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Description:
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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.
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