ABSTRACT
This chapter examines the properties of demonstratives in Gur Dagbani, a Southwestern Oti-Volta language of the Central Gur family spoken mainly in Northern Ghana. The work focuses on the morphological properties, internal structure, distributional properties, semantics and pragmatics of the Dagbani demonstratives, an area of the language that has remained largely uninvestigated. The chapter discusses the form and function of Dagbani demonstratives in the light of the characterization of Diessel since his categorization best describes the grouping of this class of words in Dagbani. It provides some basic grammatical features of Dagbani as this relevant to understanding the later discussion on the syntax of demonstratives. The chapter also discusses the different types of demonstratives in Dagbani and their linguistic features including: morphological, syntactic, and semantic/pragmatic features couched within the theoretical tenets of generative grammar. It aims to contribute to the theoretical literature on generative grammar in the study of demonstratives.
