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Title Phonology and Morphology of Mambay (Niger-Congo, Adamawa)
Full text http://hdl.handle.net/1887/13045
Date 2008
Author(s) Anonby, Erik John
Abstract Mambay is an Adamawa (Niger-Congo) language spoken by 15,000 people in Chad and Cameroon. The study opens with historical and linguistic background. A phonological inventory of the language is then presented and distribution patterns are examined. Some striking phenomena include a profoundly phonologized labial flap and a rich vowel inventory with contrastive length, nasalization, glottalization and pharyngealization. Special consideration is given to nasality and an underlyingly two-level tone system which exhibits tonal downstep as well as pragmatic employment of intonational register shift. In the description of the morphology, nouns are treated first, with attention dedicated to a "free vs. linked" distinction in noun forms and a series of noun prefixes unrelated to wider Niger-Congo noun class prefixes. A rich system of TAM (tense/aspect/mode) inflection is marked on both pronouns and verbs. Adverbs, adjectives and ideophones are treated together, as are the remaining minor word classes of numerals, demonstratives, and prepositions. A section on clauses and clause combinations concludes the dissertation, situating word classes within the context of syntax and discourse. Interlinearized texts rich in cultural information are selected from a variety of genres: song, legend, fable and proverb. The appendices catalogue inalienable noun possession paradigms and verb conjugations.
Subject(s) Adamawa languages; Chad; Cameroon; Tone; Downstep; Nasality; Pharyngealization; Glottalization; Morphological templates; Ideophones; Logophoric pronouns
Language en
Publisher Department of African Languages and Cultures, Leiden University Centre for Linguistics (LUCL), Faculty of Arts, Leiden University
Type of publication Doctoral thesis
Format application/pdf; application/pdf
Repository Leiden - Africanists at University of Leiden
Added to C-A: 2008-12-22;03:57:08