Abstract:
Out of preliminary observation of gerunds in Nandome, it is realised that the gerund marker
{-bú} is not realised fully in speech but a split form of it, [-b] or [ú] are realised. Also, the
gerund phrase in Nandome distinguishes between sentence adjuncts and adjuncts of a verb
phrase. The movement of sentential adjuncts was found to resolve ambiguity in the gerund
phrase. It was observed that degree emphasis can be achieved by making a gerund an
argument to its root verb. In investigating this, 3 conversations and 2 stories were used.
374 gerunds were formed intuitively and crosschecked by two native speakers with
linguistic training. A focus group discussion considered some aspects of gerunds and
semantic interpretations. Generative phonology and the X-bar theory were used as
frameworks for the research. Findings include the assertion that: the gerund in Nandome
is marked by {-bú}, which never occurs fully phonologically. The marker is rather realised
as: [b], [ú], [ύ], [fú], [fύ] or [bá], accompanied by tone rising in the verb root, but with
exceptions. The gerund has a maximum of ten modifiers. Besides sentential adjuncts,
modifiers are leftward of the gerund. The gerund phrase in Nandome is similar to the NP
only in its sentential distribution. Negation and HABIT are possible in the gerund phrase.
When adverbials are in the gerund phrase, they get negated and not the gerund. It is
conclusive that all the preliminary observations are true. In addition, the study revealed
etymological evidence that Nandome emerged from the southern dialects of Dagaare.
Description:
A thesis in the Department of Applied Linguistics, Faculty of Foreign Languages Education and Communication, submitted to the School of Graduate Studies, University of Education, Winneba in partial fulfilment of the requirements for award
of the Master of Philosophy (Applied Linguistics) degree.
AUGUST, 2016