Serial Verb Nominalization in Akan: A Question of Intervening Elements
Dr. Obadele Kambon
Dr. Clement Appah
Dr. Reginald Duah

Video (Viewable Online) and Secured PDF of PowerPoint Presentation (downloadable) Combo Bundle

Video Duration: 54:15
Secured PDF of Lecture Slides: 34 Slides

Kambon (2012) argues for morphosyntactic base template forms/patterns upon which new Serial Verb Nominalizations (SVNs) are based. As such, “Novel forms of SVN are usually introduced due to needs of the speech community to describe a new concept, event or situation […] In such cases, the morphosyntactic base template is followed in order to produce a new form based on analogy” (42). This notion is analogous to Booij’s (2007) word formation patterns which are “seen as abstract schemas that generalize over sets of existing complex words with a systematic correlation between form and meaning. These schemas also specify how new complex words can be created.” In this presentation, we hope to identify such generalizing abstract schemata or “nhyehyɛɛpɔn” in our efforts to identify the nature of “intervening elements” found in the context of verbal elements in Akan SVNs.