NEW!!! NSF-Funded Project (BCS 2450715) on 'Language Infrastructure and Training in Fieldwork and Theoretical Linguistics.'

RESEARCH INTERESTS

My research interests in linguistics include Phonology and its interface with phonetics, morphology, and syntax; language documentation; language and culture endangerment and revitalization; Kwa languages of West Africa, with a focus on phonological phenomena such as ATR vowel harmony, nasality, hiatus resolution, tone, and tone processes at Georgetown University, Washington, DC. My research is on Kwa languages of West Africa, especially the Guang Languages and Akan.

My research relies on primary data gathered through linguistic fieldwork, ethnography, and laboratory-phonology methods to offer descriptive, typological, and theoretical analyses of linguistic phenomena.

My work also documents and supports the revitalization of cultural practices and knowledge through language documentation and revitalization.

Most of my research has been on Kwa Languages: Akan and Guang languages, such as the Boso dialect of Gua and Awutu.

RESEARCH INTERESTS BY TOPIC

Phonology and its interfaces with Phonetics, Morphology and Syntax, and Linguistic Theory

Vowel Harmony

Gua exhibits ATR vowel harmony that operates within words, roots and across words. Two projects focus on:

1. Directionality of Gua ATR vowel harmony: This project describes the general patterns of the regressive directionality of the harmony process, and its contributions to the typology of directionality in vowel harmony.

2. Vowel Harmony and Phonological Phrasing in Gua: (Joint work with Sharon Rose of UC San Diego). This project discusses the domain of cross-word harmony in Gua and offers a syntax-phonology account of the domain effect using Match Theory (Selkirk 2011) for the formal theoretical account. Find the paper 'Vowel Harmony and Phonological Phrasing in Gua' published as:

Obiri-Yeboah, Michael & Sharon Rose. 2021. Vowel Harmony and Phonological Phrasing in Gua. Natural Language and Linguistic Theory. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11049-021-09509-y

These projects were funded by a fellowship from the International Institute, UC San Diego.

Hiatus Resolution

Gua words typically begin and end in vowels, so vowel hiatus arises in many environments. The study focuses on how hiatus resolution is resolved and the interaction between hiatus resolution and vowel harmony in Gua, which results in opaque forms. Aside from the fact that the two processes are independent of each other, the processes interact interestingly as both processes appear to apply in the same phonological phrase raising questions about theories that employ the strict layering approach. See the paper below as I work with Dr. Ezer Rasin to discuss this phenomenon.

Obiri-Yeboah, Michael & Ezer Rasin. 2024. Productive Phrasal Opacity in Gua: A Challenge to Stratal Optimality Theory. Natural Language and Linguistic Theory.

See also this workshop presentation on the same issue:

Obiri-Yeboah, Michael. 2024. Serial Ordering and ATR Vowel Harmony-Hiatus Resolution Interactions in Gua. Workshop on Phonological Domains. University of California, Berkeley on September 13-14, 2024.

Nasality

Gua has both oral and nasal vowels, and also nasalizes vowels that occur within the same syllable. This study provides an account of the patterns, and considers whether the nasalized vowels are phonemic, or if they get nasalized within the same syllable in carry-over and anticipatory contexts. It investigates which vowels have higher levels of nasality, using both acoustic and airflow data to account for the patterns.

Obiri-Yeboah, Michael. 2019. Acoustic Analysis of Nasal and ‘Nasalized’ Vowels in Gua. Annual Conference on African Linguistics (ACAL), May 22-25, University of British Columbia, Vancouver, Canada.

Tone Melodies and Tense, Mood and Aspect

Gua has grammatical tone in verbs, analyzed as tone melodies to mark tense, mood and aspects (TMA) structures. Subject pronouns and prefixes that mark TMA vary tone to prevent tone clashing.

Obiri-Yeboah, Michael. 2020. Tone Melody and TMA Marking in Gua. Proceedings of the 30th West African Languages Congress

You can find 2021 e-version of the paper published by eScholarship here.

Ongoing work examines how lexical and grammatical tones interact with intonation in constructions such as focus, wh and polar questions.

Doctoral Dissertation

Most of these topics constitute part of my ongoing PhD dissertation on the topic, Phonetics and Phonology of Gua. The dissertation provides a typologically and theoretically informed description of the sound system of Gua, focusing on vowels (ATR harmony, nasality, hiatus resolution), consonants, syllable structure, tone and the interaction of phonological processes with other aspects of the grammar of the language.

You can access my dissertation on Phonetics and Phonology of Gua here.

The dissertation is funded by a Mellon/American Council of Learned Societies Dissertation Completion Fellowship for 2020-2021.

Perception of ATR vowels and musical pitch by Akan speakers:

(Joint project with Sharon Rose and Sarah Creel, Linguistics and Cognitive Science Departments respectively, UC San Diego).

African languages with tone and ATR vowel contrasts have been primarily studied from a production angle. Perceptual studies are lacking. There are two sub-projects with papers already published here:

1. ATR Vowel Perception:

We investigate how well speakers of languages with ATR vowels perceive ATR contrasts. Data from Akan speakers shows that some acoustically similar vowels are poorly perceived even if they are phonologically contrastive and distinctive in production. See the details in the paper below:

Rose, Sharon, Obiri-Yeboah, Michael and Creel, Sarah. 2023. Perception of ATR contrasts by Akan Speakers: a case of perceptual near-merger. Laboratory Phonology

2. Tone-Music Perception:

Do speakers of tone languages have advantages over non-tone language speakers in differentiating between musical tunes? Most research has focused on Asian languages, such as Mandarin which has shown such advantage for tone language speakers over languages where there are no tones. However, our initial results among Akan speakers show no such advantage. Find details in the papers below:

Creel, Sarah, Obiri-Yeboah, Michael and Rose, Sharon. 2023. Language-to-music transfer effects depend on the tone language: Akan vs. East Asian Tone Languages. Memory and Cognition

Watch this space for further findings as we consider other languages with different tonal patterns!

Fieldwork & Language Documentation and Revitalization

I have worked on a documentation project, Documentation of Oral and Cultural Literature of Boso, through in-situ fieldwork. Boso is rich in both oral and cultural knowledge. This knowledge is mostly a preserve of the aged, and young people are not acquiring this knowledge, endangering these practices as well as the Gua language in general. The project aimed to record, annotate, and archive data using the Gua language from Boso. The data collected included:

· The history of Boso and Guangs

· notable leaders in the community, including the first paramount chief of the area

· Letswi ‘the god of the area.

· The chieftaincy institution in the Gwa-Boso Traditional Area

· Odweedzi festival

· Preparation of some traditional meals

· Ethnobotany

· Songs in Gua

The documentation project was funded by the Firebird Foundation Fellowship, USA.

Beyond documenting the language and cultural heritage of the Boso community, revitalization efforts for Gua have begun in earnest, working with some community members to improve proficiency in Gua. Literacy work regarding the production of teaching and learning materials will start soon.

Awutu Documentation Project: Awutu is an endangered language spoken in Ghana. I have launched this project to document both language and cultural knowledge. The project is part of the broader NSF-funded project (BCS 2450715) on Language Infrastructure and training in fieldwork and theoretical linguistics. The project will train three graduate students in language documentation and revitalization across three summers. The data collected will be annotated, archived, and made accessible to both community members and other stakeholders. Linguistic patterns identified from the observed data would be used for theoretical linguistic analyses and dissemination through academic presentations and publications.

I will work with three other graduate students to collect data on various linguistic phenomena and cultural data that provide details of the language and cultural knowledge of various Awutu communities. We shall also support the revitalization of the language across Awutu-speaking communities, working with the literacy committee established in the community. Future updates on this project will be shared here.

Surrogate Languages, Linguistic Theory & African Studies

Surrogate languages are languages that use different media for communication instead of speech or sign. Across various cultures, these can be found in drum language, trumpet, flute, among others. How do linguists and linguistic theory account for patterns observed in these languages? How widespread is this across African languages and cultures? These and many important questions and phenomena about surrogate languages engage my attention. I have previously worked on Akan surrogate language using the atumpan (drum language), seperewa, and atɛntɛnbɛn (flute). Collaborating with Prof. Laura McPherson, we wanted to find out how Akan tone is realized across different modalities. We observed that there are similarities and differences in the implementation of the tonal properties across various musical instruments considered in this study. See the full details of the paper with the findings here:

McPherson, Laura and Obiri-Yeboah, Michael. 2024. Akan Tone Encoding Across Musical Modalities. Studies of African Linguistics.

Aside from surrogate languages, Gua and Akan, I have also worked on other languages either through fieldwork or field method classes. Some of the other languages include Dagaare from Ghana and Igbo spoken in Nigeria.

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