Description
Book SynopsisKusaal is a Mabia (traditional Gur) language spoken in north-eastern Ghana. Until recently, there was a paucity of linguistic research on the language, thus, the need for a concise and lucid grammar. The study adopts a holistic linguistic approach to language documentation and description drawing on a corpus of synchronic data collected on fieldtrips. The analysis of the data is guided by a confluence of structural and functional grammar approaches following Payne (1997) and Dixon’s (2010) Basic Linguistic Theory. The phonology, nouns and noun class systems, nominal modifiers and relator nouns, verbs, phrases, aspect and modality, clause structure, verb serialisation and pragmatically marked structures are considered together with a speech form similar to «signifying/playing the dozens».
Table of ContentsLanguage profile – Phonology – Nouns, pronouns and the noun class system – Nominal modifiers and relator nouns – Noun phrases – Verbs and verb phrases – Aspect and modality in Kusaal – Clause structure – Serial verb constructions: a prototypical overview – Pragmatically marked structures
