epenthesis from a historical perspective since the a-t is derived from Latin habet ('he has'), and so

1539-525: Is available online. Oti%E2%80%93Volta languages The Oti–Volta languages form a subgroup of the Gur languages , comprising about 30 languages of northern Ghana, Benin, and Burkina Faso spoken by twelve million people. The most populous language is Mooré , the national language of Burkina Faso, spoken by over 55% of Burkina Faso’s 20 million population and an additional 1 million in neighboring countries such as Ghana, Ivory Coast, Niger, and Mali. The family

1596-493: Is dropped and a final long vowel is shortened: Fu daa nye buug la. "Did You see the goat?" Fu daa nye buug. "You saw a goat." Fu daa pu nye buuga. "You didn't see a goat." Anoʼone daa nye buuga? "Who saw a goat?" Kusaal shows the typical Gur feature whereby the noun and adjective stems are compounded in that order, followed by the singular/plural endings: bupielig(a) "white goat" [ bu-(g(a)) + piel- + - g(a) ] bupielis(e) "white goats" There are

1653-425: Is found with many uncountable and abstract nouns, e.g. , kuʼom(m) "water" The bracketed final vowels in the examples occur because of the feature which most strikingly separates Kusaal from its close relatives: the underlying forms of words, such as buuga "goat" are found only when the word in question is the last word in a question or a negated statement. In all other contexts an underlying final short vowel

1710-440: Is inserted in between. For example, the comparative form of the adjective zoet ( ' sweet ' ) is zoeter , but the comparative of zuur ( ' sour ' ) is zuur d er and not the expected ** zurer . Similarly, the agent noun of verkopen ( ' to sell ' ) is verkoper ( ' salesperson ' ), but the agent noun of uitvoeren ( ' to perform ' ) is uitvoer d er ( ' performer ' ). In English,

1767-596: Is mutually intelligible with Dagaare, Frafra, Mamprusi, and Wali, but in the case of Dagaare, Frara and Wali it is rather the case that many people can understand some of a language which is not their mother tongue. These languages are not mutually intelligible with Mõõré or Kusaal (a language spoken in Bawku West District and adjacent areas). Bodomo (2017) refers to the Western Oti–Volta group (and also including Buli–Koma) as Central Mabia . The term Mabia

Kusaal language - Misplaced Pages Continue

1824-731: Is named after the Oti and Volta rivers. The internal classification of Oti–Volta, as worked out by Manessy 1975–79 and Naden 1989 (Williamson & Blench 2000 ) is as follows: Buli–Koma : Buli , Konni Eastern ( Somba ): Biali , Mbelime , Tammari (Ditammari), Waama Nootre Northwest: Mõõré , Frafra , Safaliba , Wali , Dagaare – Northern Birifor – Southern Birifor Southeast: Dagbani , Hanga , Kamara , Kusaal , Nabit , Talni , Mampruli , Kantosi Gurma : Ngangam , Gourmanchéma , Moba (Bimoba), Ntcham (Akaselem), Nateni , Miyobe , Konkomba Yom–Nawdm : Nawdm , Yom Native Dagbani speakers assert that Dagbani

1881-475: Is pronounced [ʃ] in a number of dialects). Examples would be tsunami /tisuˈnami/ , advogado /adivoˈɡadu/ and abdômen [abiˈdomẽj] . Some dialects also use [e] , which is deemed as stereotypical of people from lower classes, such as those arriving from rural flight in internal migrations to cities such as Rio de Janeiro , Brasília and São Paulo . In Finnish , there are two epenthetic vowels and two nativization vowels. One epenthetic vowel

1938-433: Is that if a speaker finds the cluster [ml] in the word mlatu ( ' cat ' ) (pronounced ['mlatu] ) hard or impossible to pronounce, the vowel [ɐ] can be pronounced between the two consonants, resulting in the form [mɐˈlatu] . Nothing changes grammatically, including the word's spelling and the syllabication . A type of epenthesis in sign language is known as "movement epenthesis" and occurs, most commonly, during

1995-502: Is that in Pohjanmaa, -lj- and -rj- become -li- and -ri- , respectively: kirja → kiria . Also, in a small region in Savo, /e/ is used instead.) Lojban , a constructed language that seeks logically -oriented grammatical and phonological structures, uses a number of consonant clusters in its words. Since it is designed to be as universal as possible, it allows a type of anaptyxis called "buffering" to be used if

2052-528: Is the preceding vowel , found in the illative case ending -(h)*n : maa → maahan , talo → taloon . The second is [e] , connecting stems that have historically been consonant stems to their case endings: nim+n → nimen . In Standard Finnish, consonant clusters may not be broken by epenthetic vowels; foreign words undergo consonant deletion rather than addition of vowels: ranta ( ' shore ' ) from Proto-Germanic *strandō . However, modern loans may not end in consonants. Even if

2109-521: The t is the original third-person verb inflection. It is incorrect to call it epenthesis unless viewed synchronically since the modern basic form of the verb is a and so the psycholinguistic process is therefore the addition of t to the base form. A similar example is the English indefinite article a , which becomes an before a vowel. It originated from Old English ān ( ' one, a, an ' ), which retained an n in all positions, so

2166-459: The closed syllable , resulting in городъ ( gorodŭ ), which became город ( gorod ) in modern Russian and Ukrainian. Other Slavic languages used metathesis for the vowel and the syllable-final consonant, producing * grodŭ in this case, as seen in Polish gród , Old Church Slavonic градъ gradŭ , Serbo-Croatian grad and Czech hrad . Another environment can be observed in

2223-500: The Agole and Toende dialects and the system of diphthongs in Agole, which according to the most-favoured analysis, enables Agole with seven contrastive vowel qualities to cover the contrasts represented in Toende with nine qualities. There are short, long, short nasal and long nasal vowels; nasalization collapses the contrast between i~ɩ, e~ɛ, u~ʋ and o~ɔ. All may be glottalised (or 'broken' with

2280-634: The English word glass becomes gilas ( গিলাছ ). In the Western Romance languages , a prothetic vowel was inserted at the beginning of any word that began with /s/ and another consonant, e.g. Latin spatha 'two-edged sword, typically used by cavalry' becomes the normal word for 'sword' in Romance languages with an inserted /e/ : Spanish/Portuguese espada , Catalan espasa , Old French espede > modern épée (see also espadon ' swordfish '). French in fact presents three layers in

2337-488: The addition of a consonant , and for the addition of a vowel , svarabhakti (in Sanskrit) or alternatively anaptyxis ( / ˌ æ n ə p ˈ t ɪ k s ɪ s / ). Epenthesis arises for a variety of reasons. The phonotactics of a given language may discourage vowels in hiatus or consonant clusters , and a consonant or vowel may be added to make pronunciation easier. Epenthesis may be represented in writing, or it may be

Kusaal language - Misplaced Pages Continue

2394-515: The goat." (b) -d(a) ending, for imperfective: M gosid buug la. "I look at the goat." (c) -m(a) for positive imperative: Gosim buug la! "Look at the goat!" (d) -in subjunctive for irrealis : Fu yaʼa gosin ... "If you were to look (but you won't) ..." (e) -b(o), -g(o), -r(e) gerund, verbal noun: o gosig la mor dabiem "his (the angel's) appearance was scary" [Judges 13:6 draft] - literally 'his seeing they had fear' Some 10% of verbs, with stative meanings, have only

2451-429: The head: m buug "my goat" la nobir "the goat's foot" ( la "the", follows its noun) Numeral and deictics (demonstrative, article) follow, with the quantitative in final place: m buus atanʼ la wusa "all my three goats" The sound system of Kusaal is similar to that of its relatives; consonant clusters (except between adjacent words) occur only word-internally at morpheme-junctures and are determined by

2508-464: The history of Modern Persian , in which former word-initial consonant clusters, which were still extant in Middle Persian , are regularly broken up: Middle Persian brādar 'brother' > modern Iranian Persian برادر barādar /bærɑˈdær/ , Middle Persian stūn 'column' > Early New Persian ستون sutūn > modern Iranian Persian ستون sotun /soˈtun/ . In Spanish, as

2565-587: The impermissible /negr/ , cf. carrum > char 'cart'). Similarly as above, a vowel may be inserted in the middle of a word to resolve an impermissible word-final consonant cluster. An example of this can be found in Lebanese Arabic , where /ˈʔaləb/ 'heart' corresponds to Modern Standard Arabic قلب /qalb/ and Egyptian Arabic /ʔælb/ . In the development of Old English , Proto-Germanic *akraz 'field, acre' would have ended up with an impermissible /kr/ final cluster ( * æcr ), so it

2622-436: The influence of Indo-Aryan languages like Hindi . Epenthesis is sometimes used for humorous or childlike effect. For example, the cartoon character Yogi Bear says "pic-a-nic basket" for picnic basket . Another example is found in the chants of England football fans in which England is usually rendered as [ˈɪŋɡələnd] or the pronunciation of athlete as "ath-e-lete". Some apparent occurrences of epenthesis, however, have

2679-708: The largest African language of Burkina Faso (and the largest of all Gur languages, with millions of speakers). Like most other Western Oti–Volta languages, it has lost the complicated noun class agreement system still found in e.g. the more distantly related Gurmanche , and has only a natural gender system, human/non-human. The noun classes are still distinguishable in the way nouns distinguish singular from plural by paired suffixes: nid(a) "person" plural nidib(a) bʋʋg(a) "goat" plural bʋʋs(e) nɔbir(e) "leg, foot" plural nɔba(a) fuug(o) "item of clothing" plural fuud(e) molif(o) "gazelle" plural moli(i) A unpaired suffix -m(m)

2736-479: The last few years. Some aids for learners were produced by the husband-and-wife Spratt team who pioneered the linguistic study of the language and may be obtainable from GILLBT (Ghana Institute of Linguistics, Literacy and Bible Translation) in Tamale, Ghana. Literacy materials, collections of folk stories and so forth have also been produced by GILLBT. There is also a simple dictionary compiled by David and Nancy Spratt from

2793-552: The limited range of consonants which can appear in syllable-final position. Clusters arising from the addition of suffixes in derivation and flexion are either simplified or broken up by inserted (" svarabhakti ") vowels. The roster of consonants includes the widespread West African labiovelar double-closure stops kp, gb, but the palatal series of the related languages (written ch/j in Dagbani and Hanga and ky/gy in Mampruli) fall in with

2850-492: The name Dwight is commonly pronounced with an epenthetic schwa between the /d/ and the /w/ ( [dəˈwaɪt] ), and many speakers insert a schwa between the /l/ and /t/ of realtor . Irish English and Scottish English are some of the dialects that may insert a schwa between /l/ and /m/ in words like film ( [ˈfɪləm] ) under the influence of Celtic languages , a phenomenon that also occurs in Indian English due to

2907-444: The orthography a letter n followed by a vowel or glottal indicates that the preceding vowel is contrastively nasalised, unless in word-final position when nasalisation is indicated by a double nn and a single n is a final consonant. The language is tonal , with tonal differences distinguishing lexical items (with few minimal pairs) and syntactic constructions. The intrinsic tones of individual words are often overridden with

SECTION 50

#1732890582179

2964-586: The same source. Also available are two master theses from native speaker linguists on the phonology (Musah 2010) and the syntax (Abubakar 2011). Much grammatical information on the Burkina Faso dialect (Toende) is to be found in Niggli's primarily phonological work cited below. Several other documents including the Orthography of the language are also available from GILLBT. Another fairly extensive grammar of Agolle Kusaal

3021-461: The simple velars, as in neighbouring Farefare (Frafra, Gurene) and Moore. The reflexes of the palatal and labiovelar double-closure nasals of the related languages, [ n ] written ny and [ ŋm ] ŋm - are probably best analysed as a nasalised y and w respectively, but the scope of the nasalisation and the order of its onset with respect to the semivowel is variable. The vowel system is not yet fully understood, complicated by differences between

3078-571: The vocabulary in which initial vowel epenthesis is or is not applied, depending on the time a word came into the language: Similarly, at some point in the Proto-Armenian language and Classical Armenian , the prothetic vowel ե was placed at the beginning of the word before the sound ր , leading to words like երախ ( ' animal mouth ' , erax ) from Iranian rax ( ' animal mouth ' ), or երազ ( ' dream ' , eraz ) from Iranian raz ( ' mystery ' ). Epenthesis often breaks up

3135-416: The vowel mora , but there are many constraints on the possible tone patterns with a word; uncompounded nouns show only 4 different overall possibilities at most for any given segmental shape, and inflecting verbs have only two possible intrinsic tone patterns. The orthography used above is basically that of the New Testament translation, which remained the only substantial written work available in Kusaal for

3192-419: The word, such as a personal name, is native, a paragogic vowel is needed to connect a consonantal case ending to the word. The vowel is /i/ : (Inter)net → netti , or in the case of personal name, Bush + -sta → Bushista ' about Bush ' ( elative case ). Finnish has moraic consonants: l , h and n are of interest. In Standard Finnish, they are slightly intensified before

3249-658: Was resolved by inserting an /e/ before the rhotic consonant : æcer (cf. the use of a syllabic consonant in Gothic akrs ). Vowel insertion in the middle of a word can be observed in the history of the Slavic languages , which had a preference for open syllables in medieval times. An example of this is the Proto-Slavic form * gordŭ 'town', in which the East Slavic languages inserted an epenthetic copy vowel to open

#178821