Dr. Obadele Kambon 2013 UG-Legon Vice Chancellor's Award for Outstanding Thesis - Humanities

Comments from the external examiner:
The main findings of the research point to the fact that (a) An overwhelming majority (98%) of Full Lexicalized-Integrated SVCs have nominal counterparts; 2% do not; (b) Only 3% of Partial Lexicalized-Integrated SVCs have nominal counterparts; 97% do not; (c) Clause Chaining Serial Constructions appear to nominalize haphazardly and/or unsystematically as frozen sentences or figures of speech (idioms, proverbs, etc.; (d) The primary function of such forms, he identified, were what Charles Morris (1971) calls denotata and designata; Full Lexicalized-Integrated SVCs behave as lexicalized idioms and because of this, four criteria of idiomaticity namely -- collocability, familiarity, flexibility and compositionality -- are applied to them; and (g) There is systematicity in the pattern of nominalization behavior of serial verb nominals across the main Akan dialects.
This work recapitulates and substantially extends work already done on Akan SVCs by Osam (1994), Agyeman (2002) and others. A major contribution of the dissertation is the detailed discussion and exemplification of issues relating to nominalization of SVCs. This is the first attempt at such a detailed discussion and exemplification and the candidate deserves commendation. His categorizations are original as is his attention to scholarly detail and to showing the relationship between and among the three major Akan dialects. One could conveniently argue that this is one of the strongest points of the dissertation.
Very little has been done on Akan nominalization in general and little to nothing on SVC nominalization in particular, so this study is a trailblazer or a path-finder! Syntacticians and semanticists will cite this work and continue with the discussion and issues it raises for the next couple of decades. I am impressed with the details and both the candidate and his advisors must be commended for the high degree of systematicity employed in the synthesis and analyses done in the study.
The candidate drew his conclusions based on the actual data collected and on the results (synthesis and analysis of the data) thereby making the analytical claims have functional validity and protecting them from standing insulated from public scrutiny. This is, again, commendable.
The recommendations for future research, especially, his call for comparing SVNs with other types of nominalizations, is in the right direction more especially due to the scantiness and dearth of knowledge about nominalizations in general about Akan and other West African languages in particular.
The dissertation is very well written and I am willing to pass it without any reservation whatsoever. The content is excellent as is its rendition.

Comments from the internal examiner:

The study does a good job of relating the data and findings to broader theoretical debates in the Functional/cognitive linguistic literature. For example, study results suggest that, at least in the Akan data examined, higher degrees of semantic integration in complex forms correlate with lower degrees of iconicity. Further, the subtype categories of serial verb constructions identified by Osam (1994) are "fuzzy" categories in terms of ability to undergo nominalization. This supports the prototype approach to categorization, rather than a classical "sharp-boundary" approach to categorization.
Though the author does not particularly draw it out rhetorically, the study sits squarely within the linguistic sub-field of Lexicography: the study is a detailed investigation of speakers' lexical knowledge of nouns formed (either historically or productively possibly in the moment of speaking) from serial verb constructions. In my view, the lexicographic work, bringing out native-speaker knowledge about the complex forms including in some cases how this may have changed across time and may vary by dialect, may be one of the most enduring contributions of the study. Many of the item-by-item findings could, for example, largely be incorporated into an etymological dictionary of Akan.
The study contributes new information to understanding the cross-linguistic and Akan-internal typology of nominalizations of serial verb constructions. The minute detail on dialect variation is valuable for sociolinguistic variationist studies.

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Afrikan Development Studies 2012 12 19 LECTURE 9 [PART 1]

TOPIC:

PROBLEM-SOLVING AS DEVELOPMENT SPECIALISTS


I. National Ethics, Governance and Development
• Nation-building and its challenges:
Integration of National and Ethnic Identity-
Afrikan Cultural Commonalities
• Violent Conflicts within States and their implication to Development
• Western Domination: Machinations, Interference
• Cultural Basis of Leadership Ethics, Corruption and Counteractive measures--
Solution: Traditional Afrikan Ethos



Readings:

The Wretched of the Earth [Frantz Fanon]
Chapter 1 -- Concerning Violence
Chapter 2 -- Spontaneity: Its Strengths and Weaknesses
Chapter 3 -- The Pitfalls of National Consciousness
Chapter 4 -- On National Culture


How Europe Underdeveloped Africa [Walter Rodney]

Maldevelopment [Samir Amin]

Black Power: A Moral and Political Imperative [Dr. Amos N. Wilson]

Why are they so poor? [Rudolf Staham]

Decolonising the Mind: The Politics of Language in African Literature [Ngugi Wa Thiongo]

The Healing Wisdom of Africa: Finding Life Purpose Through Nature, Ritual, and Community. [Malidoma Patrice Somé]


Dr. Ambakisye-Okang Olatunde Dukuzumurenyi

Lecturer, Faculty of Business and Economics
Associate Director, Research & Publication
Editor-in-Chief/Managing Editor East Afrikan Journal of Research
Tumaini University Iringa University College
Tanzania, East Afrika



Dr. Ambakisye-Okang Olatunde Dukuzumurenyi a citizen of the United States of America and expatriate resident of the United Republic of Tanzania. Dr. Dukuzumurenyi is a graduate of Grambling State University, Grambling, LA with a Bachelors of Arts in History and Masters of Public Administration in Public Administration with emphasis in Health Service Administration and of Southern University A & M College with an earned Doctorate of Philosophy in Public Policy Analysis from the Nelson Mandela School of Public Policy and Urban Affairs. Dr. Dukuzumurenyi is an Afrikan-centered educator, public policy analyst, public administration scholar, political scientist, and public lecturer on Afrikan education, history, economics, politics and spirituality emphasizing systems design and strategic planning in the development of Afrikan political, military, social and economic agency. He has served the Afrikan community as an Afrikan American Studies, Geography and Economics teacher in the East Baton Rouge Parish School System of the United States for nine years, as an Adjunct Professor of Political Science at Southern University A & M College in Baton Rouge, Louisiana for one year and as Associate Director of Research and Publication, Editor of the Journal of East Afrikan Research and Lecturer on the Faculties of Education, Cultural Anthropology and Tourism, Business and Development Studies at the University of Iringa in the United Republic of Tanzania, East Afrika for two years. The guiding influences for Dr. Dukuzumurenyi have been the works of Dr. Amos N. Wilson, Dr. Asa Hilliard, Dr. John Henrik Clarke, Dr. Yosef Ben-Jochanan, Dr. Marimba Ani, Mwalimu Julius Nyerere, Osagyefo Kwame Nkrumah, Minister Malcolm X, Stephen Biko, Shaka Zulu, Mangaliso Sobukwe & Ptahhotep to name only a select few.

Awakening the natural genius of Black childrenBy Nana Amos Wilson.

This Participatory Video, produced by the people of Lamin, Makumbaya, and Mandinari, in the West Coast Region of The Gambia looks into the contentious issue of land grabbing. It captures the ordeal of land owners from three communities, regarding the forceful seize and sale of their lands by one Lamin Jarju, a resident of Babylon who has claimed ownership of and chieftaincy over the said farmlands.

Babylon, the area of land in question has been historically a large farmland utilized by the people of Lamin, Makumbaya, and Mandinari for their farming activities. Most of them rely on these farms to earn a living. It is not a recognized settlement legally speaking, thus has no chief. Albeit this reality, there is this tussle of ownership of these lands, leaving many people dissatisfied and frustrated.

Numerous attempts have been made to solicit support from various government institutions for them to intervene to find a lasting solution to this issue but nothing was achieved.The video essentially captures numerous stories of struggle for sustenance and justice.Facilitated by Gambia Participates, with support from the ATJLF.

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Agya Kwadwo Datɛ joined thr Black Awakening Movement to present Abibitumi.com and its systems.

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