The Dynamics of the Past and Future Tense Expressions in Dagbani

Abstract

This paper discusses the degree of remoteness in Dagbani, a Mabia (Gur) language of the Niger-Congo language family spoken in Northern Ghana. The degree of remoteness has been discussed in Dagbani (Olawsky1999; Bodomo 2001; Botne 2012; Bodomo 2018). According to the scholars mentioned above, the verbal particles; sa, di and daa mark degree of remoteness in Dagbani. However, these scholars have not discussed all the possible means degree of remoteness can be expressed in the language. The time adverbials, the proximity markers, yɛ̂n and yólí, and others are not looked at. This paper, therefore, moves a step further to discuss the possible remoteness distinctions that are part of the ways tense is expressed in Dagbani. The paper uses Comrie’s (1985) conceptualisation of tense in human language in the discussion. Comrie’s explanation of the phenomenon shows that in some languages, the degree of remoteness is expressed using the time adverbials and other particles. Eliciting data from eight people in Tamale and Yendi, and existing literature, I support my intuition as a native speaker to demonstrate that the time adverbials and other particles either than only daa, sa and di express degree of remoteness in both past and future tenses in Dagbani.