LINGUIST List 33.1676: Review: Dagaare, Southern; Lexicography; Typology: Ali, Grimm, Bodomo (2021)

LINGUIST List 33.1676

Wed May 11 2022

Review: Dagaare, Southern; Lexicography; Typology: Ali, Grimm, Bodomo (2021)

Editor for this issue: Billy Dickson <billydlinguistlist.org>

Date: 20-Feb-2022
From: Alexander Angsongna <a.angsongubc.ca>
Subject: A dictionary and grammatical sketch of Dagaare
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Book announced at https://linguistlist.org/issues/32/32-1306.html

AUTHOR: Mark Ali
AUTHOR: Scott Grimm
AUTHOR: Adams Bodomo
TITLE: A dictionary and grammatical sketch of Dagaare
SERIES TITLE: African Language Grammars and Dictionaries
PUBLISHER: Language Science Press
YEAR: 2021

REVIEWER: Alexander Angsongna, University of British Columbia

SUMMARY

Ali, Grimm, and Bodomo’s “A dictionary and grammatical sketch of Dagaare” is by far the most comprehensive piece of work as far as learning and studying Dagaare is concerned. A book that combines both basic descriptive grammar and an exceptional dictionary is certainly an excellent resource for everyone interested in Dagaare, regardless of whether they are language researchers or not. This book offers a non-specialist, reader-friendly perspective to anyone looking for an introductory knowledge of Dagaare. Dagaare is a Mabia language (Bodomo 1997) spoken by over one million people. It is spoken in Northwestern Ghana and parts of Burkina Faso and Ivory Coast. With four main varieties (Northern Dagaare, Central Dagaare, Southern Dagaare, and Western Dagaare), it forms a dialect continuum of varying degrees of mutual intelligibility (Bodomo 1997, 2000). This book is primarily based on Central Dagaare. All authors of this book have extensive experience and have made (and are still making) significant contributions in their own right in terms of the documentation, description, and analysis of Dagaare. The current work, which is the first of its kind, is an impressive addition to the descriptive literature on Dagaare. As such, it could (and should) be extended to other Mabia languages. The book is made up of two main parts. Part One, by Adams Bodomo, consists of four chapters and focuses on a traditional descriptive grammar of Dagaare. This is followed by Part Two, by Mark Ali and Scott Grimm, which is a hugely resourceful and the first ever comprehensive dictionary of Central Dagaare. It is a useful lexical tool for speakers of Dagaare, learners, researchers, and students. I provide reviews of each part separately, beginning with the grammatical sketch.

GRAMMATICAL SKETCH OF DAGAARE

Chapter 1, which is an introductory chapter, provides a brief general overview of Dagaare and its studies, situating the demographics and sociopolitical regions within which it is spoken and identifying the major varieties across three countries. In terms of genetic classification, the author describes how Dagaare is related to other languages within the Mabia sub-group. Crucially, the chapter provides useful information regarding the study of the language. Thus, Dagaare is used in the lower levels as a language of education and instruction, serves as a school subject in the higher levels, and is robustly studied and researched in colleges and universities in Ghana, Burkina Faso, and other parts of the world. Consequently, this chapter offers an important understanding of the linguistic situation and status of Dagaare. It gives a more informative, direct, and easily comprehensible description than do other grammars of the language.

In Chapter 2, “Phonology”, the reader is guided through some very useful topics. These topics include the standard orthography, the sound (consonant, vowel, and tone) systems, as well as other processes such as vowel harmony, vowel assimilation, and apocope. With respect to orthography the author points out that there are thirty-one graphemes, which includes twenty-four single-letter graphemes (seventeen consonants and seven vowels). The orthography also includes six digraphs and one trigraph. The most commonly used writing system in educational institutions is the one developed by the Catholic Church in Ghana. This orthography is based on the Central dialect, although there exist other orthographies (Nakuma 1999, 2002). Though Dagaare is a two-tone language, the author reports that the orthography is not tone-marked. This however raises some questions when one takes a look at the examples in the book, as some examples in orthography are tone-marked.

The consonant system as discussed in this chapter consists of twenty-five consonants and two glides (semi-vowels), though glottal implosives found in the Northern and Western varieties are unattested in Southern and Central varieties. This then suggests that specifically Central Dagaare has twenty-three consonants and two glides (see also Angsongna and Akinbo 2020) and, with /z/ unattested in the Southern dialect (Waale), it also means that the Southern dialect has twenty-two consonants and two glides (see Abdul-Aziz 2015). So, in effect, the twenty-five consonant and two glide system reported in this book is limited to the northern and western varieties of Dagaare (see also Kuubezelle 2013; Dundaa 2013). There are also doubly articulated consonants (termed labial velars), which include [kp, ɡb, ŋm], and these are attested in all varieties.

The vowel system contains nine oral vowels categorized in terms of height, rounding, and tongue root advancement [ATR]. It should be noted, however, that recent studies suggest that Central Dagaare (Ozburn et al 2018; Angsongna and Akinbo 2020) and Southern Dagaare (Abdul-Aziz 2015) might have a tenth vowel – an ATR counterpart of /a/. Other processes associated with vowels, as clearly illustrated in this chapter, include length, nasality, harmony, and sequencing. Each short vowel has a long phonemic counterpart.

The author then points out that Dagaare has two levels of tone, high and low. There may also be a case of downstep – a phonological phenomenon in which the second of two high vowels is not equally as high as the first one (Kennedy 1966; Hyman 1985; Selkirk and Tateishi 1991). Other phonological processes discussed here include vowel harmony, which is a phonological process where neighbouring vowels in some domain agree with each other in terms of some distinctive feature, such as [ATR] or rounding (Baković 2003; Casali 2008). That is, each phonological word always contains vowels of the same tongue root or rounding feature. Rounding harmony in Central Dagaare, however, is restricted to the imperfective suffix of verbs only and is not pervasive in nouns. A point worthy of note is that the author in a previous work (Bodomo 1997) states that the low vowel /a/ occurs with both sets of [+ATR] and [–ATR] vowels. It is however not mentioned in this chapter what the status of the low vowel is. While recent studies suggest the presence of an [+ATR] counterpart of the low vowel in Central Dagaare, it is possible that the presence of a [+ATR] low vowel might be receiving little attention, probably because it is not as productive as the [–ATR] counterpart. Another topic described in this chapter is vowel assimilation, which occurs with adjacent vowels , e.g., wààré-áyì → wààrááyì ‘two (tubers) of yam’.

Finally, an important topic that is probably missing in previous studies but discussed in this chapter is vowel elision/apocope. The author mentions that elision is a pervasive process in Dagaare and other Mabia languages; it involves the dropping of the final vowel, particularly in fast speech and in songs.

Chapter 3, “Morphology”, describes the nominal and verbal morphology of Dagaare, as well as other morphological processes. In this chapter the morphology of the noun based on number suffixes is described. Referentiality and definiteness and the pronominal system, which includes personal, demonstrative, reflexive, reciprocal, relative, possessive, interrogative, and indefinite pronouns, are also examined. Human and non-human distinctions within the relevant pronouns are clearly stated and exemplified. The chapter also discusses the honorific system, pointing out that there are no pronouns that specifically convey honorifics in Dagaare, though there are ways of addressing and showing respect without mentioning names, even if the person in question is a stranger. Moreover, as part of the morphology of the noun, the author describes the Dagaare numeral system as a mixed system of decimals and multiples of twenties. He provides useful representative examples, indicating that numeral roots can be distinguished based on the human vs. non-human distinction, and that this conditions the kind of prefix a numeral root takes. This chapter further discusses adjectives, which may act as verbal predicates, occur with a copular verb, or occur in an adjective-nominal compound. Moreover, comparative and superlative verbs are expressed with the “surpassing” verbs ‘gàngè/zùò’ and ‘à zàá/bà zàá’, respectively. Most relevantly, an important proposal made by the author is that a large-scale investigation of Mabia languages is required as a step towards establishing a labelled system of noun classes for the whole Mabia sub-group, just as observed in Bantu.

The other aspect of morphology described in this chapter is that of verbs, including the main verb (dictionary/citation form), inflectional and derivational affixes, adverbs, and pluractionality (the repetition of an action a number of times). Morphologically, there are two aspectual forms—the perfective, which shows that an action is completed, and the imperfective, which denotes an action as ongoing/progressive. These forms are expressed by suffixes which agree with the roots in terms of harmony and assimilation. The most basic form of the verb is the root or stem, which is generally monosyllabic. The author states that the perfective form has two forms – it may be morphologically unmarked or it may be realized as perfective-intransitive when no object follows the verb. The imperfective, on the other hand, has only one form, which is always morphologically marked. Based on this description, the verb in Dagaare is made up of the root and a suffix. These suffixes, together with preverbal particles, express tense, aspect, and polarity. Another interesting topic further discussed in this chapter is that the verbal system of Dagaare (and other Mabia languages) can be categorized in terms of pairs or classes based on derivational processes such as causativity, transitivity, reversivity (a case in which verbs denote opposite actions or states), and other processes. With illustrations, the author describes pluraction as a complex morphological process. Plurality of action can be expressed in the verbal system, denoting repeated action. He notes however that, as a complex phenomenon, pluraction requires further investigation. Moreover, adverbs are described with the most recurrent kind of adverb being in reduplicated forms. Finally, some interesting morphological processes discussed in this chapter include ideophones (an ideophone is a vivid representation of an idea in sound … a word often onomatopoeic describing a predicate or adverb in terms of manner, colour, size, etc.), reduplication (partial and total), and compounding.

Chapter 4, which is the final chapter in this grammatical sketch, focuses on syntax. The chapter describes the structure of the simple sentence in Dagaare. It examines word order, demonstrating that the word order in Dagaare is SVO, though that is not always the case when dealing with complex constructions. With representative examples, the author gives a description of more complex sentences involving serialization, relativization, question formation, serial verb nominalization, coordination, and subordination. Other topics of relevance in this chapter include discourse phenomena with various particles expressing feelings such as politeness, command, exasperation, interrogation, surprise, and bereavement. The role of topic in Dagaare sentences is equally presented. Finally, focus and negation are discussed, demonstrating how the recurrent focus particle “lá” and its variants mark different kinds of focus. It is also shown that focus particles and negation markers do not co-occur in a simple sentence.

DAGAARE DICTIONARY

The second part of this book is a comprehensive dictionary by Mark Ali and Scott Grimm. The dictionary is based primarily on the Central Dagaare variety spoken around Jirapa and Ullo. It is a more expansive dictionary than previous lexicographical works (e.g., Durand 1953; Bodomo 2004a). With its relatively exhaustive entries, the dictionary is designed to be a useful resource for speakers, learners, and teachers of Dagaare. (It is however unclear how many entries the dictionary contains.)

In terms of organization and entry structure, each entry (in boldface) contains a phonetic form (in square brackets) which includes tones, part of speech, English definition, and one or more examples in Dagaare showing the use of the word and its associated English translation(s). Other information included in each entry are inflected or derived forms and etymological information, as well as information on dialectal variation.

Each part of speech is given in various forms. Nouns are listed based on the number inflections, i.e., singular, plural, and second person plural. Adjectives which inflect for number are also listed based on plural and second person plural, while pronouns are also listed in similar pattern.

In terms of verbal entries, six main forms are listed in the following order: perfect, imperfect, agentive singular, agentive plural, agentive derivation -aa singular and agentive -aa plural. In the verbal system, there are forms that are not listed in this version of the dictionary. These forms include derived forms such as nominalization and derived adjectives. The authors rightly acknowledge the absence of such forms and intend to include them in future editions of the dictionary. Other parts of speech, such as adverbs, conjunctions, and interjections, are listed (but only as single forms since these do not inflect for number or anything else).

EVALUATION

This book is an insightful piece of work which provides a wealth of data and descriptive information. It is generally presented in a clear, concise, and easily readable fashion, and should be a very handy and valuable addition to previous grammars. It will serve as a very useful teaching and learning material for people particularly interested in Dagaare linguistics. The grammatical sketch offers a basic but informative description of various topics in Dagaare, even if they are not described in great detail. Given that the dictionary is the first of its kind in terms of both its nature and scope, the precision and thoroughness in which it is written is exceptional. Overall, the book clearly provides a convenient pathway to the description of other dialects of Dagaare. It also invites the description and documentation of a more comprehensive, general book covering all dialects. Finally, it inspires similar works for other Mabia languages.

Though the presentation of the data is explicit enough, there are a few issues. There is some inconsistency with respect to tone-marking and transcription of the data, especially in the grammatical sketch. In some instances, examples are given in orthography and in some cases in phonetic transcription and, for both cases, there is tone-marking. Meanwhile, tone is said to be absent in the orthography. As noted, the total number of entries/words that the dictionary contains is not given. In a future edition of this work, the authors may want to consider addressing these issues.

REFERENCES

Abdul-Aziz, Abdul Moomin. 2015. Aspects of Waali phonology. Masters’ thesis, University of Ghana Legon

Angsongna, Alexander and Akinbo, Samuel. Dàgáárè (Central). 2020. Journal of the International Phonetic Association, 1-27.

Baković, Eric. 2003. Vowel harmony and stem identity. San Diego Linguistic Papers 1 (2003) 1-42

Bodomo, Adams. 1997. The structure of Dagaare. (Stanford Monographs in African Linguistics). Stanford, CA: CSLI Publications.

Bodomo, Adams. 2000. Dàgáárè (Languages of the World/Materials 165). Munich: Lincom

Bodomo, Adams. 2004a. A Dagaare-Cantonese-English lexicon for lexicographical field research training. Cologne. Germany: Rudiger köppe Verlag.

Casali, Roderic. F. 2008. ATR harmony in African languages. Language and linguistics compass, 2(3), 496-549.

Dundaa, Mark. Gandaa. 2013. Aspects of Birfor phonology. Masters’dissertation, University of Ghana.

Durand, Rev. J. B. 1953. Dagaare-English dictionary. Catholic Mission Duplicator

Hyman, Larry. M. 1985. Word domains and downstep in Bamileke-Dschang. Phonology, 2(1), 47- 83

Kennedy, Jack. 1966. Collected Field Reports on the Phonology of Dagaari. Collected. Institute of African Studies, University of Ghana, Collected Language Notes (Vol. 6).

Kuubezelle, Nerius. 2013. An autosegmental analysis of phonological processes in Dagara. Masters thesis, University of Ghana.

Nakuma, Constacio. 1999. Phonie et graphie tonale du dagaare (langue voltaïque).Paris: L’Harmattan

Nakuma, Constacio. 2002. Guide to the Dagaarhre Orthography. Journal of Dagaare Studies, 2, 1-43.

Ozburn, Alexander., Akinbo, Samuel., Angsongna, Alexander., Schellenberg, Murray and Pulleyblank, Douglas. 2018. Dagaare [a] is not neutral to ATR harmony. The Journal of the Acoustical Society of America, 144(3), 1938-1938.

Selkirk, Elizabeth and Tateishi, Koichi. 1991. Syntax and downstep in Japanese. In Interdisciplinary approaches to language (pp. 519-543). Springer, Dordrecht.

ABOUT THE REVIEWER

Alexander Angsongna is a Ph.D. Candidate in Linguistics at the University of British Columbia, Vancouver, Canada. His research focuses on the aspects of morphosyntax and morphophonology of Dagaare. He also has a long-term career goal of investigating other related Mabia languages.

Page Updated: 11-May-2022