Hello, I'm
COMFORT AHENKORAH
I am a PhD candidate in the Department of Linguistics at Yale University. Before joining Yale, I obtained my Bachelor's in Linguistics from the University of Cape Coast, Ghana, and my research languages are mainly Akan and English.
About Me
My primary research interest centers on the interface of morpho-syntax and semantics, and this has been a consistent focus since my undergraduate studies at the University of Cape Coast. During this time, I concentrated on the morphology of number marking in Akan, analyzing it from both a competition and a non-competition perspective within the distributed morphology framework. As my academic journey has progressed, so has my research. I have recently expanded my focus to explore number marking from an interface perspective, particularly the morpho-syntax and semantics interface. This is particularly relevant for languages such as Akan, which employ multiple plurality strategies to encode number.
Aside from number marking, I have also been interested in questions and discourse particles. I am particularly interested in the syntactic positions of various particles and their implications for semantics.
I am also deeply intrigued by the field of sentence processing and comprehension. In particular, I have been studying the processing of aspectual verb sentences in Akan, which are often ambiguous between locative and aspectual interpretations. The findings of a real-time comprehension study have revealed a significant discovery that aspectual verbs are processed similarly to English despite their ambiguity in Akan. This study not only contributes to our understanding of how languages are processed and comprehended but also serves as a powerful tool for unveiling the universal principles that underlie language and its interpretation. It reinforces that our ability to process sentences is firmly rooted in a shared grammatical foundation.
Research
My dissertation (ongoing) examines how number is marked and interpreted in Akan, a Kwa language spoken mainly in Ghana and Côte d’Ivoire. Akan’s rich and sometimes puzzling number system makes it an ideal testing ground for exploring the interaction of morphology, syntax, and semantics.
Using Distributed Morphology and a model-theoretic semantics framework, I show that number is distributed across multiple syntactic positions in both the nominal and verbal domains, with each position contributing a distinct semantic interpretation. In the verbal domain, this layered structure captures contrasts between reduplicated forms that encode event plurality (internal vs. external) and non-reduplicated forms that encode single events.
In the nominal domain, the same structural logic explains multiple number-marking patterns and their interpretations.
Overall, the dissertation demonstrates that these layered structures are independently motivated by morphosyntax and compositional semantics, providing a unified account of number across domains and offering new empirical and theoretical insights for typology and semantics, while contributing more broadly to our understanding of universal grammar.
Presentations
Talks:
2025. Title: Exclusive focus in Akan and type flexibility.
TripleA12 workshop, Date: 10th-12th September,2025 (University of Tokyo )[with Ka-Fai Yip]
2025. Title: The semantics of Ewe number marking
31st annual University of Edinburgh Linguistics and English Language Postgraduate Conference,
4th June –Friday 6th June 2025 (Edinburgh, UK)
2025. Title: The semantics of Ewe number marking
56th Annual Conference on African Linguistics (ACAL), 15th -17th May 2025 (University of Minnesota)
2024. Title: Navigating number marking in Akan nominals and predicates.
Gaps and Imprecision in Natural Languages Semantics workshop, 8th-9th October,2024 (ZAS-Berlin)
2024. Title: The Split number analysis for Akan plural morphology
55th Annual Conference on African Linguistics (ACAL), 2nd-4th May 2024 (Montreal-Canada)
2024. Title: Two types of subject resumption in Akan
55th Annual Conference on African Linguistics (ACAL), 2nd-4th May 2024 (Montreal-Canada) [with Ka-Fai Yip]
2023. Title: The syntax-semantics analysis of Akan plural morphology
45th Annual conference of the German Linguistic Society (Deutsche Gesellschaft für Sprachwissenschaft, DGfS) 7th-10th March 2023 (Cologne-Germany)
2022. Title: Non-agreeing resumptive pronouns and partial copy deletion
University of Connecticut Linglunch, April 26,2022 [with Ka-Fai Yip]
2022. Title: We want to know, must you answer this question?
The Southern New England Workshop in Semantics (SNEWS) 2022 November 12, 2022 (Yale University) [with Yuyang Liu]
2022. Title: On the particle(s) of anaa in Akan
The African Linguistics School workshop 2022 , July 28-30, 2022 at Porto Novo, Benin
2021. Title: Non-agreeing resumptive pronouns and partial copy deletion
SYNC 2021, CUNY Graduate Center (Virtual), December 4th 2021 [with Ka-Fai Yip]
2021. Title: A reply to Kandybowicz or a new yɛ in Akan
Structural Asymmetries in African languages(SAIAL) 2021 conference (Virtual) 15-16th April,2021 [with Sampson Korsah]
2020. Title: Say tweaa(not apuutɔɔ): a linguist contribution to the COVID-19 fight
Faculty of Arts Public Lecture, University of Cape Coast. 25th August, 2020 [with Sampson Korsah]
2020. Title: A reply to Kandybowicz or a new yɛ in Akan
Ghanaian Languages and Linguistics Departmental Seminar, University of Cape Coast . 2nd March 2020 [with Sampson Korsah]
Publications
2025 The descriptive and syntactic properties of the ànáá parti-cle(s).
In Akinbiyi Akinlabi, Sampson Korsah, Sharon Rose & Abdul-Razak Sulemana (eds.), Cross-disciplinary approaches to Information Structure in Niger-Congo languages, 155-179. Berlin: Language Science Press. DOI:10.5281/zenodo.16875462
2023. On unexpected exceptions to prosodic vacuity and verbal resumption in Akan
Snippets, March, 2023 doi: http://dx.doi.org/10.7358/snip-2023-044-kooa [with Sampson Korsah and Augustina Owusu]
2022. Natural semantic metalanguage of Akan. Journal of West African Languages. 2022, Vol. 49 Issue 1, p46-66 [with Rachel Thompson and Wendy Amoako Kwakye]
2022 Non-agreeing resumptive pronouns and partial Copy Deletion. UPenn Working Papers in Linguistics 29.1, 206–215. [with Ka Fai Yip]
Under-review Multiple Pluralization Strategies in Akan: A Split Number Approach. Linguistics Inquiry
In prep From morphosyntax of number to a compositional
semantics: The case of Akan (to be submitted to NLLT)
In prep The split pluractionality analysis: The case of verbal reduplication in Akan. (to be submitted to NLLT)
In prep Subject Resumption in Akan and vP phasehood [with Ka Fai Yip]
In prep The Structure and dynamic implementation of Aspectual verbs in Akan
Upcoming:
African Linguistics School 8 (University of Dar es Salaam, Tanzania)
Course
Semantics [Summer 2026]
Address
Comfort Ahenkorah Yale University Department of Linguistics PO Box 208366 New Haven CT, 06520
comfort.ahenkorah@yale.edu
