Akan Verbs of Perception: Hu & Hwԑ

This paper examines verbs of perception (VPs), focusing on visual perception in Akan from a cognitive linguistics perspective. It also explores the various usages of VPs in the language. Vision is one of the sensory-perception signals in animate objects. It regulates the activities of sight and shapes how physical perceptions are mapped onto abstract and metaphorical experiences. This study uses data from multiple approaches such as semistructured interviews and observations from natural discourses. A significant conclusion is that the meaning of hwέ ‘look’ and hú ‘see’, the main VPs in Akan, overlap in usage depending on the argument they select and the context in which they occur. The study further reveals that hwέ and hú select [+animate; +/-human] as the percipient that controls sight, but the target could be both animate and inanimate entities. In the basic clause structure of the VPs, there is always an experiencer and a stimulus forming simple transitive constructions. Also, these two visual verbs can exhibit other extended meanings which sometimes connect directly to metaphors. These extended meanings are described as secondary elements to the core meanings of the visual verbs in Akan.