Motion Verbs in Anum (Gwa)

Abstract

In this paper I examine motion verbs in Anum (Gwa), a Niger-Congo (Kwa, Guan) language spoken in Ghana. I specifically consider seven types of motion verbs, namely run, arrive, take, follow, carry, throw, and drop. The different sub-types of each of these seven motion verbs are also discussed in the paper. I show that these verbs in Anum largely fall within Dixon's (1992) classification of verbs. I, however, propose different terms for Talmy (1975) concepts as follows ‘Subject' for ‘Figure', ‘Place' for ‘Ground', and ‘Way' for ‘Path' to fit the Anum data. Talmy's concept of ‘Motion' is, however, maintained for same in Anum.