5. Aspects of Etulo Syntax

This chapter examines key aspects of Etulo syntax: negation, interrogatives, coordination, subordination, copular constructions, and word order. It details how negation is expressed in different clause types (declarative, imperative, polar questions), including the negative particles, and their phonological effects. It discusses the two main interrogative types: yes/no (polar) and content (wh-questions), and the phonological and lexical means used to mark them. The treatment of coordination includes overt vs covert coordination, with a taxonomy of coordinators (conjunction, disjunction, adversative). Typologically, Etulo is shown to belong to what Stassen (2000) calls “with-languages”, that is, languages in which the marker used for noun phrase conjunction is the same as that used for comitative (‘with’) phrases. This alignment with Stassen’s typology helps situate Etulo among those languages in West Africa whose coordination/comitative marking does not draw a morphological distinction between “and” vs “with.”

Subordinate clauses (complement, relative, adverbial) are described, along with their respective subordinators and structural properties. The chapter also analyzes copulas (lì, le, dzɛ̀) and their different functions, contexts, and complements. Finally, the chapter shows that Etulo exhibits a robust constituent order (SVO) in basic and more complex constructions, and compares Etulo word order patterns with cross-linguistic generalizations.