PRONOUNS IN GINYANGA Текст научной статьи по специальности «Языкознание и литературоведение»

2022

ВЕСТНИК САНКТ-ПЕТЕРБУРГСКОГО УНИВЕРСИТЕТА ВОСТОКОВЕДЕНИЕ И АФРИКАНИСТИКА

Т. 14. Вып. 2

ЯЗЫКОЗНАНИЕ

UDC 81'44

Pronouns in Ginyanga*

V. А. Pozdniakova1,2, Ye. S. Aplonova3

1 Institute of Linguistics of the Russian Academy of Sciences,

1, Bolshoy Kislovskiy per., Moscow, 125009, Russian Federation

2 HSE University,

20, Myasnitskaya ul., Moscow, 101000, Russian Federation

3 INALCO, Langage, langues et cultures d'Afrique, 7, rue Guy Moquet, Paris, 8135, France

For citation: Pozdniakova V. A., Aplonova Ye. S. Pronouns in Ginyanga. Vestnik of Saint Petersburg University. Asian and African Studies, 2022, vol. 14, issue 2, pp. 243-260. https://doi.org/10.21638/spbu13.2022.206 (In Russian)

The paper presents a tentative overview of pronouns in Ginyanga, an understudied Kwa language spoken in Togo and Ghana; in particular, personal pronouns, reflexive pronouns, demonstratives, and quantifiers. There are no subject pronouns in Ginyanga. We define two personal pronoun series with a designated pronoun for each noun class: basic (emphatic and possessive) and object. The basic set of pronouns is used in independent and possessive contexts, as well as in reflexive constructions. The overview of Guang pronoun systems shows that Ginyanga falls into the typical Guang pattern. Possessive pronouns of the 1st (human) class exhibit some irregularities when used with kinship terms. In some cases, the morphological agreement pattern between a noun and its coreferential object pronoun can be violated on a semantic basis, e. g. human referents of non-human noun classes. Additionally, there is some variation in usage of object pronoun series by different consultants of different age groups, which may be an indication of language change. There are two demonstratives, -ball "this" and -bunu "that", also subject to class agreement. In contrast to -ball, the demonstrative -bunu is also used in relative clauses and can be anaphoric. The majority of quantifiers demonstrate no class agreement. The only exceptions in our data are -ku "one" and kpekpe "each".

Keywords: Niger-Congo, Kwa, Guang, noun class, noun morphology, pronouns.

Introduction

Study background

The paper introduces an overview of Ginyanga pronouns. It focuses on personal pronouns, but also presents an account of reflexive pronouns, demonstratives and quantifiers.

* This work was supported by the Russian Science Foundation under grant No. 17-78-20071. © St Petersburg State University, 2022

Ginyanga is a Kwa language spoken by 16500 people in Togo and Ghana [1]. It belongs to the Guang group of Kwa; more detailed information on its genealogical classification is presented in (1).

(1) Ginyanga classification [2]

Niger-Congo > Kwa > Tano > Guang > North Guang > Ginyanga

Research on language is scarce. Literature on Ginynga includes a brief grammar sketch [3], an encyclopedia entry [1], a description of segmental phonetics [4], and a soci-olinguistic study by the Summer Institute of Linguistics (SIL) [5]. Although several papers on Guang languages [6, 7, 8, 9] employed data on Ginyanga and Gichode (a closely related language or dialect), no profound research has been done on either of them. Apart from a description of the Ginyanga noun class system and agreement [10], there are currently no comprehensive studies of Ginyanga morphosyntax, and this article is a step towards filling this gap.

Examples used in the paper are drawn from elicited data and a small oral corpus of Ginyanga traditional narratives. All of the data were collected by Victoria Pozdniakova, Katya Aplonova, Andrey Shluinsky and Tatiana Mamonova during two field trips to Ag-bandi, Togo in 2019-2020.

The paper is structured as follows. Section 1.2 provides a brief introduction to Ginyanga phonetics and morphology. Section 1.3 aligns Guang systems of personal pronouns in order to put Ginynaga data in a microtypological perspective. Section 2 overviews possessive and emphatic personal pronouns, while Section 3 deals with object personal pronoun series. Section 4 is dedicated to non-personal pronouns. Lastly, Section 5 sums up our findings and outlines the directions of future research.

Language background

The Ginyanga phonemic inventory is provided below. Ginyanga displays a system of 22 consonants (Table 1) and 9 vowels (Table 2), typical for a Guang language (see [11] for a more detailed account of Ginyanga vowels and vowel harmony).

Ginyanga is a tonal language that has presumably high and low phonemic level tones. The authors are aware of the crucial importance of tonal oppositions for gram-matic systems of African languages. Still, because the Ginyanga tonal system is understudied, and because we have not noticed distinguishing oppositions in Ginyanga pronouns, in this preliminary report the examples are presented without tonal marking (except for the CL1 subject prefixes of the verbs, which are discussed further. In this case, the high and low tones of the prefixes distinguish between the factative and imper-fective forms).

Based on 8 agreement patterns we define 8 noun classes. The first class (CL1) is further divided into 3 morphological subclasses, depending on the form of nominal class prefixes: CL1 (o-/o-), CL1 (i-) and CL1 (0-).

Classes are marked by noun prefixes, although a considerable amount of CL1 nouns have no overt marking on the noun itself (0- subclass). Both noun class markers of nouns and noun class agreement markers are subject to [+-ATR] based vowel harmony.

Table 3 shows Ginyanga noun classes with their agreement paradigms.

There are two series of verb prefixes, factative and imperfective (columns "fct" and "ipfv"), that cross-reference the subject of the clause, as illustrated in (1): the prefix of the

Table 1. Ginyanga consonants

manner place

labial dentoavelar palatal velar labiovelar glottal

plosive voiceless p t k kp

voiced b d g gb

affricate voiceless c

voiced j

nasal m n ß Ч 4m

fricative f s

lateral l

glide w y

vibrant r

[+ATR]

Table 2. Ginyanga vowels

[-ATR]

height advancement

front central back

high i u

mid e o

low

height advancement

front central back

high I и

mid e 0

low a

Table 3. Ginyanga noun class agreement

Noun class Plurality Prefix Pronoun Examples

noun verb subj num -bunu -bali basic obj

fct ipfv

CL1 Sg 0-/o- 0-/Ó- 6-/ 0- (0-with an overt subject) 0- 0- 0- ma (w) a/ (w)e o-kpre "dog"

I- i-sa "person"

0- kitiki "manioc"

CL2 Pl a- ma- me- a- a- a- m0 m0 a-sa "people"

CL3 Pl I-/i- ma- me- I-/i- I- I- m0 m0 i-kpre "dogs"

CL4 Sg ga- ga- g£- ga- ga- ga- g0 g0 ga-tin "house"

CL5 Sg gI-/gi-/ gu-/gu- ga- gi- gI-/gi-/ gu-/gu- ga- ga- g0 g0 gi-ye "mouse"

CL6 Pl n- ga- ge- n- n- n- nma nma n-tin "houses"

CL7 Pl a- a- £- a- a- a- awa awa a-ye "mice"

CL8 Pl I-/i- ya- I-/i- I-/i- I- I- Iya Iya i-kitiki "maniocs"

dynamic verb tol "to fall" changes depending on the noun class of the subject. Example (1a) deals with a completed event while the sentence in (1b) refers to the ongoing one. When used with stative verbs, the factative paradigm refers to the ongoing states, as is the case with the stative qualitative verb kill "to be big" in (1c). There are no subject pronouns in Ginyanga.

a. go-co ga-tol CL4-ax CL4.FCT-fall "The ax has fallen."

b. go-co ge-tol CL4-axq CL4.IPFV-fall "The ax is falling."

c. ga-bwi ga-kili CL4-bird CL4.FCT-be.big "The bird is big."

With CL1 subjects, imperfective forms take no class indexation if the subject is present. In the first clause of each sentence the subject wul "chief" is present, therefore ji "eat" is only marked in (2a). In the second clause the verb prefixes have anaphorical meaning, referring to the subject outside of the clause, and cannot be omitted.

(2)

a. 0-wul e o-ji 0-kitiki, CLl-chief DEF CLl.FCT-eat CLl-manioc, "The chief has eaten the manioc, he has eaten."

b. 0-wul e 0-ji 0-kitiki, CLl-chief DEF CLl.IPFV-eat CLl-manioc, "The chief eats the manioc, he eats."

Apart from cross-referencing the subject in the verb, the typical noun class agreement targets in Kwa are numerals, adjectives, demonstratives and indefinite markers [l2]. In Ginyanga there is noun class agreement of cardinal numerals from l to 6 and demonstratives -bunu "that" and -ball "this" (in the latter two contexts, there is only one agreement target, and therefore no harmonic variation). The qualitative meaning is usually expressed by stative verbs or a closed class of qualitative lexemes that are used with a copula and are not subject to class agreement. Finally, there are two personal pronoun series with a designated pronoun for each noun class: basic (emphatic and possessive) and object, discussed in detail in Sections 3 and 4 respectively.

Microtypological background

Table 4 aligns the lst and 2nd person pronouns of Ginyanga, Gonja (North Guang), Cheperon (South Guang), Nchumbulu (North Guang) and Nawuri (North Guang). The 3rd person pronouns of Ginyanga are not presented, because the difference in noun class systems makes a direct comparison problematic (please refer to Table 3 for the full paradigm). The overview of Guang pronoun systems shows that Ginyanga falls into the typical for Guang pattern, in which in the lst and 2nd person the same form of pronoun performs objective, possessive and emphatic functions while the 3rd person pronouns have different forms depending on their type. This comparison also shows that the personal pronouns in all four languages, Ginyanga included, are cognates.

o-ji

CLl.FCT-eat

o-ji

CLl.IPFV-eat

Table 4. Personal pronouns in Guang languages (from [13] and [14])

Person Ginyanga Gonja Cheperon Nchumbulu Nawuri

obj poss emph obj poss emph obj poss emph obj poss emph obj poss emph

1sg mi mi mi má má má mu mu mu rii m ü - m ü 111£ 1113 1118

2sg fu fu fu fó fó fó Wü wó wó fo - fo fó fó fó

3sg anim see Table 3 mö riiftá mö mö 1110 111Ö ril 111Ö - 111 ö 111Ó 111Ö 111Ó

3sg inanim kúmú kúmú bá kúmú kámó

1pl ajii ajii ajii ájié ájié bá ájié énu énu snll áni - áni áné áné áné

2 pl fajii fajii fajii béjié béjié bá béjié énuj. énuj. énuj. muñí - muñí fané fané fáné

3pl anim see Table 3 bömö bömö £111Ó £1110 £1110 bam bamü - bamü gbámó gbámó gbámó

3pl inanim ámú ámú ba ámú émó -

Basic personal pronouns

Table 5 shows the full paradigm of basic pronoun series that is used in independent (emphatic, e. g. topical) (3a) and possessive (3b) contexts.

Table 5. Ginyanga possessive pronouns

Person/Noun class basic pronoun

person 1SG mi

2SG fu

1PL aju

2PL fapi

noun class CL1 ma

CL2 mo

CL3 mo

CL4 g°

CL5 g°

CL6 nma

CL7 awa

CL8 iya

(3)

a. api kitiki 1PL 0-manioc "our manioc"

b. a-wul ni, mo ni CL2-chief COP, CL2.EMPH COP "These are the chiefs, that is them."

Example (5) illustrates the use of basic pronoun series in possessive constructions. In sentences (5a-h), the possessors belong to different noun classes, which is why they are referred to by different pronouns in the second clause. The possessive construction in Ginyanga has a Poss-N structure with no additional markers (4), therefore the pronoun precedes the head noun.

(4)

o-pim a

CL1-man DEF

"the man's house"

(5)

a. o-subu ga-tim-a, ma ga-tim-a

CL-relative CL4-house, CL1.BSC CL4-house

"relative's house, his house"

ga-tin CL4-house

b. a-gwini o-kila, mo o-kila CL2-lion CLl-bigness, CL2.BSC CLl-bigness "lions' bigness, their bigness"

c. i-kabwi o-kila, mo o-kila CL3-chicken CLl-bigness, CL3.BSC CLl-bigness "chickens' bigness, their bigness"

d. ga-bwui o-kila, go o-kila CL4-bird CLl-bigness, CL4.BSC CLl-bigness "bird's bigness, its bigness"

e. gi-ba o-kila, go o-kila CL5-arm CLl-bigness, CL4.BSC CLl-bigness "arm's bigness, its bigness"

f. m-bwui o-kila, jima o-kila CL6-bird CLl-bigness, CL6.BSC CLl-bigness "birds' bigness, their bigness"

g. a-mu o-kila, awa o-kila CL7-head CLl-bigness, CL7.BSC CLl-bigness "heads' bigness, their bigness"

h. i-kitiki o-kila, iya o-kila CL8-manioc CLl-bigness, CL8.BSC CLl-bigness "maniocs' bigness, their bigness"

With CLl possessors, kinship terms have no noun class marker and go with the possessive pronoun even if the possessor is present. Examples (6a) and (6b) both feature the CLl possessor i-safo "foreigner". A discrepancy in the coding of the possessive relationship is triggered by the different semantics of the possessee items: ga-tin "house" in (6a) and gi-bi "child" in (6b). The same goes for another kinship term, 3-ka "wife", in (6c). Note that gi-bi "child" and 3-ka "wife" belong to CL4 and CLl (o-/o-) correspondingly, therefore the loss of the class prefix in (6b) and (6c) is unexpected.

(6)

a

DEF

a. i-saf6 wa ga-tim a, ma ga-tim CLl-foreigner DEF CL4-house DEF, CL1.BSC CL4-house "foreigner's house, his house"

b. i-saf6 wa ma bi, ma bi CL1-foreigner DEF CL1.BSC child, CL1.BSC child "foreigner's child, his child"

c. i-saf6 wa ma ka, ma ka CL1-foreigner DEF CL1.BSC wife, CL1.BSC wife "foreigner's wife, his wife"

Example (7) below replicates the clauses from (6) with CL2 possessors (a-safo "foreigners"). Note that here the semantic property of the possessees (ga-tin "house" and gi-bi "child") does not affect the clause structure and the possessive marking is identical in (7a) and (7b).

(7)

a. a-safo wa ga-tim a, mo ga-tim a

CL2-foreigner DEF CL4-house DEF, CL2.BSC CL4-house DEF "foreigners' house, their house"

b. a-safo wa gi-bi e, mo gi-bi e

CL2-foreigner DEF CL5-child DEF, CL2.BSC CL5-child DEF "foreigners' child, their child"

Other typically inalienable semantic categories (e. g., body parts) do not show this effect. In example (8), the CL4 possessed (gi-so "ear") retains its noun class prefix even though the possessor (ma "he") refers to CL1.

(8)

ma wa la-kebi mi gi-so wa

3SG DEF FUT-cut CL1.BSC CL4-ear DEF

"He will cut off his ear."

Emphatic (independent) pronouns are used in topicalization (9) and coordination (10-11). They take the place of the subject. Since the same pronoun series is used in both emphatic and possessive construction, we do not provide the whole paradigm here.

(9)

o-ci a ni, ma ni

1CL-woman DEF COP, CL1.EMPH COP "this is the woman, this is her"

In Ginyanga, the conjunction de is used to coordinate words and clauses. The basic series of personal pronouns is used for the first conjunct, i.e. ma, "he", in (10).

(10)

ma de kojo

CL1.BSC with Kojo "Kojo and him"

Presumably the second conjunct is expressed by the object pronoun series, although we only have data on the cases with the CL1 second conjunct: in (11-12) the object pronoun wa "him" is used instead of the emphatic ma.

(11)

(12)

mi de wa

1SG. BSC with CL1.OBJ "he and me"

*mi de ma

1SG. BSC with CL1.BSC Exp. "he and me"

Object personal pronouns

Overview of object pronouns

Object pronouns demonstrate class agreement as well. Table 6 gives a full paradigm, which is illustrated by the examples below. All sentences in example (13) are structured similarly, varying in the choice of object only. In each sentence, the object pronoun in the second clause is defined by the noun class of its antecedent.

Table 6. Ginyanga object pronouns

Person/Noun class object pronoun

1SG mi

person 2SG fu

1PL api

2PL fa.pi

CL1 wa~we

CL2 m6

CL3 m6

noun class CL4 g6

CL5 g6

CL6 nma

CL7 awa

CL8 iya

(13)

g0

CL5.OBJ

a. n-wu 6-ci, n-wu e 1SG. IPFV-see CL1-woman, 1SG. IPFV-see CL1.OBJ "I see a woman, I see her."

b. n-wu 6-qm, n-wu m6 1SG. IPFV-see CL2-man, 1SG. IPFV-see CL2.OBJ "I see men, I see them."

c. n-wu i-kabwi, n-wu m6 1SG. IPFV-see CL3-chicken, 1SG. IPFV-see CL3.OBJ "I see chickens, I see them."

d. n-wu g6-c6, n-wu g6 1SG. IPFV-see CL4-ax, 1SG. IPFV-see CL4.OBJ "I see an ax, I see it."

e. n-wu gi-ye, nwu 1SG. IPFV-see CL5-mouse, 1SG. IPFV-see "I see a mouse, I see it."

f. n-wu 1SG. IPFV-see "I see axes, I see them."

g. n-wu a-kwodu, 1SG. IPFV-see CL7-banana, "I see bananas, I see them."

h. n-wu i-jaq, n-wu iya 1SG. IPFV-see CL8-foot, 1SG. IPFV-see CL8.OBJ "I see feet, I see them."

The CL1 pronoun is subject to [ATR] based harmony, surfacing as /wa/ or /we/ depending on the [ATR] value of the word-final (or prefinal) vowel of the previous word (14a-b). The glide /w/ is omitted if the word ends in a consonant (13c).

n-co, n-wu CL6-ax, 1SG. IPFV-see

n-wu

1SG. IPFV-see

nma CL6.OBJ

awa

CL7.OBJ

a. n-ju o-ci, 1SG.IPFV-know CL1-woman, "I know a woman, I know her."

b. n-tasi o-ci, 1SG.IPFV-ask CL1-woman, "I ask a woman, I ask her."

c. n-gal o-ci,

1SG. IPFV-hide CL1-woman,

"I hide the woman, I hide her."

n-p we

1SG.IPFV-know CL1.OBJ

n-tasi wa

1SG. IPFV-ask CL1.OBJ

n-gal a

1SG. IPFV-hide CL1.OBJ

Evidence of variation in noun class

The canonical agreement pattern between a noun and its coreferential pronoun can be violated in some cases. Firstly, there are implications that the CL1 pronoun may be used for human referents regardless of the "morphological" marking of noun class, as in example (15). In this narrative the village chief promises to give his daughter to a man who will accomplish a challenge. Although the gender of the child is not specified, the object pronoun we agrees with a CL1 noun (presumably o-ci "woman") instead of its closest antecedent ma bi "his child", which belongs to CL5 (gi-bi "child").

(15)

ma bi bali mee ma-la-cu we

3SG. POSS child DEM1 QUOT 3SG. IPFV-FUT-take CL1.OBJ cu sa o-juq take give CL1-man

"He says about his [female (CL1)] child (CL5) that he will give her (CL1) to a man."

This pattern is commonly observed in Niger-Congo languages, because they tend to have a designated "human" noun class [15]. That said, the violation of the morphological rule may be caused by the properties of the word gi-bi "child" itself: it is not unusual for this noun to behave like a kinship term regardless of its morphological marking, both in a typological perspective and in Ginyanga (e. g. attested irregularities in possessive constructions, shown in (6)). Unfortunately, this is the only non-CL1 human term in our data, therefore the rationale behind the choice of the object pronoun in (15) remains ambiguous.

Another case in our data, in which semantics seems to override morphology, is the usage of the object pronoun iya (CL8). Some speakers used it when referring to CL6 and CL7 nouns n-co "axes" and a-mu "heads" ((16a) and (17a)). Moreover, the morphologically adequate pronouns (nma for CL6 and awa for CL7) were marked as incorrect in this session ((16b) and (17b)).

(16)

n-wu n-co, n-wu iya

1SG. IPFV-see CL6-ax, 1SG. IPFV-see CL8.OBJ

"I see axes, I see them."

*n-wu n-co, n-wu nma

1SG. IPFV-see CL6-ax, 1SG. IPFV-see CL6.OBJ

Exp. "I see axes, I see them."

b

a. n-wu a-mu, n-wu iya 1SG. IPFV-see CL7-head, 1SG. IPFV-see CL8.OBJ "I see heads, I see them."

b. *nwu a-mu, n-wu awa 1SG. IPFV-see CL7-head, 1SG. IPFV-see CL7.OBJ Exp. "I see heads, I see them."

Furthermore, example (18) demonstrates that these consultants relied on semantic, rather than formal criteria when choosing the object pronoun. Different meanings of the CL8 word i-yel "bodies" (living bodies vs. corpses) required different pronouns: CL2/ CL3 pronoun mo for the "living bodies" in (18a) and CL8 pronoun iya for the "corpses" in (18b).

(18)

a. n-wu i-yel, n-wu m6

1SG. IPFV-see CL8-body, 1SG. IPFV-see CL2/CL3.OBJ

"I see bodies (alive), I see them."

b. n-wu i-yel, n-wu iya 1SG. IPFV-see CL8-body, 1SG. IPFV-see CL8.OBJ "I see corpses, I see them."

There are several possible interpretations for this discrepancy. First, CL8 is the default class for impersonal constructions. In 19, the verb bu "have" gets the CL8 imperfective prefix, because there is no subject to agree with.

(19)

a. i-bu o-wi sini ga-tim a CL8.IPFV-have CL1-tree PREP CL4-house DEF "There is a tree in front of the house."

b. i-bu 6-cabu 6-suw6l a r6 CL8.IPFV-have CL1-healer CL1-village DEF LOC "There is a healer in the village."

In negative impersonal constructions, the factative prefix of CL8 is used:

(20)

a. ya-mi-bu 6-cabu 6-suw6l a r6 CL8.FCT-NEG-have CL1-healer CL1-village DEF LOC "There is a healer in the village."

b. ya-mi-ji mi na-yuli a-temi a-bali

CL8.FCT-NEG-be 1SG.BSC 1SG. FCT-steal CL7-money CL7-DEM1

"It is not me who has stolen that money."

Taking into account the usage of CL8 markers in impersonal constructions, we can add that the subject pronoun iya, normally referring to the inanimate objects of the "lowest-ranking" class, seems to be somewhat "semantically empty" itself and is also frequently used in impersonal contexts (21a) and idiomatic expressions, e. g. "after some time" in (21c) or even as a discourse marker "well/so" (21b), which may be an indication of the early stage of grammaticalization.

a. o-wi wa ta 0-nenim a bu iya su

CL1-sun DEF leave CLl-rain DEF have CL8.BSC on "The night came, the rain continued, the day came."

ga-de ga-ke CL4-day CL4.PF-more

b. iya wa ma o-jibal CL8.BSC DEF 3SG CLl-lover "so, her lover, the catfish"

c. iya wa iya gbe

wa o-wu CL8.BSC DEF CL8.BSC go

DEF CLl.FCT-die "After some time, one of the wives has died."

ni

COP ba

J1

be

0-kinsal CLl-catfish

wa 0-kolobu o-ku

iya

CL8.BSC come TM CLl-wife CLl-one

It is worth noting that examples (16-18) were elicited from the two younger (3540 y. o.) speakers of Ginyanga and were deemed incorrect by the elder (50-60 y. o.) consultants. Tentative as they are, these data may be an indication of language change: a ty-pologically universal process of gradual simplification of the noun class system, leading to its complete attrition (Good 2012). If this is the case, a corpus study may reveal more instances of the generalized, semantically grounded usage of pronouns in the speech of the younger generation.

Non-personal pronouns Reflexive pronouns

The reflexive uses the basic series of pronouns + the intensifier yel (comp. i-yel "body"): (22)

a. mi o-wu ma 1SG.BSC mother 3SG. FCT-see CL1.BSC a ro

DEF LOC

"My mother has seen herself in the mirror."

b. a-safo wa me-wu mo CL2-foreigner DEF CL2.IPFV-see CL2.BSC a ro

DEF LOC

"the foreigners are looking at themselves in the mirror"

c. ga-nam a ge-wu go CL4-scorpion DEF CL4.IPFV-see CL4.BSC a ro

DEF LOC

"The scorpions are looking at themselves in the mirror."

yd INT

yd INT

yd INT

ga-dil

CL4-mirror

ga-dil

CL4-mirror

ga-dil

CL4-mirror

Demonstratives

There are two demonstratives that agree in class with the head noun, -ball "this" and -bunu "that". Each has a dedicated paradigm of prefixes shown in Table 7. The only difference between the two is that CL1 nouns do not have overt marking on the demonstrative -ball. In (23a-h) the prefix of the demonstrative -ball agrees with the subjects of different noun classes.

Table 7. Noun class agreement of Ginyanga demonstratives

Noun class -bun uprefix -bali prefix

CL1 o- 0-

CL2 a- a-

CL3 i- i-

CL4 ga- ga-

CL5 g1 g1-

CL6 n- n-

CL7 a- a-

CL8 i- i-

(23)

a. n-wu 6-ci 0-bali 1SG. IPFV-see CL1-woman CL1-DEM1 "I see this woman."

b. n-wu a-saf6 a-bali 1SG. IPFV-see CL2-foreigner CL2-DEM1 "I see these foreigners."

c. n-wu i-kpre i-bali 1SG. IPFV-see CL3-dog CL3-DEM1 "I see these dogs."

d. n-wu ga-bwi ga-bali 1SG. IPFV-see CL4-bird CL4-DEM1 "I see this bird."

e. n-wu gi-ye gi-bali 1SG. IPFV-see CL5-mouse CL5-DEM1 "I see this mouse."

f. n-wu m-bwui m-bali 1SG. IPFV-see CL6-bird CL6-DEM1 "I see these birds."

g. n-wu a-w6 a-bali 1SG.IPFV-see CL7-snake CL7-DEM1 "I see these snakes."

h. n-wu i-kitiki i-bali 1SG.IPFV-see CL8-manioc CL8-DEM1 "I see these maniocs."

Demonstrative -bali can be followed by the definiteness marker (w)a~(w)e, as in example (24a-b). However, this order cannot be reversed, therefore the sentence (24c) is ungrammatical:

(24)

n-wu

1SG.IPFV-see

daqan-se

good-ADJ

0-wul CL1-chief 0-bali CL1-DEM1

e

DEF

ma-ka

CL1.POSS-wife

sa-se

three-ADJ

n-wu 0-wul e ma-ka sa-se

1SG.IPFV-see CLl-chief DEF CLl.POSS-wife three-ADJ

daqan-se 0-bali wa

good-ADJ CL1-DEM1 DEF

*n-wu 0-wul e ma-ka sa-se

lSG.IPFV-see CLl-chief DEF CLl.POSS-wife three-ADJ

daqan-se good-ADJ wa 0-bali DEF CL1-DEM1

(a, b, *c) "I see this third beautiful wife of the chief."

Demonstrative -bunu is also used in relative clauses (25a). In contrast to -bali, it can be anaphoric, as in (25b, d). In this case it agrees with its antecedent in noun class: note that it has different prefixes in (20b) and (20d) due to the different noun classes of the omitted antecedents i-sa "person" and ga-bwi "bird".

(25)

ma-sa

CL1.FCT-give

o-bunu CL1-DEM2

a-temi CL7-money

a. i-sa CL1-person o-qa

CL1.FCT-disappear

b. o-bunu ma-sa a-temi we CL1-DEM2 CL1.FCT-give CL7-money DEF

c. *o-bali ma-sa a-temi we CL1-DEM1 CL1.FCT-give CL7-money DEF (a, b, *c) "The person who has given the money disappeared."

d. ga-bunu ga-ji 0-kitiki we CL4-DEM2 CL4.FCT-eat CL1-manioc DEF "(The bird) that has eaten the manioc has disappeared."

we DEF

o-qa

CLl.FCT-disappear o-qa

CLl.FCT-disappear ga-pa

CL4.FCT-disappear

Quantifiers

A list of several Ginyanga quantifiers found so far in our data is provided in Table 8. The majority of them behave the same way in terms of morphology, i.e. the postpositional quantifier gets no class agreement with the head noun, as in (26).

Table 8. Ginyanga quantifiers

quantifier translation

oku "some/any"

kiri "no"

kpekpe "every"

bini "all"

kinkin "all"

gide "many"

gipi "many"

guco "many"

dodan "many", "enough"

mara, marapi "few"

pi "few"

a. na-so i-jo dodan 1SG. FCT-buy CL8-igname enough "I bought enough igname."

b. na-so 0-kitiki guco 1SG. FCT-buy CL1-manioc much "I bought a lot of manioc."

c. 6-ji gi-pal a CL1.FCT-eat CL5-porridge DEF "He has eaten all of the foufou." a-ci a bini me-ba CL2-woman DEF all 3PL. IPFV-go "All of the women go to the market"'

kinkin all

d.

gi-ja

CL5-market

Further we will discuss two quantifiers that demonstrate class agreement, namely -ku "one" and kpekpe "each".

The quantifier -ku "some/any" (evidently, related to the numeral o-ku "one") becomes a target of class indexation in the attributive position. In (27a) and (27b), it agrees with the CL3 and CL1 nouns correspondingly, hence the different prefixes.

(27)

a. ma-kra i-yu i-ku 3PL.FCT-catch CL1-thief CL1-one "Some thief was caught."

b. na-me-ji 0-muti 6-ku 1SG.FCT-NEG-eat CL1-orange CL1-one "I haven't eaten any oranges."

Quantifier kpekpe "each" is marked when used anaphorically: in (28), the pronoun in the second part of each sentence takes the class prefix of its referent, although it gets no class marking in the attributive position in the first clause (e. g. ga-bwi kpekpe "each bird").

(28)

a. ga-bwi kpekpe ga-bu gale, ga-kpekpe CL4-bird each CL4.FCT-have here, CL4-each ga-bu gale

CL4.FCT-have here

"All the birds are here, all are here."

b. i-saf6 kpekpe 0-bu gale, 6-kpekpe CL1-foreigner each CL1.IPFV-have here, CL1-each 0-bu gale

CL1.IPFV-have here

"All the foreigners are here, all are here."

Although kpekpe "each" can modify plural class nouns, it only agrees with singular classes, except for the CL8 nouns: example (29a) referring to the CL2 noun a-safo "foreigners" is ungrammatical, while the similarly structured example (29b) with the CL8 referent is acceptable.

*a-safo kpekpe

CL2-foreigner each a-bu

CL2.FCT-have

ma-bu

CL2.FCT-have

gale

here

gale, here,

a-kpekpe CL2-each

Exp. "All the foreigners are here, all are here." i-la daqan-se kpekpe i-bu

CL8-thing be.good-ADJ each CL8.IPFV-have i-bu gale

CL8.IPFV-have here

"All the necessary things are here."

gale, i-kpekpe here, CL8-each

Conclusion

In this paper a report of Ginyanga pronouns was presented. In particular, personal pronouns, reflexive pronouns, demonstratives and quantifiers were discussed. Ginyanga follows the typical Guang pattern, in which the same form of pronoun performs objective, possessive and emphatic functions. Since number, person and tense are marked cumulatively by verbal prefixes, there are no subject pronouns. We define two personal pronoun series with a designated pronoun for each noun class: basic and object. A Basic set of pronouns is used in independent and possessive contexts, and also in reflexive constructions. Possessive pronouns present irregularities with kinship terms: when used with possessors belonging to the first (human) noun class, kinship terms have no noun class marker and go with the possessive pronoun even if the possessor is present. The canonical agreement pattern between a noun and its coreferential object pronoun can be violated in some cases because of semantics. There are implications that the CL1 pronoun may be used for human referents regardless of the "morphological" marking of noun class. Additionally, some variation exists in usage of object pronoun series by different consultants of different age groups, which may be an indication of language change. There are two demonstratives, -ball "this" and -bunu "that", also subject to class agreement. In contrast to -ball, the demonstrative -bunu is also used in relative clauses and can be anaphoric. The majority of quantifiers demonstrate no class agreement. The only exceptions are -ku "one" and kpekpe "each". Future field and corpus research might give more insight in pronominal series and class agreement.

Acknowledgements

We are deeply grateful to Andrey Shluinsky, whose invaluable expertise and guidance contributed enormously to carrying out this research and preparing the manuscript. We would like to express our gratitude to Tatiana Mamonova for her contribution to our work. We are sincerely thankful to our consultants, Yao Amedomé, Evignénou Tchala, Atchou Edoh and Emmanuel Kontre. We would also like to thank the anonimous reviewers, whose detailed comments helped to improve this paper.

Abbreviations

1, 2, 3 — 1, 2, 3 person; ADJ — adjectivizer, BSC — basic pronoun series; CL1, CL2, CL3, CL4, CL5, CL6, CL7, CL8 — noun class markers; COP — copula; DEF — definiteness marker; DEM1 — demonstrative ball; DEM2 — demonstrative bvnv; EMPH — emphatic pronoun; FCT — factative; FUT — future; IPFV — imperfective; LOC — locative; OBJ — object pronoun; PL — plural; POSS — possessive pronoun; SG — singular, TM — terminal marker.

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Received: December 5, 2021 Accepted: February 28, 2022

Authors' information:

Viktoria А. Pozdniakova — [email protected] Yekaterina S. Aplonova — [email protected]

Местоимения в языке гиньанга*

В. А. Позднякова1,2, Е. С. Аплонова3

1 Институт языкознания РАН,

Российская Федерация, 125009, Москва, Большой Кисловский пер., 1

2 Национальный исследовательский университет «Высшая школа экономики», Российская Федерация, 101000, Москва, Мясницкая ул., 20

3 Институт университетов Франции, ИНАЛКО/ЛЛАКАН, Франция, 8135, Париж, ул. Ги Моке, 7

Для цитирования: Pozdniakova V. A., Aplonova Ye. S. Pronouns in Ginyanga // Вестник Санкт-Петербургского университета. Востоковедение и африканистика. 2022. Т. 14. Вып. 2. С. 243260. https://doi.org/10.21638/spbu13.2022.206

Представлено описание местоимений языка гиньанга семьи ква, распространенного в Того и Гане. Основная часть статьи посвящена личным местоимениям, также рассма-

* Работа выполнена в рамках проекта «Языки Западной Африки: описание и сопоставительный анализ» по гранту РНФ № 17-78-20071.

триваются рефлексивы, демонстративы и кванторы. В гиньанга нет субъектных местоимений. Мы выделяем две серии личных местоимений: базовую и объектную, каждая из которых имеет парадигму согласования по именным классам. Базовая серия используется в независимых и посессивных контекстах, а также в рефлексивных конструкциях. Обзор языков гуанг показывает, что система местоимений гиньанга характерна для языков этой группы. Мы наблюдаем ряд особенностей в посессивных конструкциях с терминами родства и посессорами, принадлежащими к 1-му классу («классу людей»). Морфологический принцип согласования объектных местоимений по классу может нарушаться в ряде случаев. В частности, к референтам, обозначающим людей, отсылают с помощью местоимения 1-го класса, вне зависимости от морфологического маркирования референта. Также выявлена семантически обусловленная вариативность в использовании объектных местоимений информантами, принадлежащими к разным поколениям, что может свидетельствовать о языковом сдвиге и упрощении системы классного согласования в гиньанга. В языке имеется два демонстратива: -ЬаЬ 'этот' и -Ьипи 'тот', согласующихся по классу с референтом. В отличие от -Ьак, демонстратив -Ьипи используется в релятивизации и может выступать в анафорическом значении. Большинство кванторов не согласуется по классу с вершиной. В наших данных обнаружилось только два исключения, а именно -ки 'один' и крекре 'каждый'. Ключевые слова: нигер-конго, языки ква, языки гуанг, именной класс, именная морфология, местоимения.

Статья поступила в редакцию 5 декабря 2021 г.; рекомендована к печати 28 февраля 2022 г.

Контактная информация:

Позднякова Виктория Андреевна — [email protected] Аплонова Екатерина Сергеевна — [email protected]