Elements of the grammar of space in Ewe.pdf

10Elements of the grammar of space in Ewe Felix K Ameka and James Essegbey 10 1The language and its relevance for spatial language research Eweisamajordialectclusterofthelanguageclusterthathascometobeknown as Gbe or Tadoid Capo 1991 Duthie 1996 It is spoken in the south eastern partofGhanaacrosstopartsofsouthernTogoasfarasandjustacrosstheTogo Benin border by about two and a half million people Ewe and for that matter Gbe belongs to the Kwa family of Niger Congo Stewart 1989 Williamson and Blench 2000 Dialect variation in Ewe is quite enormous where groups of villages that are two or three kilometres apart from one another use distinct varieties Neverthe less the local dialects may be grouped geographically into coastal or southern dialects e g A l T u etc central e g Ho Kpedze Dod ome and north ern dialects e g Hohoe Peki Kpando F odome etc The central and northern dialectsarecollectivelycharacterizedindigenouslyasEwedomegbeandmaybe referred to as the inland or northern dialects as opposed to the coastal or south ern dialects see Agbodeka 1997 Ansre 2000 Gavua 2000 Speakers from different localities understand each other and are aware of the peculiarities of the different areas Add to these a written standard that was developed in the nineteenth century based on the regional variants of the various sub dialects Ansre 1971 2000 Adzomada 1979 With it has also emerged a standard col loquial variety spoken usually with local accent that is very widely used in cross dialectal contact situations such as in schools markets and churches The present study is based on the varieties of Ewe spoken in Tegbi and Keta repre senting one southern dialect and in Anfoega and Peki representing two inland or northern dialects Aswillbecomeevidentinthecourseofthechapter thethreedialectsreported on vary in the expression of spatial notions For instance in the Peki dialect there is a distinct stative resultative construction that is used in complemen tary distribution with the single verb locative construction for expressing the basic locative function Similarly while the Ewe language as such employs the relative frame of reference in the coastal dialects this is replaced by a system predominantly based on a kind of seaward and lagoon ward description In 359 360Felix K Ameka and James Essegbey the inland dialects on the other hand we get predominantly left right expres sions but sometimes an uphill downhill characterization This further shows that variation in spatial language and conceptualization can occur not only across language boundaries but also within a language and across dialects Another striking feature of Ewe in the spatial domain is that the language has both prepositions which have evolved from verbs the majority of which have locative semantics and postpositions designating axial parts and regions of objects which have evolved from nouns Furthermore the language is a verb serializing language As has been noted already in the literature such languages pose a problem for the typology of the lexicalization of motion proposed by Talmy 1985 The main issue is that serializing languages are not easily classifi able as verb framed or satellite framed Even if one adopts the revision of Slobin and Hoiting 1994 to say that such languages are complex verb framed languages the classifi cation of Ewe is further complicated by the fact that Ewe possesses several generic verbs which neither confl ate the fact of motion and manner nor motion and path a feature which is crucial for the typology Talmy 2000 Intherestofthechapter wefi rstdiscusssomeofthelexicalandgrammatical resources available in the language for spatial description Then we focus on the expression of topological relations in Section 10 3 The systems of frames of reference employed in spatial description are outlined in Section 10 4 and Section 10 5 discusses the coding of motion situations The chapter ends with a summary of the basic ideas 10 2Grammatical overview 10 2 1Linguistic type features Ewe is a tone language with high and non high tonemes Complex rising and falling tones also occur It has a seven vowel system Each of these has both an oral and a nasalized counterpart It also has double articulated labial velar stops Thereisacontrastbetweenbilabialfricativeswritten f and andlabio dental fricatives f and v Similarly there is a voiced apical post alveolar stop which contrasts with a voiced dental stop d Morphologically Ewe is an isolating language with agglutinative features It makes use of compounding as well as reduplication and triplication and affi xation processes in the forma tion of new words In terms of lexis Ewe has ideophones a set of words with interesting phonological and syntactic properties some of which code manner of motion concepts For instance Westermann 1930 107 9 gives forty ideophones that can be used in collocation with the general motion verb z glossedbyhimas walk butmoreappropriately move travel according to the manner of going This is one strategy for encoding manner which does Elements of the grammar of space in Ewe361 not get confl ated in the verb For instance one narrator describes the manner of movement of the deer in the Frog Story see Chapter 1 1 4 3 for description of this elicitation tool with ideophones as follows 1 1 E leaf e mdudza dudza 3SG be at PRES footremove PROGIDEO IDEO dudzaledzo dzo m al eb e IDEObe at PRES RED move upward PROG suchSAY It was taking strides gallopingly and jumping so that when you see it you will be frightened Frog Story 2 Ewe also has a number of utterance particles which signal the illocutionary force or the attitude of the speaker In addition there are particles for indicating the status of information units and for framing discourse in general see Ameka 1990 1992 1998 Ewe is a language with grammatically specifi ed word order with basic SVO syntax and subject and object are morphologically unmarked The forms of pronominal clitics see Table 10 1 that are used to express the subject relation in a clause contrast with those for non subject relations The language also has a logophoric pronoun ye which is used in reportive contextstodesignatetheindividual s exceptforthefi rstperson whosespeech thoughts feelings and so on are reported or refl ected in the linguistic context It occurs in grammatical or discourse dependent contexts in clauses introduced by the dependent clause introducer b e n a SAY that cf Clements 1979 Essegbey 1994 1 The following abbreviations are used in the interlinear glosses ABL ablative ALL allative ALTRI altrilical i e different place preverb COM comitative COP copula CQ content question marker DEF defi niteness marker DEIC deictic marker DEM demonstrative DET determiner DIM diminutive DIST distal demonstrative aFOC argument focus marker HAB habitual aspect marker IDEO ideophonic word INDEF indefi niteness marker INSTR instrumental INT intensifi er intr intransitive INV invariable marker ITIVE itive preverb LOC locative MOD modal NEG negative NP nominal phrase NPRES non present PFOC predicate focus marker PL plural marker POT potential marker POSS possessive linker Postp postposition PostpP Postpositional phrase Prep preposition PrepP Prepositional phrase PRES present PRIV privative marker Pro pronominal PROG progressive aspect marker PROX proximal demonstrative PROSP prospective aspect marker Q propositional question marker QP topic only question marker RED reduplicativeformative REL relativeclauseintroducer REP repetitive SUBJUNCT subjunctive SG singular TP background information terminal particle tr transitive VENT ventive 1 fi rst person 2 second person 3 third person X unacceptable without X X unacceptable with X 2 Note that in this example the verb e remove in collocation with af foot just describes the movement of the feet and says nothing about the manner of movement The manner is added by the repetition of the ideophone dudza Similarly the verb dzo simply entails the movement of a body upward Depending on the body it can be glossed as jump fl y etc see Essegbey 1999 83 4 for further details 362Felix K Ameka and James Essegbey Table 10 1 Ewe personal pronouns SINGULARPLURAL 1st person2nd person3rd person1st person2nd person3rd person Subject 1st formm e e em e mi e w o 2nd formn e w o Objectmw oi e m miw o Free formnyew o e ya m a w o mia w o w o aw o Clausal negation is marked by a discontinuous negative morpheme m e o M e occurs just before the VP and tends to be cliticized onto the fi rst element in the VP while o occurs at the end of the clause but before sentence fi nal utterance particles 10 2 2The syntax of the nominal phrase The fi xed constituent order of a fully expanded simple noun phrase is Identifi er N Pro Qualifi er Quantifi er Phrase DET1 DET2 Plural Intensifi er The DETerminer1 slot can be fi lled by the defi nite article l a a the or the particularized indefi niteness marker a e a certain The DETerminer2 slot is fi lled by demonstratives which vary from one group of dialects to the other seeTable10 2 However allEwedialectshaveabasictwo termdemonstrative system aspeaker anchoredproximalandaspeaker anchoreddistalasshownin Table10 2 Itispossibletoaugmentthedistancesbytwostrategiesbasedonthe distalterms Oneofthemeansisbythesuffi xationof i deictic tokem a that or m a that togetkem thatyonder orm thatyonder respectively Thesecond strategyistousetheparticle a inthedistance asamodifi erofthebasicaswell as derived distal forms e g kem aa that further away in the distance The elements underlined in Table 10 2 are truncated forms of the corresponding forms which have specifi c uses The truncated forms of the distal terms are alwaysaccompaniedbyapointinggesture eitheramanual liporheadpoint 3In 3 Manual point is done with the right hand either with the index fi nger or with fl at vertical hand shape There is a cultural taboo on the use of the left hand in pointing and in social interaction see Ameka 1987 1994a but see Kita and Essegbey 2001 on the overriding motoric functions that prompt the use of the left hand in gesturing There is a further restriction on forward thumb point since it has a conventional meaning of I defecate in your mouth used as an insult One can however use thumb point if the reference object is behind him her Elements of the grammar of space in Ewe363 Table 10 2 Ewe demonstratives Standard dialect Southern A l dialectNorthern dialect PROXIMALsiayia yike kel xe tsyi ci esi i DISTALm a kemam a kemam kem m ke m theInlanddialects thedefi nitenessmarkerandthedemonstrativescanco occur In the Southern and Standard dialects however they are mutually exclusive These demonstrative terms are used adnominally as modifi ers Equivalents of demonstrative pronominal forms are derived from the collocation of the 3SG subject pronoun form modifi ed by the appropriate demonstrative term For example 2 e sia e m a e kem a 3SG this 3SG that 3SG that in the distance this one that one that one further in the distance Similarly locative deictic notions such as here and there are derived by using the appropriate demonstrative to modify a generic place noun af place as shown below 3 af place DEIC here af mplace DIST DEIC there Southern af sia place this this place af ma place that that place af m place that DEIC that further away place In a presentational construction obligatorily accompanied by a gesture in the colloquial dialects the demonstrative terms occur by themselves as predicates The structure of such constructions is NP Focus DEM For example 4 a Kof e m Southern dialects K aFOC DIST DEIC That There is Kofi b Nye eke Inland dialects 1SG aFOC PROX Here I am This is me In the standard dialect however the focussed NP and the demonstrative predi cate are linked by the equative copula ny e be In addition the predicate has to 364Felix K Ameka and James Essegbey be the pronominal form of the demonstrative Compare the following example to the ones in 4 above 5 Kof eny e e m a e si Standard dialect K aFOC COP 3SG DIST DEIC 3SG PROX DEIC There is Kofi Here is Kofi In general the possessor precedes the possessum Alienable possession is indicated by a possessive marker f e poss which is interposed between the possessorandpossessum Bodypartshave alienable syntax ClaudiandHeine 1986 Ameka 1996 10 2 3Ewe verbal syntax Ewe is an aspect prominent language Habitual aspect is the only category marked on the verb by a toneless suffi x n a which inherits its tone from the tone immediately preceding it Preverbal markers are used to express various modal and aspectual categories on the verb The linear order of these markers in relation to the verb is POTential l a REPetitive ga MODal Verb HABitual SUBJUNCTive n a Abareverbortheaoristformhasacompletivemeaning Thisyieldsapastinter pretation in English for active verbs and a present interpretation for inchoative verbs The POTential can have future time interpretation in context see Esseg bey in press All these temporal interpretations can be reinforced by temporal adverbials There is no passive construction in Ewe although a modal construction in which the undergoer argument of a bivalent verb functions as the subject and the actor like argument is optionally expressed as a dative prepositional object has sometimes been described as formally similar to a passive see Duthie 1996 110 Essegbey 1999 132 The semantics of this construction does not fall within the semantics of passive structures in other languages Nor is it used for topic continuity functions in connected discourse see Ameka 1991 Chapter 9 The functional equivalent of agentless passives is an impersonal construction in which the subject function is expressed by the third person plural pronoun w o Some spatial scenes construed as a result of someone s action are described using such structures For example Picture 22 paper on pin ofthe TopologicalRelationsPictureSeries TRPS seeChapter1 1 4 1 can be described as Elements of the grammar of space in Ewe365 6 W o t pepa w o eat u 3PL thrust paper PL ALL stick SKIN Pieces of paper have been stuck on a stick Moreover Eweisa hypertransitive language Therearenoverbsequivalentto someoftheso calledcanonicalintransitiveverbssuchas run jump or swim cf Dixon 1994 124 The equivalents of these are expressed by transitive or two place constructions and the verbs involved in such constructions must obligatorily take two arguments see Clements 1972 Ameka 1994 Essegbey 1999 2002 For example 7 Kof f utsi K move limbs in a medium water Kofi swam Nor do the intransitive verbs in Ewe fall into the unergative and unaccusative classes see Essegbey 1999 which are presumed to be universal in many theo ries cf Levin and Rappaport 1995 Furthermore both arguments in a simple transitiveclausehavetobeexpressed Thusunlikeitscloselyrelatedneighbour Akan Ewe does not have null objects in simple clauses see Saah 1992 and Osam 1996 1997 on Akan Three major verb argument construction types are relevant for spatial lan guage to different degrees We follow Essegbey s 1999 characterizations of these structures A one place construction is a structure in which a verb occurs with one syntactic argument which has subject function Some inher ently directed motion verbs participate in this construction for example dz o leave and gb come back to a place thought of as base A two place con struction by contrast is a construction in which a verb occurs with two syn tactic arguments One argument has Actor like properties and the other has Undergoer like properties Essegbey 1999 125 36 distinguishes between a causal two place construction and a non causal two place construction In the former the Actor like argument is construed as being in control of bring ing about the state of affairs represented in the construction Example 8 above is an instantiation of this construction involving the motion verb f u move limbs in a medium In the non causal construction the Actor like argu ment is seen more as a Theme and the Undergoer like argument is a loca tive The locative verb le be at PRES participates in this type of construction see 10 3 2 The third major argument construction type is the three place construction where the verb has three syntactic arguments and the semantics of the con struction is that of caused transfer The specifi c meanings of the construction depending on the verb semantics are 366Felix K Ameka and James Essegbey a X causes Y to undergo a change of location towards Z b X causes Y to make contact with Z c X causes Y to be located at Z Asisevidentfromthesensesoftheconstructionatleasttwoofthemaredirectly related to space and several spatial verbs participate in this construction Many verbs can participate in more than one of these argument structure construc tions For instance we shall see that dze make contact a primarily bivalent verb can occur not only in a two place construction where in some cases it can be interpreted as expressing motion but also in both a one place as well as a three place construction Eweisalsoaverb serializinglanguage Thisisamonoclausalconstructionin which a series of fi nite verbs occur without any connector indicating syntactic dependence All the verbs have the same subject which is expressed only once and each verb can occur with its own complements and adverbial modifi ers Serialverbconstructions SVCs playaprominentroleinEwespatiallanguage and description First they are used to express caused locative situations For example 8 e ts ev aml any 3SG take child DEF lieground S he laid the child down Second they are used in describing different kinds of motion situations For instance example 9 below is an SVC with a manner of motion verb and a boundary crossing verb see further examples in 10 5 9 E t adogo 3SG crawl exit outside S he crawled outside Third andrelatedtomotion isthatserialverbconstructionsareusedtoexpress the posture or position assumed while doing something as illustrated in 10 10 E n anyi u n u 3SG be at NPRES ground eat thing S He sat down and ate Fourth SVCs are used in t