in Dagbani consists of a preverbal particle encoding tense, aspect and mood, the main verb, and a postverbal particle which marks focus. Preverbal Particles Major Particles Main Verb Each verb in Dagbani has two forms, a perfective and an imperfective form with very few exceptions. In general, the perfective form is the unmarked form, whereas the imperfective form corresponds to the progressive form, or in other words it refers to an action, which is still in progress. The perfective is nearly syncretic with the infinitive, which in turn has an /n-/-prefix. The imperfective is formed by the suffix /-di/. The inflectional system in Dagbani is relatively poor as compared to other languages. There is no grammatical agreement, since number and person are not marked. Tense is marked only under certain constraints. Basically, Dagbani makes a distinction between future and non-future, however the main distinction does not concern Tense, but Aspect and occurs between perfective and imperfective. Postverbal Particles The postverbal particle la marks presentational focus, rather than contrastive focus. In comparison to the postverbal particle in Dagaare, the function of this Dagbani particle is also not yet fully investigated. There are native speakers, who consider the particle to indicate that what is expressed to the hearer is not shared knowledge. Issah (2013) on the other hand argues that the presence of la asserts new information, while its absence indicates old information. Conjoint / Disjoint Markers Questions In Dagbani, the question word can either appear in situ or ex situ. Ex situ The basic word order in Dagbani questions is SVO, such that the question word is fronted and followed by the focus marker ka. This is the unmarked form and accepted by many native speakers as "natural". In situ Yes-/No-question in Dagbani are formed by the disjunction bee ('or'), which either conjoints two propositions or which occurs sentence-finally to indicate that the sentence with SVO order is actually a question. In addition to Yes-/No-questions, the question word can also occur in sentence-final position. This might correspond to echo questions. Dagbani language scholars Fusheini Hudu Knut Olawsky Roger Blench Tony Naden Samuel Alhassan Issah References External links Knut Olawsky's Homepage The UCLA Phonetics Lab Archive – Dagbani Dagbani kasahorow online dictionary Dagbane dictionary (PDF) The VP-periphery in Mabia languages Oti–Volta languages Languages of Ghana