Two talks by Samuel Atintono (Accra College of Education) and Samuel A. Issah (University of Education Winneba) in the Syntax Colloquium

Weak pronoun placement and post verbal particles: A case of object shift in Mabia (Samuel A. Atintono)

In this presentation, we explore the distribution of the postverbal particles la/mi and la/mɛ for Dagbani and Gurenɛ, two Mabia languages spoken in Northern Ghana. We show that they are full DPs and weak pronouns behave different in the syntax regarding the distribution of these verbal particles. Thus, while the la particle of both Dagbani and Gurenɛ requires an overt DP or an adjunct to follow them, this particle behave different regarding the placement of weak pronouns. The weak pronouns invariably incorporate into the verb and move higher up to the AspP position in Dagbani, but in Gurenɛ, the weak pronoun remains in the canonical position and is realized as an emphatic one. Thus, whereas the verb together with the cliticised pronoun and the weak pronoun raises to a higher functional projection, proposed to be AspP, same is not licensed in Gurenɛ. However mi/mɛ in both languages seem to license the object shift phenomenon. 

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Inaudible syntax in Mabia: The case of fragmentary answers in Dagbani and Gurenɛ (Samuel Issah)

In this talk, we explore the syntactic characterization of fragments in Dagbani and Gurenɛ with focus on fragmentary answers to wh-questions. We propose that the derivation of wh-fragment involves two processes: focus movement followed by PF-deletion. However, it remains a puzzle as to why the head of the overt focus head is a victim of the ellipsis phenomenon that is licensed in the derivation of fragmentary answers.