Quasi-names in Akan: A further piece of the definiteness puzzle

Abstract

This paper provides an analysis of definite bare nouns in Akan as quasi-names – nouns which, like Mum in English, can be used as names but are associated with descriptive content (Yip et al., 2023). The paper also provides further evidence that the Akan definite no is used in typical uniqueness contexts. Taken together, the data are consistent with an analysis of no as a uniqueness definite, whose reduced distribution can be explained by competition with the bare noun, analysed as a quasi-name (Bombi, 2018; Bombi et al., 2019).