Do Akans eat almost everything? Clarifying the word sense multiplicity of the Akan verb “di”
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Abstract
This paper has explored the multiple meanings of the Akan verb di. It has emphasized the homonyms and their polysemes as well as the extended meanings that have emerged from each basic sense. The morphological structure and syntactic properties of the various senses has also been considered in order to bring out how grammatical structure affects the realization of meaning. Data was collected from both primary and secondary sources. Primarily, speeches, conversations and songs were recorded and transcribed to solicit occurrences and usages of the verb. Secondary data was collected from novels, bibles, dictionaries, lexicons and grammars that are written in Akan. Published dates of these books were between 1969 and 2004 so that there could be a diachronic comparison of the usage of the verb over the years. Through descriptive analysis, this paper has established that the verb di in Akan does not always denote “to eat” or “to have sex”. Other denotations such as “to converse”, “to be in a situation”, “to perform and activity”, “to work” and many more are identified and dichotomized by their distinct syntactic structures and morphological orientations. Their synonyms have also been brought to light to support the distinctiveness of each sense of the verb.
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