{"title":"Blench, Roger & Stuart McGill (eds.). 2012. Advances in minority language research in Nigeria. (African languages monographs 5). Köln: Rüdiger Köppe Verlag.","authors":"L. Gerhardt","doi":"10.15460/auue.2022.95.1.279","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.15460/auue.2022.95.1.279","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":80378,"journal":{"name":"Afrika und Ubersee","volume":"1 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2022-12-31","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"67144496","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Moraic mismatches in Somali phonology","authors":"Christopher R. Green","doi":"10.15460/auue.2022.95.1.240","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.15460/auue.2022.95.1.240","url":null,"abstract":"This paper reconsiders the moraic status of coda consonants in Somali. It is argued that Somali joins a growing list of languages presenting a challenge to the Moraic Uniqueness Hypothesis. Several phenomena are explored that suggest that Somali exhibits moraic mismatches whereby moras associated with segments of different types contribute to, or “count” differently for particular phonological processes. Evidence in support of this proposal is drawn from the literature on tonology and poetic metrics, but also from word shape and minimality requirements, and from the distribution of syllable shapes of different types in Somali words. It is argued that an approach to Somali phonology that permits reference to moras associated with different segment types offers a unified and more transparent account of the language’s segmental and tonal phenomena. Notably, such an approach precludes the assumption of “early” coda consonant moraicity followed by a global dissociation of consonantal moras by rule before high tone assignment, as argued for in earlier work. The findings presented here illustrate that standing points of view on the role of the mora in Somali phonology must be reconfigured.","PeriodicalId":80378,"journal":{"name":"Afrika und Ubersee","volume":"6 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2022-12-31","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"67144473","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Hurst-Harosh, Ellen. 2020. Tsotsitaal in South Africa: Style and metaphor in Youth Language Practices. (Language Contact in Africa 6). Köln: Rüdiger Köppe Verlag.","authors":"Gardy Stein","doi":"10.15460/auue.2022.95.1.278","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.15460/auue.2022.95.1.278","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":80378,"journal":{"name":"Afrika und Ubersee","volume":"1 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2022-12-31","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"67144491","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Did Proto-Chadic have velar nasals and prenasalised obstruents?","authors":"H. Wolff","doi":"10.15460/auue.2022.95.1.265","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.15460/auue.2022.95.1.265","url":null,"abstract":"Ever since the Afroasiatic affiliation of Chadic as a whole was suggested by Joseph H. Greenberg in his seminal re-classification of African languages since the 1950s and has been generally accepted, i.e. encompassing both ‘Chado-Hamitic’ and ‘Chadic’ languages of influential pre-Greenbergian genetic classifications, the issue of whether Proto-Chadic possessed prenasalised obstruents and velar nasals has been repeatedly raised and debated in the literature, yet without final consent. All of the 196 presently known Chadic languages would appear to possess these consonants in their synchronic phonemic inventories. The present article reviews the debate in view of recently available new insights on the historical phonology and lexical reconstruction based on data from 66 of the 79 known Central Chadic languages, i.e. the most numerous and most diverse branch of Chadic. According to these recent comparative studies of Central Chadic that allow to reconstruct Proto-Central Chadic phonology and lexicon, there is massive evidence to show that both velar nasals and prenasalised obstruents emerged as results of natural phonological processes probably already on the proto-language level, but need not be reconstructed for the proto-language’s phonemic inventory. And if Proto-Central Chadic did not have these consonants as inherited phonemes, then this would also be true for its predecessor, Proto-Chadic. The major processes leading to the emergence of velar nasals and prenasalised obstruents were segmental fusion and the emergence of prensalisation prosody that arose from the de-segmentalisation and prosodification of reconstructed nasals. The article summarises the evidence and gives illustrative examples for the reconstructed phonological processes, which created conditioned allophones that eventually became phonologised yielding synchronic phonemes in the modern Central Chadic languages.","PeriodicalId":80378,"journal":{"name":"Afrika und Ubersee","volume":"1 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2022-12-31","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"47309440","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"phonological description of Naba","authors":"Elaine Marie Scherrer","doi":"10.15460/auue.2022.95.1.255","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.15460/auue.2022.95.1.255","url":null,"abstract":"Naba, also known as Bilala, is a Nilo-Saharan (Sara-Bagirmi) language of Chad with about 410,000 speakers from three ethnic groups. This paper gives a basic description of the Naba phonological system, using segmental phonology and lexical phonology approaches. Topics covered include the phonemic inventory, syllable structure and phonotactic restrictions, the tone system and its interaction with other phonological processes, and the main lexical and post-lexical processes.\u0000A special focus is given to the important role of sonority hierarchy in Naba phonological structure and processes. This hierarchy groups affricates and non-sibilant fricatives with stops in a single obstruent category, while nasals, liquids, and approximants comprise the sonorant category. The distinction is key for syllable structure, phonotactic restrictions, tone sandhi, and a number of both lexical and post-lexical processes. It is proposed that the two sibilant fricatives /s/ and /z/ exist as a separate sonority level in between obstruent and sonorant, and evidence is given as to why they cannot be classed with either group.","PeriodicalId":80378,"journal":{"name":"Afrika und Ubersee","volume":"1 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2022-12-31","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"67144480","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Retracing labial-velar consonants in Mbum (Adamawa)","authors":"K. Beyer, J. Kunzmann","doi":"10.15460/auue.2022.95.1.270","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.15460/auue.2022.95.1.270","url":null,"abstract":"Labial-velar consonants, which are typologically rather rare in the languages of the world, have been used for both genealogical and areal classification purposes. The claim that their occurrence mainly signals areal contact (e.g. Güldemann 2008), has been criticized by scholars (cf. Cahill 2017, Childs 2017) who point out a possible genealogical development in multiple language families of Africa. In this paper, we analyse contemporary and historical data on Mbum varieties from the Adamawa plateau in Cameroon and closely related languages of the Kebi-Benue family to approach the question whether labial-velars are transmitted merely through contact in these languages or warrant a genealogical explanation. The bottom-up approach leads to an interpretation of the current distribution of labial-velars that has both elements in it: There are arguments for reconstructing labial-velars for the Proto-Kebi-Benue level, but certain specifics of their geographical distribution also hint at a contact explanation.","PeriodicalId":80378,"journal":{"name":"Afrika und Ubersee","volume":"1 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2022-12-31","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"67144485","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Aspects of negation in Makaa (A83)","authors":"Njoya Ibirahim","doi":"10.15460/auue.2021.94.1.254","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.15460/auue.2021.94.1.254","url":null,"abstract":"Polarity is a topic that has attracted much attention in semantics but as well in language typology regarding the syntactic and morphological realisations of negation. This paper studies negation in Makaa (A83) following two major perspectives. First, typologically, it examines the system of Makaa negation against the backdrop of polarity theory and second, from a (comparative) Bantu perspective, it examines the system of Makaa negation against the backdrop of other Bantu languages; including grammaticalization. Makaa negation displays divergent and very complex negation patterns studied under the contrast standard vs. non-standard negation. Concerning the origin of negators in Makaa, it is argued that Makaa negators might derive from grammaticalized verbs, the 3SG personal pronoun, possessive adjectives or object marker, and locative pronouns. Others are probably old negation particles.","PeriodicalId":80378,"journal":{"name":"Afrika und Ubersee","volume":"1 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2021-12-31","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"47424759","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Initial findings on the Boor language","authors":"J. Roberts","doi":"10.15460/auue.2021.94.1.242","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.15460/auue.2021.94.1.242","url":null,"abstract":"This article provides the first published information on Boor, an Eastern Chadic language spoken in a single village in the Moyen Chari Region of Chad. First, the sociolinguistic situation of the language and its speakers is presented, along with the conditions under which the present data was collected. Then follows a very provisional statement about the consonant and vowel systems of the language, along with some remarks about nominal and verbal morphology. The article finishes by presenting several tables of lexical data, comparing Boor words with those of several nearby languages, in the interest of better understanding the place of Boor within the Eastern Chadic family.","PeriodicalId":80378,"journal":{"name":"Afrika und Ubersee","volume":"1 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2021-12-31","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"67144430","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Nominal and verbal plurality in the Mandara and Ɓata subgroups of Central Chadic","authors":"Matthew Harley","doi":"10.15460/auue.2021.94.1.223","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.15460/auue.2021.94.1.223","url":null,"abstract":"This paper contrasts the strategies for marking nominal and verbal plurality in the Mandara and Ɓata subgroups of Central Chadic, and offers some thoughts on their possible origin and development. The Mandara subgroup generally uses an /-a-/ infix for verbs, and the suffix /-ak/-ax/-ah/ for nouns. The Ɓata subgroup uses an /-ə-/ infix for both nouns and verbs, as well as a suffix /-j/ (or /-n/) for nouns. In both groups, the strategies used also depend upon the structure of the verb root. Data is provided for several languages, including little-documented languages such as Nzanyi, Bacama and Glavda. The data suggests that vowel infixes may originally have been used for both nominal and verbal plurals throughout Chadic, but the development of specific nominal plural suffixes gradually made the use of vowel infix plurals redundant in nouns. The nominal suffix /-ak/-ax/-ah/ would then have been a subsequent innovation in the verbal system for verb roots in the Mandara whose structure was incompatible with an infix strategy.","PeriodicalId":80378,"journal":{"name":"Afrika und Ubersee","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2021-12-31","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"48309431","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Literal and metaphorical usages of Babanki EAT and DRINK verbs","authors":"Pius W. Akumbu, R. Kießling","doi":"10.15460/auue.2021.94.1.248","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.15460/auue.2021.94.1.248","url":null,"abstract":"In Babanki, a Grassfields Bantu language of North-West Cameroon, two of the numerous consumption verbs, namely the generic verbs ʒɨ́ ‘eat’ and ɲʉ́ ‘drink’, constitute a major source of metaphorical extensions outside the domain of ingestion. Setting out from a characterisation of the basic meanings of these two lexical items as they emerge from their paradigmatic relations within the semantic field of alimentation processes, this paper explores the figurative usages of the two verbs and their underlying semantic motivations. Semantic extensions that radiate from eat can be subsumed under two closely related structural metaphors, i.e. APPROPRIATION OF RESOURCES IS EATING and WINNING IS EATING. The first metaphor construes the acquisition and exploitation of non-food items such as material possession as eating, while the second metaphor casts the acquisition of immaterial advantage in the mould of eating. Both metaphors have further entailments, i.e. the derivation of pleasure from consumption of resources, the depletion of resources via consumption and the deprivation of a third party from access to these resources. Semantic extensions that radiate from drink can be accounted for in two structural metaphors, i.e. INHALATION IS DRINKING and ABSORPTION IS DRINKING. Remarkably, some metaphorical extensions of consumption verbs attested in other African languages, such as extensions of EAT for sexual intercourse and for killing, and the extensions of DRINK for undergoing trouble and enduring painful experiences are absent in Babanki.","PeriodicalId":80378,"journal":{"name":"Afrika und Ubersee","volume":"1 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2021-12-31","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"67144469","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}