Ewe is a Kwa language spoken in West Africa in Ghana, Togo and Benin. Kpelegbe is a dialect of Ewe spoken in Kpele canton in Togo, on the road from Kpalime to Atakpame. While there is quite a bit of linguistic literature concerning standard Ewe, there is far less documentation of the many Ewe dialects.
I propose to write a comprehensive grammar of the Kpele dialect of Ewe. It will be at around 500 pages long (single spaced, 12 font), and will include a phonological sketch. All words and phrases in the grammar will be tone marked, and there will be a complete account of tone.
This grammar will be useful to scholars of Ewe language and culture, scholars the languages of Togo, Ghana and Benin, as well as Africanists more generally. It will provide a template for grammars of other Ewe dialects, and dialects of closely related languages.
Most of the fieldwork for the grammar was carried out in 1990-1991 on a Fulbright (IIE) Scholarship for Graduate Study Abroad. But further fieldwork will be conducted in the summers during 2025, 2026 and 2027.
Preliminary Table of Contents
Acknowledgements
List of Abbreviations
Basics
1. Introduction
2. Basic Sentences
3. Phonological Sketch
3.1. Consonants
3.2. Vowels
3.3. Tones
3.4. Reduplication
Pronouns
4. Pronoun System
4.1. Possessor Pronouns
4.2. Subject Pronouns
4.3. Object Pronouns
4.4. Strong Pronouns
5. Reciprocals and Reflexives
5.1. Reflexives
5.2. Reciprocals
6. The Logophoric Pronoun
Tense, Aspect, Negation, Modality
7. Tense and Aspect
7.1. Past Tense
7.2. Future
7.3. Habitual
7.4. Progressive
8. Negation
8.1. Sentential Negation
8.2. Negative Polarity Items
9. Modality
9.1. Deontic Modality
9.2. Epistemic Modality
10. Imperative and Subjunctive
10.1. Imperative
10.2. Subjunctive
11. Adverbs
11.1. Temporal Adverbs
11.2. Manner Adverbs
11.3. Other Adverbs
Verb Phrase Syntax
12. Double Object Constructions
13. Copulas
13.1. Locative Copula
13.2. Predicate Nominal Copula
14. Serial Verb Constructions
14.1. SVCs vs. Coordination
14.2. SVCs vs. Verbal Complementation
14.3. Directional
14.4. Resultative
14.5. Instrumental
14.6. Other Categories
15. Adpositions
15.1. Prepositions (Verbids)
15.2. Postpositions
16. nyá-Construction (Middle)
17. ná-Causatives
18. Comparison
18.1. Inequality
18.2. Equality
Noun Phrase Syntax
19. Noun Phrase Coordination
20. Demonstratives
20.1. Proximal Demonstratives
20.2. Distal Demonstratives
20.3. Locative Adverbs
20.4. Summary of Demonstratives
21. Adjectives
21.1. Predicate Adjectives
22.2. Attributive Adjectives
22.3. Multiple Modifiers
24. Numerals
24.1. Numerals Modifying Nouns
24.2. Ordinal Numerals
25. Determiners and Quantifiers
25.1. The Definite Determiner
25.2. The Indefinite Determiner
25.3. The Quantifier many
25.4. The Universal Quantifier
26. Possessors
26.1. Alienable Possession
26.2. Inalienable Possession
26.3. External Possession
27. Relative Clauses
27.1. The Relative Pronoun
27.2. Oblique Relatives
27.3. The Factive Construction
28. Nominalization
28.1. Gerund Nominalization
28.2. Agent Nominalization
Clausal Syntax
29. Clausal Complements
30. Adjunct Clauses
31. Conditionals
32. Overlapping Clauses
Left Periphery
33. Questions
33.1. Yes-No Questions
33.2. What Questions
33.3. Who Questions
33.4. Which Questions
33.5. When Questions
33.6. Where Questions
33.7. How Questions
33.8. Why Questions
33.9. How Many/Much Questions
33.10. Summary of Question Words
34. Topic and Focus
34.1. The Topic Marker
34.2. The Focus Marker
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