Sisaali

Sisaali (or Sisaala) is a Mabia language, spoken in the Upper West Region of Northern Ghana. Sisaali is spoken by roughly 250,000 speakers. Sisaali is a cover term for dialect continuum consisting out of 7 dialects.

Linguistic classificiation

• Niger-Congo
  • Atlantic-Congo
    • Mabia
      • Mabia East
        • Sisaali

Dialects

There are seven dialects in Sisaali.¹

• Tumulung
• Gbieni
• Gilbagili
• Buwaali
• Kpatolie
• Pasaali
• Bosillu

Tone System

Grammatical Function

Changes in tone can lead to grammatical differences, such that tone differences are responsible for aspect changes. Thus, depending on the tones, a clause is either in perfective or imperfective form. The tonal pattern for imperfectives and perfectives is given in the table below, whereby * indicates an harmonizing vowel. While the imperfective form serves as a basic form, the perfective form involves an harmonizing final vowel and may be subject to lengthening of the final vowel as well² .

Imperfective	Perfective
CV	CVV*
CVC	CVCV*
CV(V)CV	CV(V)CV*
CVCVCV	CVCVCV*

Additionally, the examples in (1a) and (1b) compare the tonal pattern for imperfective and perfective aspect. Note that the exclamation mark indicates a downstep tone.

Noun Class System³

Class	Singular Marker	Plural Marker	Singular Noun	Plural Noun	Gloss
1	-+V/-∅	+Vowel (+ATR)/-ATR)	gaal-ɩ, hↄ́l, suwoŋ, nɛl	gaal-a, hↄl-ↄ, suwon-o, nɛl-ɛ	thief, charcoal, bean, person
2	-+V/-∅	-hi/hɩ	gbaɲ-a, bↄgↄ, bie, kuori	gbaɲ-hɩ, bↄgↄ-hɩ, bii-hi, kuori-hi	calabash, farm, child, chief
3	-∅	-ni/nɩ	kpaha, vaha, nyu, fo	kpahɩ-nɩ, vahɩ-nɩ, nyu-ni, fo-ni	chair, dog, head, river
4	+consonant (l)	-lɩ	kↄlaa, sↄmpↄlaa, hakila, fↄkↄlↄ	kↄↄl-lɩ, sↄmpↄↄl-lɩ, hakil-lɩ, fↄkↄl-lɩ	mouse, toad, mind, streams
5	-∅	-ma	kuwo, naa, yila, hila	kuwo-ma, naa-ma, yila-ma, hila-ma	father, mother, aunt, In-law

Pronominal System

Personal Pronouns

The personal pronouns in Sisaali have the same morphological form regardless of whether they are used as subjects or objects. There is only one exception. The first person plural pronoun changes if it is used as an object and interestingly has the same morphological form as the second person plural pronoun, which contrastingly has the same form for subject or object pronouns. The only option to disambiguate between the first person plural object pronoun and the second person plural pronouns relies on the given context.³

Person	Subject Pronoun	Object Pronoun
1st SG	ŋ 'I'	ŋ 'me'
2nd SG	ɩ 'you'	ɩ 'you'
3rd SG	ʋ‘he, she, it’	ʋ‘him, her, it’
1st PL	à ‘we’	mà ‘us’
2nd PL	mà 'you'	mà 'you'
3rd PL	ba 'they'	ba 'them'

Possessive Pronouns

In order to express possessives in Sisaali, no additional pronoun form is required, but juxtaposing the possessor and the possessum. The possessor is a pre-nominal element modifying the possessum, which in turn is the head of the NP.

Reflexive Pronouns

Reflexive pronouns are formed by a personal pronoun and the morphem tɩɩ ('self').³

Person	Reflexive Pronoun	Gloss
1st SG	ŋtɩɩ	myself
2nd SG	ɩtɩɩ	yourself
3rd SG	ʋtɩɩ	himself, herself, itself
1st PL	atɩɩ (*matɩɩ)	ourselves
2nd PL	matɩɩ	yourselves
3rd PL	batɩɩ	themselves

Reciprocal Pronouns

Reciprocal pronouns in Sisaali have the same morphological form as the reflexive pronouns and are thus ambiguous with respect to their interpretation either as a reflexive or reciprocal pronoun. Reciprocal pronouns however always need a plural antecedent, while this is not the case for reflexive pronouns.³

Demonstrative Pronouns

Demonstratives in Sisaali are mainly postnominal elements, that have deictic features and appear in two forms. The proximal form is used when the referent is close to the speaker, as in (6a), while the distal form is used in cases in which the referent is far away from the speaker, as in (6b). The demonstratives nʋ and hʋ in the following example are from the Kpatolie dialect.

In the Kpatolie dialect the demonstratives are not sensitive to number, thus they have the same morphological form regardless of singular or plural referents. A similar pattern can be observed in the Paasaal and Gbieni dialects, in which the demonstratives also have the same form independent of number. This is illustrated in the following examples.

In the Bʋwaalɩ dialect on the other hand, demonstratives do inflect for number, such that there is a singular morphological form as well as a plural morphological form for demonstratives, which is shown in the example below.

Relative Pronouns

The relative pronoun in Sisaali is àà and there is no distinction between human vs. non-human or in terms of animacy, the relative pronoun always has the same morphological form. This is similar to Dagaare, that also has only one relative pronoun for all relativized elements.

Indefinite Pronouns

In (10), the affirmative as well as the negative forms of some indefinite pronouns are given.

Word Order

Similar to the other Mabia languages, Sisaali has a strict SVO word order. This can be seen in an intransitive clause involving an adverb as in (11), in a transitive clause involving a PP as in (12), and in a ditransitive clause as in (13).

Verb System

Preverbal Particles

Aspectual particles

Sisaali makes use of aspectual particles in order to express tense relations. The particle jaŋ is the aspectual particle encoding future as in (14a), the particle fa corresponds to the perfective form, as in (14b), and the imperfective is expressed by the particle faa. If the future particle and the perfective particle co-occur, they express a conditional, as in (14c).

In imperfective contexts, if a pronoun precedes the verb, the pronoun is lengthened and the particle “nɛ” is attached phrase-finally as a stress marker or focus marker, respectively.² This is illustrated in the contrast between the perfective form in (15a) and the imperfective form in (15b).

In imperfective contexts, in which there is no pronoun preceding the verb, there are two different aspectual imperfective markers, nɩɩ or ka, which is accompanied by the focus marker nɛ. These are used in positive contexts, as the following example illustrates.

In negative imperfective contexts, the negation particle bɩ precedes the object, which in turn precedes the verb. Interestingly, in negative imperfective context the word order changes from SVO to subject > negation > object > verb, thus to SOV. The example in (17) demonstrates the changed word order and that the imperfective marker ka is optionally accompanied by the focus marker.

Temporal/Adverbial particles

Other particles that occur preverbally in Sisaali correspond to temporal and adverbial particles, respectively. The table below provides an overview of the most common particles.

Particle	Gloss
yie	always
saa	then/therefore
bɩra	again
yaaŋ	habitually/regularly
paala	even
ha	still

In positive contexts, the particle occurs between the subject and the verb, while in negative contexts it follows the subject, but precedes the negation, which in turn changes the word order to SOV. Thus, in negative contexts, the particle precedes both the negation and the verb. This is shown in the example in (18)

Motion verbs

There is the option to have a sequence consisting of two motion verbs, as in the example below. One motion verb immediately precedes the other motion verb, such that there can be no additional element intervening between both verbs.

Auxiliary verbs

There are three auxiliary verbs kɛŋ ('have') in (20), joŋ ('take') in (21) and (22), and kʋ ('come'), that obligatorily precede the verb. According to Frempong (2015), auxiliaries can also precede the complement of the verb.

Serial verbs

It is possible in Sisaali to have a range of verbs in a serial verb construction, in which no other particle can intervene.²

Negation

Negation in Sisaali is expressed by the particle bɩ, which occurs in general between the subject and the predicate, but after Tense and Aspect particles.

Verbal Negation

There exist several intransitive verbs in Sisaali that do not take the perfective form, when they are negated as in (24). Instead, these verbs take the infinitive form.

Negation of a declarative

Negation is marked by the particle bɪ. The word order in a negated declarative clause is S-NEG-OV. The particle can co-occur with other preverbal particles like tense and aspectual markers, whereby the negative particle immediately follows a tense particle giving rise to the order of Tense-Negation-Aspect for preverbal particles.

Negation of an imperative

In order to negate an imperative, the particle sí is used instead of the particle bɪ. Importantly, the particle sí is used in imperatives only. In some dialects of Sisaali, the particle ta is the negative particle used in imperatives, as in (27).

Question Formation

Ex situ

Due to the word order being SVO, most of the questions in Sisaali are built by an ex situ strategy. The question word occurs clause-initially and replaces the object in (28a) and the subject in (29a), respectively.

In situ

A declarative clause can be transformed into a question by lengthening of the final vowel, such that no additional question word is required. This case corresponds to echo-questions.

Embedded

The question word can also be embedded in a subordinated clause, where it appears clause-finally as in (31).

Multiple Questions

Questions with more than one question word are theoretically possible, but not very acceptable by native speakers.

Long distance extraction

The question word in Sisaali can occupy several different positions within the clause, such that long distance extraction is possible. It can stay in its base position as in (33a), move to the edge of the embedded clause in (33b) or raise to the clause-initial position as in (33c).