Phasal Polarity Expressions in Kusaal

Abstract

In studies of African languages, Phasal Polarity (PhP) expressions­ – already, still, no longer, and not yet – have received little attention in the literature on the Mabia (Gur) languages of West Africa. This study aims to address that gap by investigating PhP expressions in Kusaal, a language spoken in Ghana. Previous research has established that while some languages have expressions for encoding all four PhP concepts, other languages have one, two, or three expressions out of the four, while still other languages lack expressions for encoding all four concepts. The major aim of this study is to establish whether Kusaal has expressions for encoding all four concepts like English and Dutch, or lacks some expressions, like Albanian and Chechen, or even has no formal phasal polarity expressions, like Kalmyk. It will be observed that Kusaal has items for expressing all of the four PhP concepts identified in English: pʋ́n ‘already’, kpɛ́ŋ ‘still’, pʋ́ lɛ́n ‘no longer’, and nán pʋ́ ‘not yet’. In fact, Kusaal has five PhP expressions for the four concepts, since the ‘still’ expression is coded with two morphemes. The availability of expressions for encoding PhP concepts in Kusaal makes it possible to add it to the majority of languages, which have all four PhP types; this further confirms the observation of van Baar (1997) that “If a language has a PhP expression which covers the areas of already and no longer, this language has at least one other PhP expression which   covers the area of still and not yet”. Kusaal has expressions for already and no longer and goes further in having expressions for still and not yet.  Though PhP expressions in Kusaal are not significantly distinct from general observations of the concept cross-linguistically, this study provides additional information on the topic from the Mabia (Gur) languages to which Kusaal belongs. The observations in this work can enhance the debate on this subject matter both descriptively and typologically.