Browsing results for Ameka Felix
Published on April 29, 2018. Last updated on October 13, 2018.
Ameka, Felix Kofi (1986). The use and meaning of selected particles in Ewe. MA thesis, Australian National University.
When studying particles – regardless of the language they belong to – it is not enough to describe their distribution and to provide labels. We must go beyond descriptions and, in an attempt to come up with a reliable guide to usage, elucidate the meanings encapsulated in the particles, in a manner that is linguistically precise and as far as permissible culturally and socially revealing. This is the task undertaken in this study, with special reference to the author’s native language, Ewe.
We describe and defend an illocutionary semantic approach to the particles. In essence, we advocate a method of analysis that decomposes the illocutionary forces of particles into their components, which are expressed in a language that is simple and intuitively intelligible. The test for our analysis is that the formulations (explications) should be substitutable for the particles (salvo sensu) in any of their possible uses.
Research carried out in consultation with or under the supervision of one or more experienced NSM practitioners
Tags: (E) (particles)
Published on May 10, 2017. Last updated on September 10, 2018.
Ameka, Felix (1987). A comparative analysis of linguistic routines in two languages: English and Ewe. Journal of Pragmatics, 11(3), 299-326. DOI: 10.1016/0378-2166(87)90135-4
It is widely acknowledged that linguistic routines are not only embodiments of the socio-cultural values of speech communities that use them, but their knowledge and appropriate use also form an essential part of a speaker’s communicative/pragmatic competence. Despite this, many studies concentrate more on describing the use of routines rather than explaining the socio-cultural aspects of their meaning and the way they affect their use. It is the contention of this paper that there is a need to go beyond descriptions to explanations and explications of the use and meaning of routines that are culturally and socially revealing. This view is illustrated by a comparative analysis of functionally equivalent formulaic expressions in English and Ewe. The similarities are noted and the differences explained in terms of the socio-cultural traditions associated with the respective languages. It is argued that insights gained from such studies are valuable for cross-cultural understanding and communication as well as for second language pedagogy.
Most of the routines selected for explication are used either to congratulate people when good things happen to them or to console, i.e. show empathy with people who experience something bad. One conversational routine in Ewe that is also included reflects an interesting social and cultural norm in Ewe society related to the use of the left hand instead of the right.
Research carried out in consultation with or under the supervision of one or more experienced NSM practitioners
Tags: (E) Congratulations!, (E) Ewe congratulations and consolations, (E) I'm sorry!, (E) sorry, (E) thank you, (E) Well done!
Published on May 10, 2017. Last updated on September 10, 2018.
Ameka, Felix K. (1988). The grammatical coding of the terminal viewpoint of situations in Ewe: A semantic perspective. Australian Journal of Linguistics, 8(2), 185-217. DOI: 10.1080/07268608808599397
This paper investigates the expression of the terminal viewpoint of situations in Ewe (West Africa) by means of aspectual verbal modifiers. The analytic task of the study is to explore the subtle semantic differences encoded by three forms within the semantic space of the “end-point” of situations. It is argued that vɔ signifies that something has happened or has been done completely. When it is used without triplication in certain contexts and with triplication in others, it indicates that a situation is about to be completed. By contrast, sé indicates that a situation has been terminated and is incomplete, while kpɔ symbolizes the existential status of situations. To emphasize the non-manifest status of situations, kpɔ may be triplicated.
Research carried out in consultation with or under the supervision of one or more experienced NSM practitioners
Tags: (E) kpɔ, (E) sé, (E) vɔ
Published on May 10, 2017. Last updated on September 15, 2018.
Ameka, Felix (1990-91). How discourse particles mean: The case of the Ewe “terminal” particles. Journal of African Languages and Linguistics, 12(2), 143-170. DOI: 10.1515_jall.1991.12.2.143
The main claims of this paper are that particles have meanings and that these meanings can be discovered and stated in a linguistically precise manner. Discourse particles, in particular, have meanings in addition to the syntactic, discourse and communicative functions in terms of which they are usually described. It is argued that the syntactic and discourse functional levels should be augmented by a semantic explication of the particles that would constitute a reliable guide to their usage.
The claims are tested and supported through an analysis of the Ewe particles lá and ɖé. These particles have been characterized as phrase and clause terminal particles because they occur at the end of preposed dependent phrases and clauses and at the end of embedded relative clauses. The author contends that the particles have a unitary function: they mark a piece of discourse as forming the conceptual background to the rest, or part of the rest, of an utterance or discourse. Semantic representations couched in a Natural Semantic Metalanguage of hypothetical universal primitives are proposed for the various senses of the particles, which can explain the similarities and differences in their range of use. The paper concludes with a discussion of some cross-linguistic analogues of the Ewe particles.
Research carried out in consultation with or under the supervision of one or more experienced NSM practitioners
Tags: (E) ɖé, (E) lá
Published on May 10, 2017. Last updated on September 10, 2018.
Ameka, Felix (1990). The grammatical packaging of experiencers in Ewe: A study in the semantics of syntax. Australian Journal of Linguistics, 10(2), 139-181. DOI: 10.1080/07268609008599440
It is now generally accepted that languages have different means of representing the same extra-linguistic or real world situation. It is furthermore assumed that these different means of representation reflect different conceptualizations of real-world situations. The purpose of this paper is to describe the different morpho-syntactic devices that are available in Ewe, a Kwa language of West Africa, for the presentation of the conceptualizations of an experiencer of an emotion or sensation.
Research carried out in consultation with or under the supervision of one or more experienced NSM practitioners
Tags: (E) dó, (E) ɖé, (E) ná, (E) nyá
Published on May 10, 2017. Last updated on August 27, 2018.
Ameka, Felix (1992). The meaning of phatic and conative interjections. Journal of Pragmatics, 18(2/3), 245-271. DOI: 10.1016/0378-2166(92)90054-F
The purpose of this paper is to investigate the meanings of the members of two subclasses of interjections in Ewe: the conative/volitive which are directed at an auditor, and the phatic which are used in the maintenance of social and communicative contact. It is demonstrated that interjections like other linguistic signs have meanings which can be rigorously stated. In addition, the paper explores the differences and similarities between the semantic structures of interjections on one hand and formulaic words on the other. This is done through a comparison of the semantics and pragmatics of an interjection and a formulaic word which are used for welcoming people in Ewe. It is contended that formulaic words are speech acts qua speech acts while interjections are not fully fledged speech acts because they lack an illocutionary dictum in their semantic structure.
Research carried out by one or more experienced NSM practitioners
Tags: (E) (k)ss...!, (E) (particles for chasing animals), (E) à, (E) atúù!, (E) búbúbúi!, (E) dzáà!, (E) he!, (E) ú:ru!, (E) u:wúi!
Published on May 10, 2017. Last updated on September 10, 2018.
Ameka, Felix (1992). Interjections: The universal yet neglected part of speech. Journal of Pragmatics, 18(2/3), 101-118. DOI: 10.1016/0378-2166(92)90048-G
It is perhaps true that apart from nouns and verbs, interjections – those little words, or ‘non-words’, which can constitute utterances by themselves – are a word class found in all languages. But it is also true that this class of items has eluded description and has, for the most part, been ignored in theoretical linguistics discourse. In this introduction to a special issue of the Journal of Pragmatics dedicated to interjections and similar items, I want to attempt to draw out and suggest solutions to the confusion that has beset these important items.
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Tags: (E) thank you, (E) Wow!
Published on May 10, 2017. Last updated on May 19, 2019.
Ameka, Felix (1994). Areal conversational routines and cross-cultural communication in a multilingual society. In Heiner Pürschel, Elmar Bartsch, Peter Franklin, Ulrich Schmitz, & Sonja Vandermeeren (Eds.), Intercultural communication (pp. 441-469). Bern: Peter Lang.
Rating:
Research carried out by one or more experienced NSM practitioners
Published on May 10, 2017. Last updated on September 10, 2018.
Ameka, Felix (1994). Ewe. In Cliff Goddard, & Anna Wierzbicka (Eds.), Semantic and lexical universals: Theory and empirical findings (pp. 57-86). Amsterdam: John Benjamins. DOI: 10.1075/slcs.25.07ame
In general, Ewe seems to have lexical exponents for all of the proposed primitives. In several cases, the items correspond in a straightforward manner with the primitives and their combinatorial frames. In other cases, it is easy to identify a lexical exponent for a primitive, but the item is restricted in its range of use (i.e., it is not easy to use it in all of the proposed canonical context sentences). At the same time, it is shown that certain methodological issues need to be addressed. The first issue concerns allolexy; there is a need for clarification of this notion and of the situations in which it can be legitimately invoked. A second methodological issue relates to the translational approach in identifying the primitives across languages. A third and final problem concerns the conceptual status of the semantic primitives.
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Published on May 10, 2017. Last updated on September 10, 2018.
Ameka, Felix (1996). Body parts in Ewe grammar. In Hilary Chappell, & William McGregor (Eds.), The grammar of inalienability: A typological perspective on body part terms and the part-whole relation (pp. 783-840). Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter. DOI: 10.1515/9783110822137.783
The purpose of this paper is to describe the treatment of body parts (and other meronyms, that is, part terms in part-whole relationships) in the grammar of Ewe, a Kwa language of West Africa. It is assumed that language and, in this particular instance, grammar, is an embodiment and a reflection of conceptual structures of its speakers. Hence an analysis of the Ewe syntactic structures in which body parts participate should reveal the way in which these items are conceptualized in that language. To this end, the semantics of three adnominal constructions are investigated: an “alienable” structure signalled by the possessive connective ɸé, body parts occur as possessa in this construction; an “inalienable” construction which has no overt marking, body parts do not normally occur in this construction except in some cases with a first or second person singular pronominal possessor; and the syntactic compound marked by a high tone suffix. These compounds may be possessive or classificatory in function, and body parts tend to occur in the latter. The semantic ramifications of the property of body parts to assume grammatical roles distinct from the roles of their “owners” are also explored.
Research carried out by one or more experienced NSM practitioners
Tags: (E) ná, (E) ɸé
Published on May 10, 2017. Last updated on September 10, 2018.
Ameka, Felix K. (1999). ‘Partir, c’est mourir un peu’: Universal and culture specific features of leave taking. RASK (International Journal of Language and Communication), 9/10, 257-283. PDF (open access)
This paper aims to show the near-universal features of leave-taking in terms of the structure of the events that occur in terminating social encounters and in terms of the form of the language and the semantic fields to which the expressions belong. It will be shown that there are gradations in the importance or salience accorded to leave-taking in different cultures. This ranges from cultures in which there is apparently no recognisable or distinct closing phase of social encounters to less elaborate and more elaborate patterned routines of leave-taking. A second purpose is to describe the structure of the closing phase of encounters with specific reference to the southern Ghana cultural area. Two salient routine strategies that occur in closings in this area will be highlighted. Furthermore, the paper will describe the meanings encoded in some of the linguistic routines employed for leave-taking at night in Ewe, a specific ethnolinguistic group in this area.
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Tags: (E) May God wake us up (Ewe), (E) Night has not yet fallen (Ewe), (E) When day breaks let's meet (Ewe), (S) leave-taking
Published on May 10, 2017. Last updated on September 10, 2018.
Ameka, Felix K. (2002). Cultural scripting of body parts for emotions: On ‘jealousy’ and related emotions in Ewe. Pragmatics & Cognition, 10(1), 27-55. DOI: 10.1075/pc.10.12.03ame
Different languages present a variety of ways of talking about emotional experience. Very commonly, feelings are described through the use of ‘body image constructions’ in which they are associated with processes in, or states of, specific body parts. The emotions and the body parts that are thought to be their locus and the kind of activity associated with these body parts vary cross-culturally. This study focuses on the meaning of three ‘body image constructions’ used to describe feelings similar to, but also different from, English ‘jealousy’, ‘envy’, and ‘covetousness’ in the West African language Ewe. It is demonstrated that a ‘moving body’, a psychologised eye, and red eyes are scripted for these feelings. It is argued that the expressions are not figurative and that their semantics provide good clues to understanding the cultural construction of both in terms of the parts of the body that are scripted and of what they mean.
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Published on May 10, 2017. Last updated on September 3, 2018.
Ameka, Felix K., & Breedveld, Anneke (2004). Areal cultural scripts for social interaction in West African communities. Intercultural Pragmatics, 1(2), 167-187. DOI: 10.1515/iprg.2004.1.2.167
Taboos reflect the values and the ways of thinking of a society. They are recognized as part of the communicative competence of its speakers and are learned in socialization. Some salient taboos are likely to be named in the language of the relevant society, others may not have a name. Interactional taboos can be specific to a cultural linguistic group or they may be shared across different communities that belong to a speech area, i.e. an area in which contiguous cultural linguistic groups share similar communicative practices.
The authors claim that tacit knowledge about taboos and other interactive norms can be captured using the cultural scripts methodology. The term areal cultural script is introduced to refer to scripts that pertain to an entire speech area. The article describes a number of unnamed norms of communicative conduct that are widespread in West Africa, such as the taboos on the use of the left hand in social interaction and on the use of personal names in adult address, and the widespread preference for the use of intermediaries for serious communication. It also examines a named avoidance (yaage) behaviour specific to the Fulbe, a nomadic cattle-herding group spread from West Africa across the Sahel as far as Sudan.
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Tags: (S) addressing adults, (S) left hand taboo, (S) names, (S) permission to leave, (S) silence, (S) social interaction, (S) third party communication
Published on May 10, 2017. Last updated on September 10, 2018.
Ameka, Felix K. (2006). “When I die, don’t cry”: The ethnopragmatics of “gratitude” in West African languages. In Cliff Goddard (Ed.), Ethnopragmatics: Understanding discourse in cultural context (pp. 231-266). Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter. DOI: 10.1515/9783110911114.231
This paper discusses the ethnopragmatics of speech formulas for “gratitude” in West African languages such as Ewe, Akan, and Buli, showing how they presuppose deeply culturally embedded values and beliefs about death and the rituals related to it.
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Published on May 10, 2017. Last updated on September 10, 2018.
Ameka, Felix K. (2007). He died old dying to be dead right: Transitivity and semantic shifts of ‘die’ in Ewe in crosslinguistic perspective. In Melissa Bowerman & Penelope Brown (Eds.), Crosslinguistic perspectives on argument structure: Implications for learnability (pp. 231-253). Mahwah: Erlbaum.
This chapter examines the structure and semantics of the equivalent of ‘die’ in Ewe, a Kwa (Niger–Congo) West African language, against the backdrop of universalist expectations about such a verb. It also discusses the potential problems the Ewe verb may pose to the learner and to theories of verb learning. In particular, it is demonstrated that the Ewe verb kú ‘die’ is not just a one-participant verb, as is universally expected of verbs that represent a dying situation, but it is also a two-place verb, that is, a transitive verb. Some syntactic and semantic properties of ‘die’ predicates are presented from a crosslinguistic perspective. The variation in behavior that we find means that there is very little about ‘die’ predicates that can be attributed to innate knowledge. The focus then shifts to the argument structure properties of the verb kú ‘die’ in Ewe. The semantic shift that ‘die’ predicates undergo from ‘die’ to ‘intensity’ and ‘desiderative’ (which can be positive or negative) is reviewed, as well as the attendant syntactic ramifications. Such shifts provide further evidence that the language learner cannot be guided by a simple form–meaning pairing. The chapter concludes with potential learnability problems.
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Published on May 10, 2017. Last updated on September 10, 2018.
Ameka, Felix K. (2009). Access rituals in West African communities: An ethnopragmatic perspective. In Gunther Senft, & Ellen B. Basso (Eds.), Ritual communication (pp. 127-151). New York: Berg.
This chapter outlines different types of encounters that may occur between interlocutors in West Africa. Next, a particular type of encounter – a social visit – is described, its constitutive factors are drawn out and the linguistic routines that may be used in such situations are elucidated. A variety of conventional opening acts for negotiating interaction are studied next, and it is argued that “greetings” are but a subcomponent of openings. It is claimed that the enactment of well-being inquiries is an avenue for displaying cultural values such as inclusiveness and harmony in West African communities, and it is shown that expectations about the questions vary cross-culturally. Finally, attention is paid to changes due to cultural contact in the norms associated with greeting behavior in West Africa. The paper concludes with some reflections on the relationship between access routines and ritual communication.
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Published on May 10, 2017. Last updated on September 10, 2018.
Ameka, Felix Kofi (2012). Ewe: Its grammatical constructions and illocutionary devices. München: Lincom Europa.
Facsimile edition of the author’s PhD thesis, Australian National University (1991).
This thesis primarily provides an overview of Ewe grammar and a detailed investigation of the meanings of specific grammatical constructions and illocutionary devices in the language. The basic idea behind the study is that every grammatical and illocutionary construction or device encodes a certain meaning which can be discovered and stated so that the meanings of different devices can be compared not only within one language but across language boundaries. An attempt is made to explain the usage of grammatical forms from different perspectives. Priority is given to semantic, functional and discourse-pragmatic concerns although formal constraints and diachronic
considerations are also invoked in the explanations. A major concern throughout the thesis is to characterize the communicative competence of a native speaker of Ewe.
The body of the thesis is divided into four parts. Each part is preceded by a short overview about the rationale for its organisation.
Part I is a brief overview of the structural grammar of Ewe. It consists of three brief chapters. Chapter 1 contains introductory material about the language, the theoretical and methodological assumptions and the aims and organisation of the thesis. Chapter 2 describes the phonology while Chapters 3 and 4 provide information on the basic morphosyntax of Ewe. The other three parts are organised on the basis of three (macro-)functions (Halliday’s semantic metafunctions) of language: propositional, textual and interpersonal.
Part II is concerned with the grammatical coding of some cognitive domains: qualities or property concepts as coded by adjectivals (chapter 5); aspectual meanings, specifically the semantics of the ingressive and perfective aspect markers (chapter 6); and possession (chapter 7).
Part III examines the grammatical resources available to the Ewe speaker for structuring and packaging information in a clause. The constructions investigated here encode the different perspectives a speaker can assume with respect to how to present the message being conveyed or with respect to how a participant in the situation is conceptualized. Chapter 8 deals with scene-setting topic constructions. Chapter 9 describes “nyá-inverse” constructions and presents them in a typological perspective. Chapter 10 investigates the different ways of conceptualizing an ‘experiencer’ in Ewe through the different grammatical relations such an argument can assume in a clause.
Part IV is concerned with the illocutionary devices and constructions used in interpersonal communication. The description of the illocutionary devices is preceded by two chapters that serve as background for the understanding of the other chapters. Chapter 11 discusses the ethnography of speaking Ewe. Chapter 12 explores some theoretical issues in the analysis of illocutionary devices. The illocutionary devices are described in the remaining three chapters. Chapter 13 describes the modes of address in Ewe. Chapter 14 analyses various interactional speech formulae. This part – and the thesis – ends with an investigation of the significance of interjections (Chapter 15).
Research carried out in consultation with or under the supervision of one or more experienced NSM practitioners
Published on May 10, 2017. Last updated on August 16, 2021.
Ameka, Felix K. (2015). “Hard sun, hot weather, skin pain”: The cultural semantics of temperature expressions in Ewe and Likpe (West Africa). In Maria Koptjevskaja-Tamm (Ed.), The linguistics of temperature (pp. 43-72). Amsterdam: John Benjamins. DOI: 10.1515/9783110880168.35
Temperature is talked about in different ways across languages. In this paper, I explore the linguistic expressions used to talk about temperature focussing on three domains of experience in two languages in an asymmetric contact relation, Ewe and Likpe, both Kwa (Niger-Congo) languages of West Africa. Likpe speakers are bilingual in Ewe but not vice versa. The empirical question addressed is: how do speakers of Ewe and Likpe talk about the hotness and coldness of (i) things such as food and water; (ii) places and the ambience; and (iii) the personal experience of hotness and coldness in one’s body. I will argue that both languages do not have equivalents for ‘temperature’. Secondly I will show that “temperature property”, being a physical quality, is basically expressed using verbs and verb phrases (less so by nouns and ideophones) consistent with their typological profile. Moreover I argue that the range of expressions available in the two languages for talking about ‘water’ is more elaborate than the other domains of experience, some of which are linked to cultural practices such as bathing. I also investigate the construal of ‘hotness’ in Ewe and propose semantic descriptions of the predicates involved representing them in Natural Semantic Metalanguage-style explications. While some of the expressions for ‘hotness’ can be accounted for through a link to ‘fire’, as has been previously suggested, I argue that we need another prototype anchor for other expressions of ‘hotness’, namely, ‘pain’. In the ambient domain, the experience of the temperature generated by the sun itself is talked about using predicates from the domain of the physical property of texture. The conceptual motivations for such usage are also explored.
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Tags: (E) dze dzo, (E) fá, (E) gblↄ, (E) vé, (E) xↄ dzo
Published on May 12, 2017. Last updated on September 25, 2018.
Wierzbicka, Anna (2016). Back to ‘mother’ and ‘father’: Overcoming the eurocentrism of kinship studies through eight lexical universals. Current Anthropology, 57(4), 408-429. DOI: 10.1086/687360
This paper addresses one of the most controversial issues in cultural anthropology: the conceptual foundations of kinship and the apparent inevitability of ethnocentrism in kinship studies. The field of kinship studies has been in turmoil over the past few decades, repeatedly pronounced dead and then again rising from the ashes and being declared central to human affairs. As this paper argues, the conceptual confusion surrounding kinship is to a large extent due to the lack of a clear and rigorous methodology for discovering how speakers of the world’s different languages actually navigate their kinship systems.
Building on the author’s earlier work on kinship but taking the analysis much further, this paper seeks to demonstrate that such a methodology can be found in Natural Semantic Metalanguage theory (developed by the author and colleagues), which relies on 65 universal semantic primes and on a small number of universal “semantic molecules” including ‘mother’ and ‘father’. The paper offers a new model for the interpretation of kinship terminologies and opens new perspectives for the investigation of kinship systems across languages and cultures.
Comments by a number of scholars, including Felix Ameka, follow the paper.
See also:
Kotorova, Elizaveta (2018). Analysis of kinship terms using Natural Semantic Metalanguage: Anna Wierzbicka’s approach. Russian Journal of Linguistics, 22(3), 701-710.
Research carried out by one or more experienced NSM practitioners
Tags: (E) awofasi, (E) born, (E) duujinda, (E) Father, (E) kamuru, (E) kularrinda, (E) kuntili, (E) kuta, (E) malanypa, (E) mama, (E) mother, (E) ngunytju, (E) thabuju, (E) tɔ, (E) wakatha, (E) wofa, (E) wofasi, (E) yakukathu, (S) kinship, (T) English
Published on May 10, 2017. Last updated on August 31, 2018.
Ameka, Felix K. (2017). Meaning between algebra and culture: Auto-antonyms in the Ewe verb lexicon. In Hilke Reckman, Lisa L.S. Cheng, Maarten Hijzelendoorn, & Rint Sybesma (Eds.), Crossroads semantics: Computation, experiment and grammar (pp. 227-248). Amsterdam: John Benjamins. DOI: 10.1075/z.210.14ame
Are meanings about “things in the world” or “things in the mind”? Are they about algebraic calculations or about cultural conceptions? How are multiple senses of a word related? Questions like these continue to be debated by semanticists and are explored in this chapter through a detailed semantic analysis of two verbs in Ewe (Gbe), a Kwa language of West Africa. The two verbs are mie ‘germinate/dry up’ and dró ‘put load up on/down from head’. It is argued that the individual senses of each verb involve directional opposition and that, as such, the verbs are auto-antonyms. From a logical point of view, the interpretations of the verb mie may not look antonymous; however, from the perspective of cultural practices and conceptualizations, the image-schematic representations go in opposite directions. NSM-inspired semantic representations are adopted to show the contrasts in a transparent manner.
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Tags: (E) dró, (E) mie
