Afrika und Übersee
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Comparing phasal aspect in some West Chadic and West Benue Congo languages: Inching toward a crosslinguistic West African perspective
Full text linkWe undertake an initial crosslinguistic comparison of formal coding linked to the functions of phasal aspect in selected languages from West Chadic and West Benue Congo. Canonical phasal aspect types are semantically characterized as INITIATION, TERMINATION, and CONTINUATION. We consider phasal and non-phasal forms, the latter having similar positional limitations as phasal aspect expressions. In Hausa and Miya, phasal aspect is coded by verbs and an immediately following complement. Hausa phasal verbs take truncated sentence-complements, gerundives or participles, or sentence-complements, while those in Miya show truncation or parataxis. In the same slot as phasal aspect forms Hausa exhibits verbs that do not convey aspectuality. Instead, they provide either temporal interpretations of various kinds, frequency, duration, habituality, or meanings that are capacitive or quantitative in nature. In Emai of West Benue Congo, phasal aspect is coded by verbs with truncated complements and by grammatical morphemes. The latter code canonical phasal aspect and precede the main verb. In the same pre-verb position, Emai and other West Benue Congo languages exhibit grammatical morphemes that show non-canonical phasal aspect: temporal interpretations as well as capacitive, volitive, or quantitative meanings. We conclude that canonical phasal aspect forms and similarly positioned but non-phasal forms in West Africa provide fertile ground for further crosslinguistic comparison
STAMP morphs, prefix conjugations and multiverb predicates in the Chadic languages
Full text linkntersucht werden Hilfsverbkonstruktionen in tschadischen Sprachen aus einer panchronischen funktionalen/konstruktiven Perspektive. Dazu gehören typische Hilfsverbkonstruktionen mit einem abhängigen markierten lexikalischen Verb sowie atypische Formationen, die unterschiedliche morphosyntaktische Konfigurationen aufweisen. Ein besonderer Schwerpunkt liegt auf STAMP-Morphs – Portmanteau-Elementen, die funktionale verbale Kategorien wie Zeitform, Modus, Aspekt/Aktionsart und Polarität sowie Personen-/Zahlen-/Geschlechtsmerkmale von Subjekten kodieren. STAMP-Morphs wurden in der Geschichte der tschadischen Sprachen wiederholt einer Univerbation mit lexikalischen Verben unterzogen, um Präfix- (und Infix-)Konjugationen verschiedener Art zu erzeugen. Auch diese werden kurz vorgestellt.STAMP morphs, prefix conjugations and the multiverb predicate subtype called auxiliary verb constructions (AVCs) that these derive from in the Chadic languages are discussed. Chadic languages are typically SVO (or VSO) and typically AUX V syntactically. Synchronically complex verb forms which derived etymologically from AVCs are also discussed. Across all subgroups of Chadic (but most common in West and Central), subject pronouns have sometimes fused with auxiliaries that have eroded to only a tone or floating tone or have become completely opaque synchronically. In recent Africanist typological studies these have been called STAMP morphs. These occur in different inflectional configurations across the languages of the family speaking to their origins as AVCs. There are at least ten STAMP morph series in Guus (Sigidi) (Caron 2002). In some Chadic languages like Mbuko, STAMP morphs have later fused with lexical verbs to create prefixal conjugations. This process of deriving prefix conjugations from fused STAMP morph constructions has happened repeatedly in the history of Chadic. This is a major reason why Chadic prefixal conjugations are not directly inherited from Proto-Afroasiatic.Les constructions de verbes auxiliaires dans les langues tchadiques sont examinées d\u27un point de vue panchronique fonctionnel/constructionnel. Cela inclut les constructions verbales auxiliaires typiques avec un verbe lexical marqué dépendant ainsi que les formations atypiques qui présentent différentes configurations morphosyntaxiques. Une attention particulière est accordée aux formes STAMP – des éléments-valises qui codent des catégories verbales fonctionnelles telles que le temps, la modalité, l\u27aspect et la polarité ainsi que les caractéristiques de personne/nombre/genre des sujets. Les formes STAMP ont subi une univervation avec des verbes lexicaux à plusieurs reprises dans l\u27histoire des langues tchadiques pour créer des conjugaisons préfixales (et infixées) de diverses sortes. Ceux-ci sont également brièvement présentés
Number marking on nouns and adjectives of Sidaama
Full text linkThis paper aims to systematically analyze the formal marking of numbers on common nouns and adjectives of Sidaama, a Highland East Cushitic (HEC hereafter) language spoken in Ethiopia. There are three formal categories of number in Sidaama: basic form, singulative, and plurative. The basic form is a form of a noun that is not marked for number; a singulative denotes a single referent, and a plurative marks multiple referents. The singulative of nouns is usually marked either by -ʧ-o ~ -ʧʧ-o. There are also a few nouns that contain the formatives -ʃ-o, -ʧ-o, and -k-o as markers of the singulative. Such forms arose from the merging of the final consonant of the nominal root with the initial -ʧ of the singulative. Unlike nouns, singulative is marked only on a handful of adjectives. Five types of nominals and six types of adjectival pluratives are identified. All of them are suffixal, and two of them involve the copying of a root-final consonant. Sidaama has inherently singular nouns that usually denote humans and higher animals. In such nouns, their basic form marks a single referent. The language also contains inherently plural nouns that refer to a collective of entities or a group. Few nouns are transnumeral; in their basic form, they can refer to either a single entity or plural entities
Palatalization and labialization in the Chadic languages of Chad
Full text linkThis paper examines verb data from five Chadic languages of Chad, in order to show the extent to which the prosodies of labialization (LAB) and palatalization (PAL) are relevant to the synchronic analysis of their phonologies. Previous studies have established the synchronic functioning of prosodies in Chadic languages of the Central branch, but not for other branches of the family. Of the languages considered in this paper, one (Heɗe) is from the Masa branch, the other four from the Eastern branch: Somrai, Gabri, and Kabalay from the Chari-Logone subbranch, and Mawa from the Guéra subbranch. In Heɗe and Somrai, the vowel system can be reduced to a single underlying /a/, similar to the analysis claimed for many Central Chadic languages. Epenthetic [ɨ] is added to separate between consonants, and the distinctive prosodic features of LAB and PAL blanket whole words, creating a full set of surface vowels. A consequence of such a system is that high vowels like [ɨ] are marginal, while only the nonhigh vowel /a/ is fully phonemic. Gabri displays these characteristics, but to quite a lesser degree; in this language, pal also seems to play a limited morphological role. The vowel system of Kabalay again shows a dichotomy in behavior between high and nonhigh vowels, but there is only a hint that prosodies are relevant. Mawa clearly shows that the vowel /a/ can be affected by LAB and PAL, but these prosodies do not interact with the seven other phonemic vowels. The article concludes by suggesting that the LAB and PAL prosodies must have functioned in Proto-Chadic, although they have been lost to differing degrees in individual languages in the Chadic languages of Chad
Les relations lexicales entre le giziga – tchadique central – et le fulfulde (Cameroun)
Full text linkIn the Far North region of Cameroon, the Giziga are undoubtedly the population most closely intertwined with the Fulani. Together they occupy the vast Diamaré plain, as far as the foothills of the Mandara Mountains. While their long cohabitation has not always been idyllic, their respective languages have benefited by borrowing many words from each other. In addition, Fulfulde, the language of a nomadic people originally, rich in many historical contacts, has enabled the Giziga language to receive lexical contributions from many other languages (Arabic, Kanuri, Hausa, English, etc.).Dans la région Extrême-Nord du Cameroun, les Guiziga sont sans doute la population la plus intimement imbriquée avec les Peuls. Ils occupent ensemble la vaste plaine du Diamaré, jusqu’aux piémonts des monts Mandara. Si leur longue cohabitation n’a pas toujours été idyllique, leurs langues respectives en ont tiré profit en s’empruntant mutuellement de nombreux vocables. En outre, le fulfulde, langue de nomades à l’origine, riche de nombreux contacts historiques, a permis à la langue giziga de recevoir des apports lexicaux de nombreuses autres langues (arabe, kanuri, hausa, anglais, etc.)
The (low) phylogenetic relatedness of Conative Animal Calls: The case of Oroko and Mokpe (Bantu Zone A)
Full text linkThe present article is dedicated to the documentation of conative animal calls (CACs) in Mokpe and Oroko (Bantu Zone A) and the analysis of the cognancy / phylogenetic relatedness of these constructions. The examination of original data demonstrates that the CAC categories in both languages comply with synchronic and diachronic tendencies characterizing CACs in the world’s languages. Primary CACs closely match the prototype of CACs and can be regarded as its canonical instantiations; secondary CACs may violate the prototypical features, which is also regular from a typological perspective. Furthermore, the comparison of Mokpe and Oroko CACs reveals the low cognancy of CACs in the two languages. The greater similarity exhibited by primary tokens than is the case of secondary ones does not stem from shared ancestry, but is more likely due to parallel developments and the exploitation of fully motivated, typologically common strategies
An overview of relative clauses in Gavar
Full text linkThe goal of this paper is to give a typological overview of the main characteristics of restrictive relative clauses in Gavar. The analysis is based on 572 examples of relative clauses taken from a corpus of 59 interlinearised texts, elicited examples and example sentence provided for lexical items. It is observed that relative clauses in Gavar are externally headed, with the head noun, when present, preceding the relative clause. Headless relative clauses are also possible. The relative clause begins with a relative marker. Subject relative clauses are marked with the relative marker ma whose tone varies between high and low. Non-subject relative clauses are marked with relative marker ndə́ (ná) which always carries a high tone. There is no restriction on the grammatical roles that can be relativised. Subject, direct and indirect object, oblique, genitive and object of comparison relative clauses are all possible. The gap strategy is used to encode NPrel within a subject relative clause. A resumptive pronoun is frequently but not always used to encode NPrel within a non-subject relative clause. Gavar does not have special ‘relative’ tense/aspect marking, but perfective marking on the verb is disallowed in relative clauses. The existential status of the head noun is coded by the use versus the absence of a post-relative demonstrative. Subject relative clauses with an adjectival predicate form the basis of the comparative construction in Gavar. Non-subject relative clause constructions have developed into various types of adverbial clauses
Cushitic loans in South Nilotic revisited: A deconstruction of Proto Baz
Full text linkThis article explores lexical contact between Cushitic and Nilotic taking the proposed Cushitic language Proto Baz as point of departure. Proto Baz is a putative East Cushitic language proposed by Heine, Rottland & Vossen (1979), on the basis of words borrowed into South Nilotic. Some of the loans were already pointed out by Ehret (1970, 1971, 1974). A critical assessment of the proposed loans shows that there is more diversity in their origin than formerly thought, and that it is in fact not necessary to assume the existence of a separate language (Proto Baz) to account for the loans. Instead, the loans came from various reconstructed stages of existing Cushitic languages. We discuss different contact situations between groups of East Cushitic and South Nilotic languages, as well as the recurring challenges in historical interpretation of the available evidence. The Appendix provides the reader with an overview of the discussed lexical items from earlier sources and new proposed analyses
The vowel system of Ndam
Full text linkNdam (Eastern Chadic, ISO [ndm]) displays an array of seven or nine surface vowels. However, the distribution and behavior of these vowels, as evidenced from morphophonemic data, shows that the inventory can be reduced to two basic vowels, /ə/ and /a/, if the operation of two prosodies is also admitted. These prosodies, labialization and palatalization, are distinctive units in the phonology of the language, as well as the two basic vowels; together, they account for the full range of surface vowels and their alternations, as shown in this article. The prosodic analysis, a hallmark of the analysis of Central Chadic languages, provides another example of an Eastern Chadic language which exploits prosodies in its phonology (see Roberts 2009). The article concludes by claiming that Chadic vowel systems are all rectangular, with a fundamental dichotomy between high and non-high vowels. The conclusion also warns of the dangers of confusing the two vowels [ɨ] and [ə] in the transcription of Chadic languages