A Grammar of Wandala / / Zygmunt Frajzyngier.

• Superior document: Title is part of eBook package: De Gruyter DGBA Backlist Complete English Language 2000-2014 PART1
• VerfasserIn: Frajzyngier, Zygmunt,
• Place / Publishing House: Berlin ;, Boston : : De Gruyter Mouton, , [2012]; ©2012
• Year of Publication: 2012
• Language: English
• Series: Mouton Grammar Library [MGL] , 47
• Physical Description: 1 online resource (720 p.)

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.

Table of Contents

Frontmatter -- Acknowledgments -- Contents -- Abbreviations and typographical conventions -- Chapter 1. Introduction -- Chapter 2. Phonology -- Chapter 3. Morphological marking of syntactic organization -- Chapter 4. Lexical categories and morphological processes -- Chapter 5. Noun phrase -- Chapter 6. Verbal roots and stems -- Chapter 7. Grammatical relations -- Chapter 8. Verbal extensions and semantic relations -- Chapter 9. Locative extensions -- Chapter 10. Locative predication -- Chapter 11. Verbless predications -- Chapter 12. Adjunct phrases -- Chapter 13. Aspect -- Chapter 14. Tense -- Chapter 15. Mood -- Chapter 16. Negation -- Chapter 17. Interrogative -- Chapter 18. Comment clause -- Chapter 19. Topicalization -- Chapter 20. Focus -- Chapter 21. Reference system -- Chapter 22. Paratactic and sequential clauses -- Chapter 23. Complementation -- Chapter 24. Conditional and temporal sentences -- Chapter 25. Adjunct clauses -- Chapter 26. The relative clause -- Chapter 27. Discourse characteristics -- Chapter 28. Sample texts -- References -- Index