1. Family: Niger-Congo
  2. Genus: Kwa

Akan

WALS coordinates: 6° 30′ N, 1° 15′ W

spoken in Ghana

Alternative Names

Ethnologue:
Ruhlen:
  • Akan
Routledge:
    Other:
    • Fante,
    • Asante,
    • Fante, Twi,
    • Fanti,
    • Twi,
    • Fante Akan
    ISO 639-3:

    Features

    Feature Value References
    Phonology
    Consonant Inventories Small
    Vowel Quality Inventories Large (7-14)
    Consonant-Vowel Ratio Moderately low
    Voicing in Plosives and Fricatives In plosives alone
    Voicing and Gaps in Plosive Systems None missing in /p t k b d g/
    Uvular Consonants None
    Glottalized Consonants No glottalized consonants
    Lateral Consonants No laterals
    Front Rounded Vowels None
    Syllable Structure Moderately complex
    Tone Simple tone system
    Absence of Common Consonants All present
    Presence of Uncommon Consonants None
    Morphology
    Prefixing vs. Suffixing in Inflectional Morphology Strong prefixing
    Reduplication Productive full and partial reduplication
    Nominal Categories
    Coding of Nominal Plurality Mixed morphological plural
    The Associative Plural Associative same as additive plural
    Definite Articles Demonstrative word used as definite article
    Position of Case Affixes No case affixes or adpositional clitics
    Distributive Numerals Marked by reduplication
    Position of Pronominal Possessive Affixes Possessive prefixes
    Nominal Syntax
    Noun Phrase Conjunction 'And' identical to 'with'
    Verbal Categories
    Perfective/Imperfective Aspect Grammatical marking
    The Past Tense No past tense
    The Future Tense Inflectional future exists
    The Perfect Other perfect
    Position of Tense-Aspect Affixes Tense-aspect prefixes
    The Morphological Imperative Second singular
    The Prohibitive Normal imperative + normal negative
    Situational Possibility Verbal constructions
    Epistemic Possibility Other
    Overlap between Situational and Epistemic Modal Marking No overlap
    Word Order
    Order of Subject, Object and Verb SVO
    Order of Subject and Verb SV
    Order of Object and Verb VO
    Order of Adposition and Noun Phrase No dominant order
    Order of Genitive and Noun Genitive-Noun
    Order of Adjective and Noun Noun-Adjective
    Order of Demonstrative and Noun Noun-Demonstrative
    Order of Numeral and Noun Noun-Numeral
    Order of Degree Word and Adjective Adjective-Degree word
    Position of Polar Question Particles In either of two positions
    Position of Interrogative Phrases in Content Questions Not initial interrogative phrase
    Order of Adverbial Subordinator and Clause Mixed
    Relationship between the Order of Object and Verb and the Order of Adposition and Noun Phrase Other
    Relationship between the Order of Object and Verb and the Order of Adjective and Noun VO and NAdj
    Simple Clauses
    Ditransitive Constructions: The Verb 'Give' Double-object construction
    Negative Morphemes Negative affix
    Polar Questions Question particle
    Predicative Possession Topic
    Predicative Adjectives Mixed
    Nominal and Locational Predication Different
    Zero Copula for Predicate Nominals Impossible
    Complex Sentences
    Purpose Clauses Balanced/deranked
    'When' Clauses Balanced/deranked
    Reason Clauses Balanced/deranked
    Utterance Complement Clauses Balanced