The phonetics and phonology of the verbal piece in the Asante dialect of Twi.

Abstract

This thesis is a phonetic and phonological study of the Verbal Piece in Asante, based on the writer's own speech. The Introductory first chapter states the theoretical basis of the linguistic analysis presented in the thesis. The phonetic and phonological analysis is presented within a grammatical framework referred to as the Verbal Piece, and defined in Chapter Two in terms of the grammatical categories that may be set up for the descriptive analysis of Asante, A description of the vowel, semivowel and consonant articulations of Asante is presented in Chapter Three. There possible the description is made with reference to kymograms and palatograms of selected utterances. The rest of the thesis, Chapters 4 - 7, deals with the phonology of the verbal piece. The prosodic relations between the vowel qualities in successive syllables of the verbal piece is dealt with in Chapter Four under the general heading of 'Vowel Harmony'. In Chapter Five nasality is dealt with as a prosodic abstraction at the phonological level, and stated, within the relevant structures that are set up for dealing with nasality in the verbal piece, as a prosody of the syllable or of the word as a whole. The phonological structures of the morphological elements of the verbal piece is presented in Chapter Six. Chapter Seven deals with the relations between pitch, tone and intonation in the verbal sentence.