Animacy distinction in Kaakye

Abstract

The paper investigates the nature of animacy distinction in Kaakye (Kwa, Niger-Congo). It describes the various grammatical manifestations of the animacy concepts in Kaakye. Based on the data presented, it is observed that animacy is a crucial determinant in the choice of forms and behaviours of nominal prefixs, pronouns, nominal modifiers, and concord subject marking. It concludes that Kaakye is sensitive to the notion of animacy-based distinction and that, like some other Kwa languages, Kaakye shows a high preference for animate versus inanimate distinction to human verses non-human distinction. However, unlike other regional languages, topicality and verb transitivity do not have significant impact on animacy distinctions in object position in Kaakye. Thus, unlike Akan and Nkami, for instance, that sometimes compromise animacy distinctionin object position, Kaakye always upholds it. The description provided in the paper aims to contribute to the cross-linguistic study of the role of animacy in the grammar of languages.