Dagbani

Dagbani is a Mabia language and spoken by an increasing population around 1,160,000 speakers. The language is spoken in the north of Ghana, in the northeast of Tamale as far as to Yendi. Dagbani has three dialects Tomosili (Western dialect), Nayahali and Nanunli (both Eastern dialects). Whereas Tomosili is spoken in and around the political capital of the Northern Region, Tamale, Nanunli is spoken in and around Bimbilla and Nayahali is predominantly found in and around Yendi.¹. The main dialectal variations observable in all three dialects manifest at the phonological, lexical and morphosyntactic level. These dialects are lexically similar to Mampruli, Gurene and Kusaal.

Linguistic classification

• Niger-Congo
  • Atlantic-Congo
    • Mabia
      • Mabia Central
        • Mabia South
          • Dagbani

Tone System

Dagbani is a tonal language in which pitch is used to distinguish words. The tone system of Dagbani is characterised by two level tones and a downstep (a lowering effect occurring between sequences of the same phonemic tone).

Lexical Function

Grammatical Function

In (2a) and (2b) the tone on the 3rd person is low. In the hortative form, the tone on the 3rd person is high, and the verb has an imperative suffix, as in (2c).

Tone changes are only possible if the subject is in 3rd person singular or plural. Tone changes are excluded if the subject is 2nd person, whereby the pronoun is simply omitted.
The last case in which grammatical tone is available concerns the marking of subjects, which the speaker does not want to identify. This is usually used in common speech, moreover in gossips or innuendos.

Noun Class System²

Noun Class	Example(SG)	Example(PL)	SG Suffix	PL Suffix	Gloss
1	tIb-li	tIb-a	-li	-a	Ear
2	paG-a	paG-ba	-a	-ba	woman
3	gab-ga	gab-si	-ga	-si	Rope
4	wab-gu	wab-ri	-gu	-ri	elephant
5	kur-gu	kur-a	-gu	-a	Old
6	ko-m/kom-	ko-ma/kom-a	-m/	-ma/-a	water

Pronominal System

Each set of personal pronouns in Dagbani is distinguished regarding person, number and animacy. Besides the distinction between singular and plural, there is an additional distinction between [+/- animate] in the 3rd person. Moreover, Dagbani distinguishes between emphatic and non-emphatic pronouns and there are no gender distinctions. While there is no morphological differentiation between grammatical cases, pronouns can occur in different forms according to whether they appear pre- or postverbally. ¹

Non-emphatic Pronouns

Preverbal
Preverbal pronouns serve as subjects of a verb and are all monosyllabic.¹

	SG	PL
1.	<n>	<ti>
2.	<a>	<yi>
3. [+animate]	<o>	<bɛ>
3. [-animate]	<di>	<di>, <ŋa>

Postverbal
Postverbal pronouns usually denote objects.¹

	SG	PL
1.	<ma>	<ti>
2.	<a>	<ya>
3. [+animate]	<o>	<ba>
3. [-animate]	<li>	<li>, <ŋa>

Given the fact that preverbal and postverbal pronouns do not denote two complementary sets, one could refer to them as unmarked or specifically marked for postverbal occurence.¹

	SG			PL
	Unmarked		Marked	Unmarked		Marked
1.	n		ma		ti
2.		a		yi		ya
3. [+animate]		o		bɛ		ba
3. [-animate]	di		li	di	(ŋa)	li

Emphatic Pronouns

Emphatic pronouns in Dagbani serve as regular pronouns in that they can stand in isolation, preverbally or postverbally.¹

	SG	PL
1.	<mani>	<tinima>
2.	<nyini>	<yinima>
3.[+animate]	<ŋuni/ŋuna>	<bɛna>, <bana>
3.[-animate]	<dini/dina>	<ŋana>

Reciprocal Pronouns

Reciprocals are formed by the addition of the word taba after the verb.¹

Reflexive Pronouns

Reflexive pronouns are formed by the suffix -maŋa, which is attached to the non-emphatic preverbal pronoun.¹

The affix maŋa can also occur as an emphatic pronoun after nouns.¹

Possessive Pronouns

The possessive pronouns in Dagbani exactly correspond to the preverbal non-emphatic pronouns, which always proceed the possessed constituent.

Relative Pronouns

In Dagbani the relative pronouns are ŋʊn ("who") as in (8) and ni ("which") as in (9).³

The relative pronouns in Dagbani are not obligatory present and can also be absent depending on the context, as (10) illustrates.³

Following Olawsky (1999) relative pronouns in Dagbani can also be complex in its nature, such that they consist of two two elements, an indefinite pronoun and an emphatic pronoun.³

Interrogative Pronouns⁰

Interrogative pronouns in Dagbani make a distinction between human and non-human. A list of interrogatives is given in the table below.

bòn / bà	"what"
ŋùní	"who"
bòzùɣù	"why"
yà	"where"
díní	"which"
álá	"how much"
bòndàlì	"when"
sáhá díní	"when"
wùlà	"how"

Additionally, interrogative pronouns inflect for number, but not all of them. Those inflecting for number belong to the semantic categories [ +THING], [ +SELECTION], [ +PERSON]. An example is given in the second table below⁵ .

Semantic Category	Singular	Plural	Gloss
[ +PERSON]	ŋùní	bànímà	who/whom
[ +SELECTION]	dìní	dìnnímà	which
[ +THING]	bò	bònímà	what

Demonstrative Pronouns⁵

Demonstrative pronouns in Dagbani make a morphological difference between the singular and plural form. Following Issah (2018b) the demonstrative pronoun ŋɔ moves to the specifier of the functional NumP and if Num is plural, then the plural morphem -nímá attaches to the demonstrative pronoun. If Num is singular, there is a zero morphem, such that the demonstrative pronoun does not differ in its morphological form.

Demonstrative Pronoun	SG	PL	Gloss
Proximal	ŋɔ	ŋɔnímá	this/these
Distal	ŋɔ há	ŋɔnímá há	that/those

Indefinite Pronouns

Dagbani distinguishes not only between singular and plural for indefinite pronouns, but also between [+/-animate]. Therefore, there are two pairs of indefinite pronouns. Indefinites are basically used in the same way as adjectives, as their morphological form is similar to that of nouns and adjectives.¹ In order to express an indefinite like "something" the inanimate singular form is combined with the noun bini   ("thing").

	SG	PL	Gloss
[+animate]	<so>	<shɛba>	"somebody"
[-animate]	<shɛli>	<shɛŋa>	"something"

Word Order

Dagbani has a rigid SVO word order. In the canonical sentence structure, the verb precedes the direct and indirect object as well as adverbials. The clause structure exhibits varying functional elements projecting various functional phrasal categories including tense, aspect, negation, mood and the conjoint/disjoint paradigm.⁶

Verbal System

The VP in Dagbani consists of a preverbal particle encoding tense, aspect and mood¹, the main verb, and a postverbal particle which marks focus⁷ .

Preverbal Particles

Major Particles⁸

Tense, Aspect, Modal Particles	Dagbani
today (also once upon a time)	də
one day away	sa
two or more days away	daa
habitual	yi
still, not yet	na
actually	siri
once again, as usual	yaa
suddenly, just	dii
nonfuture negative	bə
future affix	nə
future negative	ku
imperative subjunctive negative	de
again	lah

Main Verb

Each verb in Dagbani has two forms, a perfective and an imperfective form with very few exceptions. In general, the perfective form is the unmarked form, whereas the imperfective form corresponds to the progressive form, or in other words it refers to an action, which is still in progress¹. The perfective is nearly syncretic with the infinitive, which in turn has an /n-/-prefix. The imperfective is formed by the suffix /-di/¹.

The inflectional system in Dagbani is relatively poor as compared to other languages. There is no grammatical agreement, since number and person are not marked. Tense is marked only under certain constraints. Basically, Dagbani makes a distinction between future and non-future, however the main distinction does not concern Tense, but Aspect and occurs between perfective and imperfective.

Postverbal Particle

Following Issah (2013), the postverbal particle la marks presentational focus, rather than contrastive focus. In comparison to the postverbal particle in Dagaare, the function of this Dagbani particle is also not yet fully investigated. There are native speakers, who consider the particle to indicate that what is expressed to the hearer is not shared knowledge. Issah (2013) on the other hand argues that the presence of la asserts new information, while its absence indicates old information.

Conjoint / Disjoint Markers

	Conjoint	Disjoint
Imperfective	Ò       nyú-r-í                   kóm. 3SG drink-IPFV-CJ water 'He is drinking water.'	Ò      nyú-r-á. 3SG drink-IPFV-DJ 'He is drinking.'
Perfective	Ò       nyú-∅                    kóm. 3SG drink.PFV-CJ water 'He drank water.'	Ò      nyú-yá. 3SG drink.PFV-DJ 'He drank.'

Negation

Nominal negation

Nominal negation is expressed by the negated verbs ka or pa, whereas the former is a locative verb the latter is a copula.

Verbal negation

Several verbs in Dagbani have a specific morphological form, when they are negated. The verb be ('to be in a place') and mali ('to have') for instance both have the morphological form ka, when they occur as negated.

Negation of a declarative

Negation is expressed by preverbal particles. Dagbani has two different preverbal particles. In the present and the past tense the particle bi is used as in (12), whereas in the future the negative particle is ku as in (13).

The preverbal future particle ni cannot co-occur with the preverbal negative particle bi, instead the preverbal negative future particle ku is used.

Negation of an imperative

In order to negate an imperative, the particle bi can not be used and di is taken instead. This particle is the negation marker only in imperatives.

Question Formation

In Dagbani questions, the question word can either appear in situ or ex situ.

Ex situ

Dagbani	Question words
Bɔ	what
Dini	which
Ya	where
Wula	how
ŋuni	who
ŋun	whose
Bɔ zuɤu	why

The basic word order in Dagbani questions is SVO, such that the question word is fronted and followed by the focus marker ka. This is the unmarked form and accepted by many native speakers as "natural".¹

In situ

Yes-/No-question in Dagbani are formed by the disjunction bee ('or'), which either conjoints two propositions or which occurs sentence-finally to indicate that the sentence with SVO order is actually a question.

In addition to Yes-/No-questions, the question word can also occur in sentence-final position. This might correspond to echo questions.