A Grammar of Giziga

A Grammar of Giziga PDF Author: Erin Shay
Publisher: BRILL
ISBN: 9004445978
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 399

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Book Description
This is the first broad, detailed grammar of the Giziga language, which belongs to the Chadic branch of the Afro-Asiatic language family and is spoken in parts of the Far North Region of the Republic of Cameroon.

A Grammar of Giziga

A Grammar of Giziga PDF Author: Erin Shay
Publisher: BRILL
ISBN: 9004445978
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 399

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Book Description
This is the first broad, detailed grammar of the Giziga language, which belongs to the Chadic branch of the Afro-Asiatic language family and is spoken in parts of the Far North Region of the Republic of Cameroon.

A Grammar of Pévé

A Grammar of Pévé PDF Author: Erin Shay
Publisher: BRILL
ISBN: 9004410058
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 384

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Book Description
A Grammar of Pévé describes and examines a wide range of linguistic forms and functions found in Pévé, a Chadic language spoken in parts of the Republic of Chad and the Republic of Cameroon.

A Grammar of Wandala

A Grammar of Wandala PDF Author: Zygmunt Frajzyngier
Publisher: Walter de Gruyter
ISBN: 3110218410
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 736

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Book Description
Wandala is a hitherto undescribed Central Chadic language spoken in Northern Cameroon and Northeastern Nigeria. The Grammar of Wandala describes, in a non-aprioristic approach, phonology, morphology, syntax, and all functional domains grammaticalized in the language. The grammatical structure of Wandala is quite different from the structure of other Chadic languages described thus far in both the formal means and the functions that have been grammaticalized. The grammar provides proofs for the postulated hypotheses concerning forms and functions. The grammar is written in a style accessible to linguists working within different theoretical frameworks. The phonology is characterized by a rich consonantal system, a three vowel system, and a two tone system. The language has abundant vowel insertion rules and a vowel harmony system. Vowel deletion marks phrase-internal position, and vowel-insertion marks phrase-final position. The two rules allow the parsing of the clause into constituents. The language has three types of reduplication of verbs, two of which code aspectual and modal distinctions. The negative paradigms of verbs differ from affirmative paradigms in the coding of subject. The pronominal affixes and extensive system of verbal extensions code the grammatical and semantic relations within the clause. Wandala has unusual clausal structure, in that in a pragmatically neutral verbal clause, there is only one nominal argument, either the subject or the object. These arguments can follow a variety of constituents. The grammatical role of that argument is coded by inflectional markers on the verb and most interestingly, on whatever lexical or grammatical morpheme precedes the constituent. The markers of grammatical relations added to verbs are different for different classes of verbs.

A Grammar of Lopit

A Grammar of Lopit PDF Author: Jonathan Moodie
Publisher: BRILL
ISBN: 9004430679
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 505

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Book Description
In A Grammar of Lopit, Jonathan Moodie and Rosey Billington provide a detailed description of the phonology, morphology, and syntax of Lopit, an Eastern Nilotic language traditionally spoken in the Lopit Mountains in South Sudan.

A Grammar of Makary Kotoko

A Grammar of Makary Kotoko PDF Author: Sean Allison
Publisher: BRILL
ISBN: 9004422676
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 520

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Book Description
In A Grammar of Makary Kotoko, Sean Allison provides a thorough description of Makary Kotoko - a Chadic language of Cameroon, framing the discussion within R.M.W. Dixon’s functional/typological approach known as Basic Linguistic Theory.

A Grammar of Mursi

A Grammar of Mursi PDF Author: Firew Girma Worku
Publisher: BRILL
ISBN: 9004449914
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 684

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Book Description
This volume contains 14 descriptive chapters and a collection of 4 transcribed texts in Mursi, a highly endangered language spoken in the Lower Omo Valley in Ethiopia.

Tutrugbu (Nyangbo) Language and Culture

Tutrugbu (Nyangbo) Language and Culture PDF Author: James Essegbey
Publisher: BRILL
ISBN: 9004396993
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 396

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Book Description
A comprehensive description of Tutrugbu (Nyangbo), a Ghana-Togo Mountain (GTM) language. It examines phonological, morphosyntactic and pragmatic structures, comparing them to the neighboring Tafi and Avatime, and the dominant regional language, Ewe. It is for African language scholars, documentary linguists, and typologists.

The Negative Existential Cycle

The Negative Existential Cycle PDF Author: Ljuba Veselinova
Publisher: Language Science Press
ISBN: 3961103399
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 670

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Book Description
In 1991, William Croft suggested that negative existentials (typically lexical expressions that mean ‘not exist, not have’) are one possible source for negation markers and gave his hypothesis the name Negative Existential Cycle (NEC). It is a variationist model based on cross-linguistic data. For a good twenty years following its formulation, it was cited at face-value without ever having been tested by (historical)-comparative data. Over the last decade, Ljuba Veselinova has worked on testing the model in a comparative perspective, and this edited volume further expands on her work. The collection presented here features detailed studies of several language families such as Bantu, Chadic and Indo-European. A number of articles focus on the micro-variation and attested historical developments within smaller groups and clusters such as Arabic, Mandarin and Cantonese, and Nanaic. Finally, variation and historical developments in specific languages are discussed for Ancient Hebrew, Ancient Egyptian, Moksha-Mordvin (Uralic), Bashkir (Turkic), Kalmyk (Mongolic), three Pama-Nyungan languages, O’dam (Southern Uto-Aztecan) and Tacana (Takanan, Amazonian Bolivia). The book is concluded by two chapters devoted to modeling cyclical processes in language change from different theoretical perspectives. Key notions discussed throughout the book include affirmative and negative existential constructions, the expansion of the latter into verbal negation, and subsequently from more specific to more general markers of negation. Nominalizations as well as the uses of negative existentials as standalone negative answers figure among the most frequent pathways whereby negative existentials evolve as general negation markers. The operation of the Negative Existential Cycle appears partly genealogically conditioned, as the cycle is found to iterate regularly within some families but never starts in others, as is the case in Bantu. In addition, other special negation markers such as nominal negators are found to undergo similar processes, i.e. they expand into the verbal domain and thereby develop into more general negation markers. The book provides rich information on a specific path of the evolution of negation, on cyclical processes in language change, and it show-cases the historical-comparative method in a modern setting.

A grammar of Moloko

A grammar of Moloko PDF Author: Dianne Friesen
Publisher: Language Science Press
ISBN: 3946234631
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 474

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Book Description
This grammar provides the first comprehensive grammatical description of Moloko, a Chadic language spoken by about 10,000 speakers in northern Cameroon. The grammar was developed from hours and years that the authors spent at friends’ houses hearing and recording stories, hours spent listening to the tapes and transcribing the stories, then translating them and studying the language through them. Time was spent together and with others speaking the language and talking about it, translating resources and talking to Moloko people about them. Grammar and phonology discoveries were made in the office, in the fields while working, and at gatherings. In the process, the four authors have become more and more passionate about the Moloko language and are eager to share their knowledge about it with others. Intriguing phonological aspects of Moloko include the fact that words have a consonantal skeleton and only one underlying vowel (but with ten phonetic variants). The simplicity of the vowel system contrasts with the complexity of the verb word, which can include information (in addition to the verbal idea) about subject, direct object (semantic Theme), indirect object (recipient or beneficiary), direction, location, aspect (Imperfective and Perfective), mood (indicative, irrealis, iterative), and Perfect aspect. Some of the fascinating aspects about the grammar of Moloko include transitivity issues, question formation, presupposition, and the absence of simple adjectives as a grammatical class. Most verbs are not inherently transitive or intransitive, but rather the semantics is tied to the number and type of core grammatical relations in a clause. Morphologically, two types of verb pronominals indicate two kinds of direct object; both are found in ditransitive clauses. Noun incorporation of special ‘body-part’ nouns in some verbs adds another grammatical argument and changes the lexical characteristics of the verb. Clauses of zero transitivity can occur in main clauses due to the use of dependent verb forms and ideophones. Question formation is interesting in that the interrogative pronoun is clause-final for most constructions. The clause will sometimes be reconfigured so that the interrogative pronoun can be clause-final. Expectation is a foundational pillar for Moloko grammar. Three types of irrealis mood relate to speaker’s expectation concerning the accomplishment of an event. Clauses are organised around the concept of presupposition, through the use of the na-construction. Known or expected elements are marked with the na particle. There are no simple adjectives in Moloko; all adjectives are derived from nouns. The authors invite others to further explore the intricacies of the phonology and grammar of this intriguing language.

Recurrent Gestures of Hausa Speakers

Recurrent Gestures of Hausa Speakers PDF Author: Izabela Will
Publisher: BRILL
ISBN: 9004449795
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 313

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Book Description
This book presents a repertoire of conventionalized co-speech gestures used by Hausa speakers from northern Nigeria.