Skip to product information
1 of 1

A Grammar of Wandala

Publisher:

Regular price $280.00
Regular price $0.00 Sale price $280.00
Sold out
The series builds an extensive collection of high quality descriptions of languages around the world. Each volume offers a comprehensive grammatical description of a single language together with f...
Read More
  • 18 May 2012
View Product Details

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.

files/i.png Icon
Price: $280.00
Pages: 736
Publisher: De Gruyter
Imprint: De Gruyter Mouton
Publication Date: 18 May 2012
ISBN: 9783110218404
Format: Hardcover
BISACs: FOR000000 FOREIGN LANGUAGE STUDY / General, LAN009010 LANGUAGE ARTS & DISCIPLINES / Linguistics / Historical & Comparative, LAN009060 LANGUAGE ARTS & DISCIPLINES / Linguistics / Syntax
REVIEWS Icon

Zygmunt Frajzyngier, University of Colorado, USA.