Employment
2024-2025 Visiting Assistant Professor & Presidential Visiting Fellow
Department of Linguistics
Yale University, New Haven CT
2021-2024 Visiting Assistant Professor
Department of Eastern, Slavic, and German Studies
Boston College, Chestnut Hill M.A
Education
Education
2014- Present Rutgers University, Ph.D. Linguistics
Dissertation Title: Cross-Categorial Definiteness/Familiarity
2012- 2014 University of Ghana, Mphil Linguistics
Thesis Title: Linguistics strategies in the expression of modality in Akan.
2007- 2011 University of Cape Coast, B.A English, and Linguistics
Thesis: Title: The Semantics of the Akan indefinite determiner "bí".
Papers
2025 On the strong-weak status of the Akan definiteness marker
Natural Language and Linguistic Theory
To appear Definitely a question: definite markers in Akan ex-situ questions
Cross-disciplinary approaches to information structure in Niger-Congo
languages
Edited by Akinlabi, Korsah, Rose, and Sulemana
Berlin: Language Science Press
To appear Habitual, Abilities, and Actuality Entailments in Akan
Invited Book Chapter. Handbook of Temporality in Language,
Edited by Cable, Ogihara,and Zagona
Under Review Clausal determiners in relative clauses mark uniqueness —experimental evidence from Akan
Glossa Special Issue on Clausal Determiners
Duah, R., Renans, A., Bombi C, & Owusu, A. P.
In Progress The distribution and meaning of the cross-categorial determiner "nó" in Akan
To be submitted to Journal of African Linguistic
2023 On unexpected exceptions to prosodic vacuity and verbal resumption in Akan
Snippets
Korsah, S., Owusu, A. & Ahenkorah, C.
2022 Definite indefinite stacking in Akan
Proceedings of TripleA 8: Fieldwork Perspectives on the Semantics of Understudied Languages of Africa, Asia, Australia, and Oceania.
ScholarBank@NUS Repository.
2022 Tense and aspect in Akan serial verb constructions
Descriptive and theoretical approaches to African linguistics: Selected papers
from the 49th Annual Conference on African Linguistics ).
Berlin: Language Science Press. DOI: 10.5281/zenodo.6358613
2019 A Closer Look at "bí": An epistemic indefinite analysis
African linguistics across the disciplines: Selected papers from the 48th Annual Conference on African Linguistics."
Edited by Lotven, Samson, Silvina Bongiovanni, Phillip Weirich, and Robert Btne.
2014 Codeswitching as a means and a message in hiplife music in Ghana.
Journal of Contemporary African Linguistics 2 (2) 1-32
Invited Talks
2024 Are clausal determiners propositional determiners?
Harvard Linguistics Colloquium
Harvard University, Cambridge, Massachusetts
2023 Are there complex predicates in Akan? Evidence from adverbial modification
ALS-LSA Workshop: Complex/clustered predicates and argument structure in
African languages
Linguistic Society of America Summer Institute
University Of Massachusetts-Amherst
Presented with Comfort Ahenkorah (Yale University)
2021 Definite indefinite stacking in Akan.
Triple A Semantics Conference.
National University of Singapore
2020 Definite Propositions and Clausal Determiners
Colloquium talk.
Boston University, Boston Massachusetts
2017 Actuality Entailment in Akan.
New York University
Linguistics Department
Conference Presentations
Conference Presentations
Conference Presentations
2024 Definite wh-questions in Akan
Annual Conference of African Linguistics (ACAL) 55
McGill University, Montreal, Canada
2019 Bare Nouns in Akan Revisited.
Semantics of African, Asian and Austronesian Languages (Triple A6)
Massachusetts Institute of Technology, USA.
Determiners outside the nominal domain.
Annual Conference of African Linguistics (ACAL 50).
The University of British Columbia, Vancouver
2018 Actuality Entailment in Akan and Lubukusu
Annual Conference of African Linguistics (ACAL 49 )
Michigan State University (with Ken Safir)
Tense and Aspect in Akan Coordinate Constructions
Annual Conference of African Linguistics (ACAL 49)
Michigan State University
2017 Actuality Entailment in Akan
Semantics of African, Asian and Austronesian Languages (TripleA 4)
Gothenburg, Sweden
Another look at bi: an Epistemic Indefinite Analysis
Annual Conference of African Linguistics (ACAL 48)
Indiana University
The Typology of NC sequences in Central Tano.
Annual Conference of African Linguistics (ACAL 48)
Indiana University
2016 Actuality Entailment in Akan (Poster)
Mid-Atlantic Colloquium of Studies in Meaning (MACSIM 6)
Hunter College, CUNY.
2015 Modal Concord in Akan
8th World Congress of African Linguistics
Kyoto University, Japan.
2013 A comparative study of Reflexivisation in Akan and Ewe.
Linguistics Association Conference (LAG)
University of Cape Coast.
Manuscripts
2017 Tense and Aspect in Akan Multi-verbal Clauses. Qualifying Paper, Rutgers University
2016 Actuality Entailment in Akan. Qualifying Paper. Rutgers University