Likpakpaanl

Likpakpaanl is a Mabia language and has 600 000 speakers. It is spoken in the North-Eastern parts of Ghana as well as in Northern Togo. Likpakpaanl has five dialects, including Likoonl (spoken in Gbintiri, Bunbon and around Gushegu), Linafeil (spoken in Wapuli), Ligbenl (spoken in Kujooni), Lichabol (spoken in Saboba, the seat of the traditional capital of Kikpakpaaŋ) and Limonkpeln (spoken in Kpassa, Kpalba and Damonko).¹

Linguistic classificiation

• Niger-Congo
  • Atlantic-Congo
    • Mabia
      • Mabia East
        • Likpakpaanl

Tone System

Likpakpaanl has two-level tones, a high and a low tone as well as a downstep.

Lexical function

Likpakpaanl has independent tense and aspectual markers, thus there is no verbal inflection. More information with respect to the verbal system in Likpakpaanl is given below.

Grammatical Function

Likpakpaanl uses two-level tones; low (⸜) and high (⸝) to distinguish between perfective (3a) & (4a) and habitual aspects (3b) & (4b). The tones do not change regardless of the person specification of the noun or a pronoun.

Noun Class System

The noun class system of Likpakpaanl is quite complex. There are seven concord classes, nine prefix classes and 59 suffix classes in this language. Based on their morphology, Winkelmann (2012) classified these noun classes into fifteen classes according to whether they bear singular or plural affixes or even a circumfix.

NC	Example(SG)	ExamplePL	SG Suffix	PL Suffix/Circumfix	Gloss
1/2	u-ja	Bi-ja-b	u-	bi...-b	man
3/4	n-lan	i-lan	n-	i-	song
5/6	li-kuu-l	ŋi-ku	li-	ŋi-	hoe
14/*ci	Bu-su-b	i-su-i	bu-...-b	i-...-i	tree
12/21	ki-saa-k	ti-saa-r	ki-...-k	ti-...-r	farm
15/22	ki-ju-k	n-ju-m	ki-...-k	n-...-m	knife
20	---	-	tiwan-kaan	---	generic reference
22/23	n-yaa-n	---	n-...-n	---	salt

Pronominal System

Personal Pronouns

Personal pronouns in Likpakpaanl are distinguished based on their person, number, and animacy. Besides singular and plural, there is a distinction between [+/- animate] in the third person. Pronouns in Likpakpaanl can also be classified into emphatic or non-emphatic, but gender is not marked. Although pronouns do not differ morphologically between grammatical cases, they can appear in different forms.

Preverbal

These pronouns occur as subjects of a verb and are all monosyllabic. The choice of either m or n as the 1st singular pronoun is phonologically conditioned by the following word.

Person	SG	PL	Gloss
1st	n/m	tì	I/we
2nd	à	nì	you/you
3rd +human	ù	bì	he/she/they
3rd -human	ù	ì	it/they

Postverbal

These pronouns are used as objects in sentences. While the 1st and 2nd person singular postverbal pronouns are morphologically distinct, the 3rd person and the plural counterparts have he same form as the plural preverbal pronouns.

Person	SG	PL	Gloss
1st	mì	tì	I/we
2nd	sì	nì	you/you
3rd +human	ù	bì	he/she/they
3rd -human	ù	ì	it/they

Emphatic Pronouns²

Likpakpaanl Emphatic pronouns occur as regular pronouns and, thus and in isolation, pre-verbally or post-verbally. There are no morphological distinctions between emphatic pronouns used in the subject (5a) and object positions (5b) but they always occur with a focus particle.

Person	SG	PL	Gloss
1st	mìn	tìmì	I/we
2nd	sìn	nìmì	you/you
3rd +human	ùmà	bìmà	he/she/they
3rd -human	nìmà	ìmà	it/they

Reciprocal pronouns²

Likpakpaanl has only one reciprocal pronoun, and that is tͻb which means ‘one another’ or ‘each other’.

Reflexive Pronouns

Likpakpaanl reflexive pronouns are composed of a suffix reflexiser –bà ‘self’ and a personal pronoun.

Personal Pronoun	Suffix	Reflexive Pronoun	Gloss
m/n	-bà 'self'	m-bà	myself
à	-bà 'self'	à-bà	yourself
ù	-bà 'self'	ù-bà	himself/herself
tì	-bà 'self'	tì-bà	ourselves
nì	-bà 'self'	nì-bà	yourselves
bì	-bà 'self'	bì-bà	themselves (+human)
ì	-bà 'self'	ì-bà	themselves (-human)

Possessive Pronouns

The possessive pronouns in Likpakpaanl correspond to the pre-verbal, non-emphatic pronouns, as sown in (7a). Sometimes, a possessive morpheme àà- can be used, which always prefixes the possessed constituent that immediately follows the pronoun. The circumstances when to use the form in (7b) are still an open issue to investigate.

Relative Pronouns

Relative pronouns in Likpakpaanl depend on the Noun class prefix of the noun that is relativised. So there is no single lexical item that represents the relative pronoun. We see that in (8a) the relative pronoun is ù because the relativised noun is prefixed by the while in (8b) it changes to ì to reflect the noun class for pigs.

Demonstrative Pronouns

Demonstrative pronouns in Likpakpaanl are regulated by the personal pronouns and the NC system. They thus make a morphological difference between the singular and plural forms. Following Acheampong (in prep) the demonstrative pronoun comprises the suffix -mìnà which is attached to the noun class prefix for proximal demonstratives. With distal demonstratives, the personal-prefix precedes the bound morpheme -è.

Demonstrative Pronoun	SG	PL	Gloss
Proximal	ùmìnà	ìmìnà	this/these
	nìmìnà	tìmìnà	this/these
	kìmìnà	mùmìnà	this/these
Distal	ùè	íè	that/those
	nìè	nìè	that/those
	kìè	mùè	that/those

Interrogative Pronouns³

Interrogative Pronoun	Semantic Category	Gloss
​ŋ​mà	person	who
bà​ŋ​à	reason	why
lá	place	where
nìlàn	selection	which
ì​ŋ​à	amount	how much
bàdáál	time	when
kínyé	manner	how
bà	thing	what

Word Order

Likpakpaanl has a basic SVO word order. In (10) an example for an intransitive clause with an adverb is given, and (11) and (12) present examples for a transitive and ditransitive sentence, respectively. Note that the gloss for the verb in (10) and (11) stands for hesternal past.

Verb System

Preverbal Particles

Aspectual Particles

There are dedicated aspectual particles used to express tense relations in Likpakpaanl, which occur preverbally. The imperfective aspect is marked by bì, but the perfective is morphologically unmarked.⁴

The table below illustrates the aspectual particle in conjoint and disjoint contexts, respectively.

	Conjoint	Disjoint
Imperfective	Ù-píí             gbààn   bī         ŋáál- ∅       lòòr. CL-woman DEF     IMPF drive-CJ      car 'The woman is driving a car.'	...
Perfective	Wáápù wìì-∅                        lí-búúl gbààn. Waapu broke.PERF-CJ   CL-pot   DEF 'Wapuul broke the pot.'	M-bìm      gbààn kàrn-à. CL-child   DEF     read.PERF-DJ 'The children have read.'

Tense Particles

Tense is also morphologically marked by particles, which are used to distinguish between immediate past (14a), remote past (14b), hesternal past (14c), future (14d) and negative future (14e).

Main Verb

Main verbs in Likpakpaanl are not morphologically marked, but particles are used to mark Tense, Aspect and Mood (TAM). Since main verbs do not inflect for TAM in Likpakpaanl, there is no grammatical agreement, since number and person are not marked.

Negation

Negation in Likpakpaanl is marked either by the negative particle ká preceding the negated phrase or by the suffix -á/-àá that attaches pronominally to the subject. There exist also verbs that have a negative meaning like kpá ('to be absent') for instance, such that these verbs can also express negation without further being marked for negation.

Negation via particle

Negation of a declarative

In order to negate a declarative clause, the particle ká is placed between the subject and the predicate.

Negation of a relative clause

Negation of a relative clause is also marked by the negative particle ká immediately following the relative pronoun. Note that DP is the abbreviation for discourse particle.

Negation of an imperative

In imperatives, negation is marked by the particle tà, which also immediately follows the subject. Note that RP in the glossing stands for resumptive pronoun.

Negation via suffixation

Nominal negation

There are two suffixes marking nominal negation -á and -àá. The former attaches to first and second person pronouns regardless of its number, while the latter attaches to third person pronouns also regardless of its number. In (19a) the affirmative version to the negation in (19b) is given, whereby the morphological different marking on both pronouns becomes clear. In (20) two examples for second person pronouns marked for negation in each number are given, whereas (21) illustrates the same for third person pronouns in singular and plural.

Double Negation

In Likpakpaanl, it is possible to combine two negative particles like ká and kɪ in order to express negation with respect to tense. These two combined particles for instance correspond to the negative denotation of the future translated as 'not anymore'. Both particles occur together, such that there is no intervening element between both negative particles.

Question Formation

Questions in Likpakpaanl can be formed by an ex situ as well as an in situ strategy.

Ex situ

In ex situ contexts, the question word appears sentence-initially obeying the word order QVO.

In situ

In in situ contexts the question word appears sentence-finally according to the word order SVQ as in (25). There is also the option of an in situ question marker as in (26).

Embedded

In embedded questions the question word again can occur ex situ and in situ, but the question itself is embedded under the complementizer ke.

Multiple Questions

Questions involving more than one question word can also be formed either by an in situ strategy or by an ex situ strategy. In (29a) both question words appear in situ, while in (29b) one question word occurs ex situ and the other one in situ.