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ISSN Print: 2394-7500, ISSN Online: 2394-5869, CODEN: IJARPF

IMPACT FACTOR (RJIF): 8.4

Vol. 4, Issue 11, Part A (2018)

A dialectal relook at the relative clause in EWE

A dialectal relook at the relative clause in EWE

Author(s)
Sampson Lucky Kudjo Yekple
Abstract
Although it is universally implicated that Ewe introduces the Relative Clause with the demonstrative si and marks its end with the determiner (clause final marker) la (hereafter CFM), the preoccupation of this paper is to describe how relative clauses are constructed in Ewe spoken dialects in Ghana. This paper primarily explored the syntactic features of relative clauses in Ewe. It also examined the syntactic configuration of Relative Clauses in relation with the word order of the language. Fiedler & Schwarz (2005:120) claim that the Relative Clause is introduced also by yíkɛ̀ in Inland dialects of Ewe. What is most surprising about their claim is their failure to account for the coastal dialects to make the claim evidentially comparable. This paper explained the argument that the Relative Clause is introduced in southern dialects (also called coastal dialects) by the demonstrative adjectives; “yì, ya” and marks it end with “ké”. It is also demonstrated that the Relative Clause is however introduced by the inland dialects with “kè” and closes it variously with “mí and xé”. The paper also argue that the relativizer is obligatory in both the written language and the oral dialects but the CFM in mostly optional in speech than in the written language.
Pages: 31-34  |  1003 Views  222 Downloads
How to cite this article:
Sampson Lucky Kudjo Yekple. A dialectal relook at the relative clause in EWE. Int J Appl Res 2018;4(11):31-34.
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