spoken in Ghana, Togo and Benin
Benin variants are by some considered as a different language
one of two national languages in Togo
population total all countries: 3,112,400
language of wider communication
500,000 second-language speakers
vigorous; all domains
Typological Information
highly isolating language
tone language
no gender
serial verbs
monosyllabic morphemes
equal prefixing and suffixing
SVO
Reduplication Form-Function
word class derivation: adjectives, nouns, adverbs
word class derivation: adjectives (phonological reduction)
ideophones
lexicalized forms
Relationship Form-Function
various forms - various functions
Reduplication System
productive full reduplication
monosyllabic morphemes are more likely to become (fully) reduplicated than polysyllabic ones
Productivity
productive full reduplication
lexicalized forms
all ideophones are reduplicated forms
Repetitive Operations
ŋútɔ́ "much" ŋútɔ́-ŋútɔ́ "very much" ŋútɔ́-ŋútɔ́-ŋútɔ́ "very, very much"
Comments
The insertion of the Ewe data has highly profited from personal communication with Ulrike Claudi (University of Cologne).