A grammar of Moloko - Hardcover

Friesen, Dianne

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 3946234623 ISBN 13: 9783946234623

Verlag: Language Science Press, 2017

Inhaltsangabe

This grammar provides the first comprehensive grammatical description of Moloko, a Chadic language spoken by about 10,000 speakers in northern Cameroon. The grammar was developed from hours and years that the authors spent at friends' houses hearing and recording stories, hours spent listening to the tapes and transcribing the stories, then translating them and studying the language through them. Intriguing phonological aspects of Moloko include the fact that words have a consonantal skeleton and only one underlying vowel (but with ten phonetic variants). The simplicity of the vowel system contrasts with the complexity of the verb word, which can include information (in addition to the verbal idea) about subject, direct object (semantic Theme), indirect object (recipient or beneficiary), direction, location, aspect (Imperfective and Perfective), mood (indicative, irrealis, iterative), and Perfect aspect. Some of the fascinating aspects about the grammar of Moloko include transitivity issues, question formation, presupposition, and the absence of simple adjectives as a grammatical class. Most verbs are not inherently transitive or intransitive, but rather the semantics is tied to the number and type of core grammatical relations in a clause. Morphologically, two types of verb pronominals indicate two kinds of direct object; both are found in ditransitive clauses. Noun incorporation of special 'body-part' nouns in some verbs adds another grammatical argument and changes the lexical characteristics of the verb. Clauses of zero transitivity can occur in main clauses due to the use of dependent verb forms and ideophones. Question formation is interesting in that the interrogative pronoun is clause-final for most constructions. The clause will sometimes be reconfigured so that the interrogative pronoun can be clause-final. Expectation is a foundational pillar for Moloko grammar. Three types of irrealis mood relate to speaker's expectation concerning the accomplishment of

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Über die Autorin bzw. den Autor

Dianne Friesen, Mana Samuel, Mana Isaac, and Ali Gaston live with their families in Maroua and Ftak, Cameroon. They have been involved in their communities in linguistics, language development and translation. They are Moloko speakers and between them they also speak French, Fulfulde, Guiziga, Muyang, and Hausa. Together with the Moloko Language and Translation committees they have produced several books in the Moloko language. Dianne Friesen, a linguist from Canada with SIL International, joined them in 1999. She studied the language and helped in producing the books. Together they produced this grammar.

Details zur Ausgabe

• Verlag: Language Science Press
• Erscheinungsdatum: 2017
• Sprache: Englisch
• ISBN 10: 3946234623
• ISBN 13: 9783946234623
• Einband: Tapa dura
• Auflage: 1
• Anzahl der Seiten: 472
• Kontakt zum Hersteller: Nicht verfügbar
• Verantwortliche Person: Nicht verfügbar