Kabba

A Nilo-Saharan Language of the Central African Republic

Rosmarie Moser
La Trobe University

Kabba belongs to the Western-Sara group of the Central-Sudanic branch of the Nilo-Saharan languages (80,000 speakers in the North of C.A.R., 20,000 in Chad and Cameroon).

The grammar consists of ten chapters and is followed by a complete and interlinearised traditional folkstory told by Daniel Tambe. Many examples throughout this thesis come from this story, which displays many features discussed. Other examples come from a variety of sources in the author's extensive data collection. They are referred to by the codes in brackets.

The introductory first chapter looks at the historical and ethnic background of the speakers of the Kabba language, discusses its linguistic classification and provides an overview of its typological features. Chapter two deals with the sound system, which includes implosives, affricates, homorganic prenasalised obstruents, syllabic nasal consonants, nasalised vowels and vowel harmony. Syllabic structures and phonotactics are also discussed in this chapter. Tonal patterns are investigated, exemplified and discussed in chapter three. Kabba has three level tones and four contour tones. Bound morphemes and morphological processes are explored in chapter four. A detailed analysis and discussion of subject, object and possessive pronouns is included. Alienable possession plays an important part. Chapter five deals with the nominal morphology found of the Kabba language. It includes a discussion of noun phrases, noun collocations, adjectival structures, numerical expressions, reciprocity, logophoric pronouns, reflexives, relative pronouns, conjunctions, case markers and adpositions. Chapter six contains an exemplified discussion of semantic and grammatical verb categories, transitivity, tense-aspect-mood and adverbial expressions. Basic clause structures are illustrated and discussed in chapter seven, which includes declarative, interrogative, negative, imperative and exclamatory clauses. Copula clauses and verbless clauses are also discussed. Chapter eight deals with complex predicate structures, such as serialisation, consecutivisation and grammaticalisation. Chapter nine investigates and discusses complex clause structures, such as coordination, subordination, complementation and relativisation. Discourse features are analysed, exemplified and discussed in the last chapter. They include grounding, participant reference, marked focus, direct and indirect quotations and pragmatic particles. A conclusion at the end of each major section summarises the findings.

ISBN 9783895868283. LINCOM Studies in African Linguistics 63. 504 pp. 2004.

Theoretical Issues in the Grammar of Kikamba: A Bantu Language

Angelina Nduku Kioko

This study describes some key aspects of Kikamba grammar in the context of advances in theoretical linguistics. As a preliminary to the main discussion, the phonology, morphology and syntax of the language are outlined in chapter 2. The book then describes in detail the agreement system, chapter 3; the pronominal system, chapter 4; the passive construction, chapter 5; and the applicative construction, chapter 6; in the light of theoretical literature falling within the Government and Binding, Relational Grammar and Lexical Functional Grammar.

The application of the tenets of these theories to the description of the Kikamba data leaves some varieties of structures unaccounted for. In particular it is argued that, to account for all the varieties of the passive construction observed in Kikamba, we need to look at the basic features of the passive verb. The passive verb needs to be one that has an inherent argument and one that can take an expletive subject. Similarly, the analysis of the applicative construction points to the need to recognize two functions of the applied affix: a transitivizing function and a crossreferencing function. Object creation is shown to be a consequence and not a function of the cross-referencing use of the applied affix.

ISBN 9783895864858. LINCOM Studies in African Linguistics 64. 190pp. .2005.

Perguntas de Constituinte em Ibibio e a Teoria de Tipo Oracional: Aspectos da Periferia a Esquerda com Ênfase em Foco

(Wh questions in Ibibio and Theory of Sentence Type – Aspects of the Left Periphery with Emphasis at Focus)

Márcia Santos Duarte de Oliveira

This study examines the Ibibio language data in the form of constituent questioning (Wh questions), aiming to reach an explanatory account of the facts, following the tracks of the Generative Grammar studies.

There are two central goals: (i) to provide a morphosyntactic verbal analysis of Ibibio, emphasizing the notion of auxiliary focus; (ii) to show that Ibibio is a "Wh in-situ" language, regarding the universal parameters related to the "Wh movement". This research establishes that the verbal morphology of the language presents affixes of both the flexional and the derivational types; Time and Aspects flexion affixes also exhibit a set of allomorphs involving [+focus]/[-focus]. I.e., Ibibio behaves like many African languages, which present allomorphs attested by the literature to be auxiliary focus ([+focus]). Time and Aspect Ibibio allomorphs [+focus] are mandatory in sentences with questioning of constituents, as well as in relative sentences as in sentences that present affixal marks of Mode or Negation. So, by the parameterization of languages regarding the "Wh movement", the exam of constituent questioning sentences in Ibibio leads to the conclusion that they are "Wh in situ" sentences and also that the movement of those constituents to the left periphery of the sentences can not be properly described as the "Wh movement"; instead, this movement is due for focus checking.

An ethnographic description of the Ibibio people, emphasizing the social organization of this West African culture, is presented in the first chapter of the study, with the purpose of avoiding that the strictly linguistic information on the Ibibio (those that speak the Ibibio language) remained isolated.

KEY WORDS: Ibibio Language; Wh-Phrases; Wh-in-Situ Language; Auxiliary Focus; Left Periphery.

(Written in Portuguese).

ISBN 9783895867996. LINCOM Studies in African Linguistics 65. 375pp. 2005.

The Silozi Clause: A Study of the Structure and Distribution of its Constituents

Kashina Kashina

This work provides a study of the structure and distribution of constituents of the clause in Silozi, a Bantu language which is spoken by about 450,000 people in the Western Province of Zambia. The work also describes the morphological structure of Silozi. In addition, it investigates the hypothesis that there is a correlation between the internal structure of a constituent (length and structural complexity) and the position it occupies in the clause or sentence. Using a database of spoken and written Silozi texts, the work employs both qualitative and quantitative methods to investigate the distribution of constituents in their functional profiles. It thus considers the parameters of constituent ordering in discourse.

The work concludes that there is a strong correlation between the internal structure of constituents and the position in which they occur in a clause or sentence. This is so especially in constructions that place the subject in the initial position (SVX) which constitute the bulk of the data. There is also evidence for this hypothesis in some focusing constructions. The work has also found that in constructions which place constituents other than the subject in the initial position (e.g. left dislocations), the ordering significantly contradicts the predictions of this hypothesis.

ISBN 9783895867705. LINCOM Studies in African Linguistics 66. 384pp. 2005.

What Bantu child speech data tells us about the controversial semantics of Bantu Noun class system

Introduction to the Morphology of Setswana

Caspar J.H. Krüger
North-West University, South Africa

This contribution is an attempt to describe the morphology of Setswana, an African language spoken in the north-western regions of the Republic of South Africa (RSA) and in Botswana. Setswana includes approximately seven closely related dialects and it is roughly estimated that the language is spoken by about three million speakers.

Setswana is an agglutinating language in which the system of noun classes is a distinctive feature. These noun classes dominate the morphological structure of the language by means of agreement morphemes which are derived from the prefixes of the different noun classes.

The official orthography employs a disjuntive system of word division.

The following aspects regarding Setswana are discussed:

a. The problem of word division and word identification as expressed by the conjunctive, the semi-conjunctive and the disjunctive systems of word division used in the south-eastern zone.
b. Various approaches to the notion of the morpheme and it’s relation to the word in the above systems.
c. A proposal for a suitable word-class system that can systematically and consistantly be employed in both morphology and syntax.
d. The morphological structure (paradigmatic and syntagmatic) of the various word classes.
e. A few introductory observations with regard to the principles of word group formation.

Prof. Krüger is a professor emeritus of African Languages at the North-West University of the Republic of South Africa. After his retirement he was appointed in a temporary capacity at the Mamelodi campus of Vista University in Tshwane for four years.

ISBN 9783895868764 (Hardbound). LINCOM Studies in African Linguistics 69. 330pp. 2006.

Description grammaticale de la langue Ngbaka

Phonologie, tonologie et morphosyntaxe
Marcel Henrix, Karel van den Eynde, Michael Meeuwis

The language described here is Ngbaka (/Ngbaka minagende/), spoken in the centre of the Ubangi region in the Democratic Republic of Congo by approximately one million speakers. The language constitutes a subgroup, designated as “Gbaya-Manza-Ngbaka, belonging to the Ubangi branch within Adamawa-Ubangi (formerly Adamawa-Eastern). The description is based on the first author’s field work and linguistic immersion, over fifty years, in the Ngbaka community.

The grammar has three parts: Phonology and tonology; Non-verbal morphosyntax; Verbal morphosyntax. In the first part the phonemic and tonemic system of Ngbaka is described, and a full account of syllable structure is given. The morphosyntactic parts offer a form-based description (positions, tone patterning, combinatory processes, formal and functional proportionality). The description of the non-verbal morphosyntax proceeds from the notion of “referential group” (consisting of a “referential base” and an optional “referential extension”). For both the referential base and its extension a constituency analysis is offered. The other categories of non-verbal constituents (prepositions, ideophones, adverbs, …) are dealt with in the last subsection of part 2. Part 3 offers a detailed account of verbal morphosyntax.

After the discussion of the general characteristics (phonemic/tonemic/morphosyntactic) of the verb forms and conjugation patterns, follows the description of complex predicates. The final subsection of part 3 deals with the free morphemes expressing tense, aspect and modality.

ISBN 9783895861802. LINCOM Studies in African Linguistics 70. 112pp. 2007.

A Grammar of Makwe

Maud Devos
Royal Museum of Central Africa, Bruxelles

A Grammar of Makwe presents a detailed description of a hitherto largely undocumented Bantu language spoken in the North of Mozambique. Historically speaking, Makwe is the outcome of a long-standing contact between Makonde as spoken in the interior of Tanzania and Mozambique and Swahili as spoken along the East African coast.

This grammar treats Makwe phonology, the morphology of nouns, verbs and minor word categories, the semantics of verbal conjugations, and different syntactic topics. A rich collection of texts is offered at the end. Throughout the work, the linguistic analyses are abundantly illustrated with natural speech examples. Of special interest are the so-called conjoint and disjoint verb forms and modifiers which present a striking example of an interface between phonology, morphology, syntax and pragmatics.

Maud Devos received for this study her doctoral degree at Leiden University in 2004. She subsequently worked on Shangaji, another Bantu language from Mozambique, with a postdoctoral grant from the Hans Rausing Endangered Languages Documentation Project. She is currently a researcher at the Linguistics Department of the Royal Museum of Central Africa in Tervuren (Belgium), where she is involved in a project on grammaticalization and (inter)subjectification.

ISBN 9783895861079. LINCOM Studies in African Linguistics 71. 533pp. 2008.

L’énoncé complexe du nànáfwe

Amani Bohoussou
University of Erfurt

Le présent travail porte sur le Nanafwe, parler Baoule en usage en Côte d’Ivoire. Il appartient à la famille des langues kwa. Les locuteurs Nanafwe vivent dans le district autonome de Yamoussoukro. Du point de vue typologique, ce parler présente une structure S V O et use d’une postposition. La position de l’adjectif est postposée au nom qu’il qualifie. Au niveau phonologique, le Nanafwe use de tons : (Haut,Moyen et Bas).

Quant à la substance même de la thèse, elle fait une description des énoncés complexes de ce parler. Il part d’abord d’une perspective onomasiologique - fonction-forme : plusieurs fonctions ont été identifiées et décrites. Dans la seconde partie, c’est d’une perspective sémasiologique - forme-fonction que les propriétés sémantiques de chaque phrase complexe ont été examinées et présentées. C’est à l’université de Erfurt que Amani Bohoussou a obtenu son Ph.D. Il est spécialisé en typologie des langues africaines. Il a traité divers sujets en phonologie (DEA), morphologie et en syntaxe des langues Kwa. Il a à son actif des publications comme (Structure interne de l’énoncé verbal du Nanafwe, 1996, Abidjan), (Morphophonologie du baoulé nanafwe, in: Ahua and Leben (eds.), Morphophonologie des langues kwa de Côte d’Ivoire, 2006, Köln), et un article (En nanafwe, in: Clairis et al. (eds.), Typologie de la syntaxe connective, 2005, Rennes).

ISBN 9783895861178. LINCOM Studies in African Linguistics 72. 224pp. 2008.