An Analysis of Interrogative Constructions in Dangme

Abstract

The aim of this paper is to analyse the various means of marking interrogatives in Dangme that is polar, alternative, affirmative and negative content question. Dangme belongs to the Kwa group of languages from the Niger-Congo family of languages. It is spoken in parts of the Greater Accra and Eastern Regions of Ghana. Not enough work has been done on interrogative structures which are considered to be a vital feature of African languages in Dangme. This paper examines the various kinds of interrogative structures in Dangme. I identified that phonological and morpho-syntactic strategies are employed in the formation of interrogative sentences in Dangme. I argue that syntactic particles such as ‘anɛ, lo’, ‘kɛ…..kɛɛ’, ‘te……. nɛɛ’, ‘mɛnɔ’, ‘mɛni’, ‘jije’ among others, occur at clause initial and clause final positions. I argue further that when the interrogative word or phrase is placed at clause initially, there may be an introduction of a focus marker, nɛ or lɛ which appears immediately after the question word or phrase. The paper considers content questions also referred to us negative WH-Constructions in the literature. This paper also examines negative interrogative sentences. The negative content question constructions involve the use of markers; ‘pi….. lo’, ‘tse’, etc. to convey negation in certain constructions. I argue that the grammatical feature in negative question constructions makes me suggest that it could be considered as interrogative content questions. The government and binding Theory is employed to analyse data on content questions. The data used for this paper were drawn from primary sources i.e. from native speakers of Dangme. As native speaker of the language, I also provided some of the data for this study. These were however, cross-checked with other native speakers of Dangme.

Keywords: interrogative, polar, alternative, content questions and focus