Causativisation and Applicativisation with the Grammaticalised Verb De in Akan

Abstract

The thesis investigates a grammaticalised verb de, reanalysed as a semi/functional element which is involved in valency changing operations such as causativisation and applicativisation in Akan. The causative and applicative use of the morpheme points to a polysemous syncretism (Franco 2019) in the language. De is realised as three different heads with different functions: as a causer, an applicative, and a DOM licensing head that is involved in theta role assignment. Following Plykannen’s (2000, 2002, 2008) bipartite characterisation of applicative heads into high or low in natural languages, de is majorly a high applicative that introduces non-causers such as comitatives and instrument/means in the language. The causative shows a sensitivity to the kind of predicate it combines with: with intransitives, locatives and unaccusatives, de introduces an external argument. With transitive verbs, de introduces a comitative and an instrument/means. In ditransitive constructions, de introduces an argument position licensed through the presence of a clitic that is co-indexed with the theme, and this has implications for DOM and theta role assignment. A tentative analysis combining the causative and the applicative head as a common functor is proffered following Ramchand (2019).