K Yakpo
Biographic Data
| ID | 57344 |
|---|---|
| NAME | K Yakpo |
| GIVEN NAMES | K |
| FAMILY NAME | Yakpo |
| SIGNATURE | YAKPO K |
| AFFILIATIONS | University of Hong Kong |
| ORCID | 0000-0002-6585-8687 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 16 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 11 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 16 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2016 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2024 |
| H-INDEX | 2 |
Relativization in Likpakpaln (Ghana): New typological perspectives on the Mabia (Gur) languages
This article provides the first systematic account of relativization in Likpakpaln, an understudied Mabia (Gur) language of Ghana. Broadly speaking, Likpakpaln features two types of relative clauses: restrictive and non-restrictive. Both types of relative clauses are finite and marked by a relative pronoun as well as a clausal definite determiner. The first type is always headed by an indefinite noun. The second is invariably headed by a definite…
The indigenization of Ghanaian Pidgin English
In the world Englishes literature, ‘indigenization’ is shorthand for the localization of Outer Circle Englishes in former exploitation colonies like Ghana. However, the localization of Ghanaian English has been continually reversed by ‘corrective’ realignment with world standard English through institutional regimes. By contrast, the localization of Ghanaian Pidgin English has proceeded unhampered by standardization. This article provides a first…
Reciprocal constructions: Multilingual contact favors borrowing of transparent structures
This study analyzes the borrowing of Dutch reciprocal pronouns in a corpus of primary field data of Sranan, Sarnami, and Surinamese Javanese, three languages of Suriname. The expression of reciprocity in relevant African and Asian substrates of the languages under study is also presented and discussed. I suggest cognitive and sociolinguistic explanations for the preference of Dutch-sourced reciprocal pronouns during multilingual contact. The thre…
West African Pidgin: World Language Against the Grain
West African Pidgin ('Pidgin') is a cluster of related, mutually intelligible, restructured Englishes with up to 140 million speakers in Nigeria, Cameroon, Ghana, Sierra Leone, Equatorial Guinea, and The Gambia. Spoken by just few thousand people two centuries ago, 'modernisation' and 'shallow social entrenchment' have driven the transformation of Pidgin into a 'super-central' world language. Demographic growth, migration, the expansion of West A…
Two types of language contact involving English Creoles: Why Krio (Sierra Leone) has evolved more towards English than its relative Pichi (Equatorial Guinea) towards Spanish
The two African English-lexifier Creole languages Krio (Sierra Leone) and Pichi (Equatorial Guinea) are closely related. A close look at specific aspects of their grammar, however, shows divergence due to differing contact ecologies since their split in the 19 th century. Krio has been spoken alongside its lexifier (the main lexicon-providing language) and superstrate (the socially dominant colonial language) English since its beginnings and Pich…
Social entrenchment influences the amount of areal borrowing in contact languages
Aims and objectives: Social factors in language contact are not well understood. This study seeks to establish and explain the role of social entrenchment in the evolution of contact languages. It also aims to contribute to a broader perspective on areality that can account for social and linguistic factors in contact outcomes involving all languages present in multilingual ecologies, including contact languages. Methodology: The copula system wa…
The heart has caught me’
We provide a first documentation and analysis of anger metaphors in Likpakpaln, a little-studied Mabia (Gur) language, primarily spoken in Northern Ghana. We adopt Conceptual Metaphor Theory as the analytical framework for this study. The study of emotional body-part metaphors and their lexicalisation patterns in Likpakpaln is interlaced with nominal and clausal morphosyntax as well as grammatical relations. Anger is conceptualised in terms of li…
Unidirectional multilingual convergence: Typological and social factors
Suriname represents an interesting case of unidirectional multilingual convergence in a linguistic area. The multilingual ecology of Suriname is hierarchical. The Germanic language Dutch exerts structural and lexical influence 'downwards', but other languages do not do so 'upwards' to the same degree. This study analyses the development of word order in the Indo-Aryan language Sarnami and the Afro-Caribbean English-lexifier Creole Sranan, the two…
Adjectives in Likpakpaln (Konkomba): Structural and Areal-Typological Aspects
Likpakpaln is a little-described Mabia (Gur) language of northern Ghana. Drawing on primary data, this first study of adjectives in Likpakpaln concludes that the language has a small, closed adjective class of about 20 members that shares grammatical properties with nouns and verbs to varying degrees. Contrary to what is the case in other Mabia languages, Likpakpaln adjectives lack inherent class markers. We identify three types of adjectives, di…
Romancing with tone: On the outcomes of prosodic contact: Supplementary material: Sound files accompanying spectograms
Romancing with tone: On the outcomes of prosodic contact
This article presents a descriptive and theoretical framework for the analysis of prosodic systems that have emerged from contact between African tone and European intonation-only languages. A comparative study of the prosodic systems of two Romance contact varieties, Central African French and Equatorial Guinean Spanish, shows that they feature two-tone systems, fixed word tone patterns, tonal minimal pairs, the arbitrary assignment of tone in f…
Inheritance, contact, convergence: Pronominal allomorphy in the African English-lexifier Creoles
This article provides a comparative analysis of the suppletive allomorphy of two personal pronouns in the five African English-lexifier Creoles (AECs) Krio (Sierra Leone), Pichi (Equatorial Guinea), Ghanaian Pidgin English, Nigerian Pidgin, and Cameroon Pidgin. The alternation of the 3 sg object forms =àm (a clitic) and ín (a non-clitic) is conditioned by a tonal obligatory contour principle ( ocp ), a vowel height ocp , animacy, and focus in dif…
Cameroon Pidgin English: A comprehensive grammar by Miriam Ayafor and Melanie J. Green
Cameroon Pidgin English, by Miriam Ayafor and Melanie Green, is the latest and, as the subtitle ‘A comprehensive grammar’ suggests, most extensive work yet on the African English-lexifier creole language Cameroon Pidgin English (CPE). With two hundred and sixty-two pages of grammar and another sixteen pages of excellent texts, this book is indeed the most comprehensive treatment of the language. The core grammar sections of this book contain a we…
Towards a model of language contact and change in the English-lexifier creoles of Africa and the Caribbean
The Afro-Caribbean English-lexifier Creoles (AECs) exhibit fascinating combinations of disparate typological characteristics. I present a model of post-formative (“post-creolization”) contact and change and provide a comprehensive inventory of contact constellations in Africa and the Caribbean. I conduct a comparative analysis of causative constructions in seven African and Caribbean AECs, argue for the notional separation of the traditional creo…
Jacques Rongier, Dictionnaire éwé-français
Ewe has been the subject of some of the earliest work in African linguistics, it is one of the major languages along the West African littoral zone between Senegal and Nigeria, an important regional language in Ghana, and the most widely spoken language of Togo. Jacques Rongier’s monumental and comprehensive Dictionnaire éwé-français narrows an existing gap. The only comprehensive Ewe dictionary to-date was Westermann’s Ewe-Deutsches Wörterbuch w…
The only language we speak really well: The English creoles of Equatorial Guinea and West Africa at the intersection of language ideologies and language policies
This article explores the nexus between language policies and language ideologies in Equatorial Guinea and West Africa. By analyzing spoken and written discourses in Spanish and Pichi, I identify a set of ideas and beliefs about Pichi and the semiotic processes by which they have emerged. The comparison of Pichi with Krio, Nigerian Pidgin, Cameroon Pidgin and Ghanaian Pidgin English shows that Pichi is the most disadvantaged of the West African E…
Romancing with tone: On the outcomes of prosodic contact
This article presents a descriptive and theoretical framework for the analysis of prosodic systems that have emerged from contact between African tone and European intonation-only languages. A comparative study of the prosodic systems of two Romance contact varieties, Central African French and Equatorial Guinean Spanish, shows that they feature two-tone systems, fixed word tone patterns, tonal minimal pairs, the arbitrary assignment of tone in f…
The only language we speak really well: The English creoles of Equatorial Guinea and West Africa at the intersection of language ideologies and language policies
This article explores the nexus between language policies and language ideologies in Equatorial Guinea and West Africa. By analyzing spoken and written discourses in Spanish and Pichi, I identify a set of ideas and beliefs about Pichi and the semiotic processes by which they have emerged. The comparison of Pichi with Krio, Nigerian Pidgin, Cameroon Pidgin and Ghanaian Pidgin English shows that Pichi is the most disadvantaged of the West African E…
The heart has caught me’
We provide a first documentation and analysis of anger metaphors in Likpakpaln, a little-studied Mabia (Gur) language, primarily spoken in Northern Ghana. We adopt Conceptual Metaphor Theory as the analytical framework for this study. The study of emotional body-part metaphors and their lexicalisation patterns in Likpakpaln is interlaced with nominal and clausal morphosyntax as well as grammatical relations. Anger is conceptualised in terms of li…
Cameroon Pidgin English: A comprehensive grammar by Miriam Ayafor and Melanie J. Green
Cameroon Pidgin English, by Miriam Ayafor and Melanie Green, is the latest and, as the subtitle ‘A comprehensive grammar’ suggests, most extensive work yet on the African English-lexifier creole language Cameroon Pidgin English (CPE). With two hundred and sixty-two pages of grammar and another sixteen pages of excellent texts, this book is indeed the most comprehensive treatment of the language. The core grammar sections of this book contain a we…
Towards a model of language contact and change in the English-lexifier creoles of Africa and the Caribbean
The Afro-Caribbean English-lexifier Creoles (AECs) exhibit fascinating combinations of disparate typological characteristics. I present a model of post-formative (“post-creolization”) contact and change and provide a comprehensive inventory of contact constellations in Africa and the Caribbean. I conduct a comparative analysis of causative constructions in seven African and Caribbean AECs, argue for the notional separation of the traditional creo…
Jacques Rongier, Dictionnaire éwé-français
Ewe has been the subject of some of the earliest work in African linguistics, it is one of the major languages along the West African littoral zone between Senegal and Nigeria, an important regional language in Ghana, and the most widely spoken language of Togo. Jacques Rongier’s monumental and comprehensive Dictionnaire éwé-français narrows an existing gap. The only comprehensive Ewe dictionary to-date was Westermann’s Ewe-Deutsches Wörterbuch w…
The only language we speak really well: The English creoles of Equatorial Guinea and West Africa at the intersection of language ideologies and language policies
This article explores the nexus between language policies and language ideologies in Equatorial Guinea and West Africa. By analyzing spoken and written discourses in Spanish and Pichi, I identify a set of ideas and beliefs about Pichi and the semiotic processes by which they have emerged. The comparison of Pichi with Krio, Nigerian Pidgin, Cameroon Pidgin and Ghanaian Pidgin English shows that Pichi is the most disadvantaged of the West African E…
Towards a model of language contact and change in the English-lexifier creoles of Africa and the Caribbean
The Afro-Caribbean English-lexifier Creoles (AECs) exhibit fascinating combinations of disparate typological characteristics. I present a model of post-formative (“post-creolization”) contact and change and provide a comprehensive inventory of contact constellations in Africa and the Caribbean. I conduct a comparative analysis of causative constructions in seven African and Caribbean AECs, argue for the notional separation of the traditional creo…
Inheritance, contact, convergence: Pronominal allomorphy in the African English-lexifier Creoles
This article provides a comparative analysis of the suppletive allomorphy of two personal pronouns in the five African English-lexifier Creoles (AECs) Krio (Sierra Leone), Pichi (Equatorial Guinea), Ghanaian Pidgin English, Nigerian Pidgin, and Cameroon Pidgin. The alternation of the 3 sg object forms =àm (a clitic) and ín (a non-clitic) is conditioned by a tonal obligatory contour principle ( ocp ), a vowel height ocp , animacy, and focus in dif…
Cameroon Pidgin English: A comprehensive grammar by Miriam Ayafor and Melanie J. Green
Cameroon Pidgin English, by Miriam Ayafor and Melanie Green, is the latest and, as the subtitle ‘A comprehensive grammar’ suggests, most extensive work yet on the African English-lexifier creole language Cameroon Pidgin English (CPE). With two hundred and sixty-two pages of grammar and another sixteen pages of excellent texts, this book is indeed the most comprehensive treatment of the language. The core grammar sections of this book contain a we…
Adjectives in Likpakpaln (Konkomba): Structural and Areal-Typological Aspects
Likpakpaln is a little-described Mabia (Gur) language of northern Ghana. Drawing on primary data, this first study of adjectives in Likpakpaln concludes that the language has a small, closed adjective class of about 20 members that shares grammatical properties with nouns and verbs to varying degrees. Contrary to what is the case in other Mabia languages, Likpakpaln adjectives lack inherent class markers. We identify three types of adjectives, di…
Romancing with tone: On the outcomes of prosodic contact: Supplementary material: Sound files accompanying spectograms
Romancing with tone: On the outcomes of prosodic contact
This article presents a descriptive and theoretical framework for the analysis of prosodic systems that have emerged from contact between African tone and European intonation-only languages. A comparative study of the prosodic systems of two Romance contact varieties, Central African French and Equatorial Guinean Spanish, shows that they feature two-tone systems, fixed word tone patterns, tonal minimal pairs, the arbitrary assignment of tone in f…
The heart has caught me’
We provide a first documentation and analysis of anger metaphors in Likpakpaln, a little-studied Mabia (Gur) language, primarily spoken in Northern Ghana. We adopt Conceptual Metaphor Theory as the analytical framework for this study. The study of emotional body-part metaphors and their lexicalisation patterns in Likpakpaln is interlaced with nominal and clausal morphosyntax as well as grammatical relations. Anger is conceptualised in terms of li…
Unidirectional multilingual convergence: Typological and social factors
Suriname represents an interesting case of unidirectional multilingual convergence in a linguistic area. The multilingual ecology of Suriname is hierarchical. The Germanic language Dutch exerts structural and lexical influence 'downwards', but other languages do not do so 'upwards' to the same degree. This study analyses the development of word order in the Indo-Aryan language Sarnami and the Afro-Caribbean English-lexifier Creole Sranan, the two…
Social entrenchment influences the amount of areal borrowing in contact languages
Aims and objectives: Social factors in language contact are not well understood. This study seeks to establish and explain the role of social entrenchment in the evolution of contact languages. It also aims to contribute to a broader perspective on areality that can account for social and linguistic factors in contact outcomes involving all languages present in multilingual ecologies, including contact languages. Methodology: The copula system wa…
Two types of language contact involving English Creoles: Why Krio (Sierra Leone) has evolved more towards English than its relative Pichi (Equatorial Guinea) towards Spanish
The two African English-lexifier Creole languages Krio (Sierra Leone) and Pichi (Equatorial Guinea) are closely related. A close look at specific aspects of their grammar, however, shows divergence due to differing contact ecologies since their split in the 19 th century. Krio has been spoken alongside its lexifier (the main lexicon-providing language) and superstrate (the socially dominant colonial language) English since its beginnings and Pich…
Relativization in Likpakpaln (Ghana): New typological perspectives on the Mabia (Gur) languages
This article provides the first systematic account of relativization in Likpakpaln, an understudied Mabia (Gur) language of Ghana. Broadly speaking, Likpakpaln features two types of relative clauses: restrictive and non-restrictive. Both types of relative clauses are finite and marked by a relative pronoun as well as a clausal definite determiner. The first type is always headed by an indefinite noun. The second is invariably headed by a definite…
The indigenization of Ghanaian Pidgin English
In the world Englishes literature, ‘indigenization’ is shorthand for the localization of Outer Circle Englishes in former exploitation colonies like Ghana. However, the localization of Ghanaian English has been continually reversed by ‘corrective’ realignment with world standard English through institutional regimes. By contrast, the localization of Ghanaian Pidgin English has proceeded unhampered by standardization. This article provides a first…
Reciprocal constructions: Multilingual contact favors borrowing of transparent structures
This study analyzes the borrowing of Dutch reciprocal pronouns in a corpus of primary field data of Sranan, Sarnami, and Surinamese Javanese, three languages of Suriname. The expression of reciprocity in relevant African and Asian substrates of the languages under study is also presented and discussed. I suggest cognitive and sociolinguistic explanations for the preference of Dutch-sourced reciprocal pronouns during multilingual contact. The thre…
West African Pidgin: World Language Against the Grain
West African Pidgin ('Pidgin') is a cluster of related, mutually intelligible, restructured Englishes with up to 140 million speakers in Nigeria, Cameroon, Ghana, Sierra Leone, Equatorial Guinea, and The Gambia. Spoken by just few thousand people two centuries ago, 'modernisation' and 'shallow social entrenchment' have driven the transformation of Pidgin into a 'super-central' world language. Demographic growth, migration, the expansion of West A…
Linguistics (15 works) · Philosophy (11 works) · Linguistic Variation and Morphology (10 works) · History (9 works) · Creole language (8 works) · Sociology (8 works) · Computer Science (7 works) · Language contact (7 works) · Multilingual Education and Policy (7 works) · Pidgin (6 works)