Faculty and Staff
James Essegbey
Associate Professor of Akan
PhD, Leiden University
- 342 Pugh Hall
- essegbey@ufl.edu
- 352.846.2431
- Homepage
Office Hours- Spring 2013
- Monday & Wednesday: 1:55-2:45pm
- or by Appointment
Areas of Interest
I am interested in descriptive, documentary and theoretical linguistics, especially in the domain of syntax, semantics and pragmatics; contact linguistics; language and culture; Kwa languages of West Africa, especially Gbe (i.e. Ewe, Gen, Aja and Fon), Akan, and Ghana-Togo Mountain languages; and creole studies. Lately, I have been working on the influence of the Gbe languages on Suriname creoles and, more recently, the description and documentation of Nyangbo, one of the Ghana-Togo Mountain languages.
Selected Publications
- Essegbey, J. (2007): “Cut” and “break” verbs in Sranan. Cognitive Linguistics 18: 2, 231-239
- Huttar, G., Essegbey, J. and Ameka, F. (2007): Gbe and other West African sources of Suriname creole semantic structures: implications for creole genesis. Journal of Pidgin and Creole Languages 22:1, 57-72.
- Essegbey, J. (2007): Intransitive verbs in Ewe and the unaccusativity hypothesis. In M. Bowerman and P. Brown (eds). Cross-linguistic perspectives on argument structure. New Jersey: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, Inc. 213-230
- Essegbey, J. (2005): The basic locative construction in Gbe and Suriname creoles. Journal of Pidgin and Creole Languages 22:2, 229-267.
- Essegbey, J. (2004): “Demystifying inherent complement verbs in Ewe.” In A. Zribi-Hetz and P. Souzet (eds). Typologie des langues d'Afrique et universaux de la grammaire. Paris: L'Harmattan, 97-126.
- Essegbey, J. (2004): Auxiliaries in serialising languages: on COME and GO verbs in Sranan and Ewe. Lingua 114, 473-494
- Kita, S. and Essegbey, J. (2001): Pointing left in Ghana: how a taboo on the use of the left hand influences gestural practices. Gesture 1 (1), 73-95
Courses Taught
- AKA 1130 Beginning Akan 1
- AKA 1131 Beginning Akan 2
- AKA 2200 Intermediate Akan 1
- AKA 2201 Intermediate Akan 2
- SST 2501 African Elements in the Americas
- SSA 4903 Africanisms in the Americas
- SSA 4930 Black Englishes
Spring 2008 Syllabi
- AKA 1131 (section 0005) Beginning Akan 2
- SST 2501 (section 2099) or LIT 4930 (section 7003) African Elements in the Americas
