RESEARCH INTERESTS

My research interest in linguistics include Phonology, Phonetics and their interface, Syntax-phonology interface, Morphophonology, Language Documentation, ATR Vowel Harmony, Tone, Nasality, and African Studies at Georgetown University, Washington, DC. My research is on Gua, Akan and other Kwa languages.

My research relies on primary data gathered through linguistic fieldwork and laboratory-phonology methods to offer descriptive, typological and theoretical analyses of linguistic phenomena. My work also records cultural practices and knowledge through language documentation.

Most of my research has been on languages of Ghana: the Boso dialect of Gua, a Guang language, and Akan.

RESEARCH INTERESTS BY TOPIC

Phonology and Phonetics

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.

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 tone 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 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.

Rose, Sharon, Obiri-Yeboah, Michael and Creel, Sarah. 2019. ATR Perception by Akan Speakers. Annual Conference on African Linguistics (ACAL), May 22-25, University of British Columbia, Vancouver, Canada.

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. Akan speakers show different results.




Fieldwork, Language Documentation & African Studies

I am currently working 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 reserve of the aged, and young people are not acquiring this knowledge, endangering these practices as well as the Gua language in general. The project aims to record, annotate and archive data using the Gua language from Boso. The data collected include:

· the history of the 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

· Gua Kpoomo

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