The purpose of this article is to describe the grammaticalization of selected functions in Chadic languages[1], functions that have seldom been observed in other languages and that have been largely ignored by literature making theoretical claims but that have profound effects on the structures of languages involved. The selected grammaticalizations are important for the overall typologies of syntax and semantics. The selected grammaticalizations are: grammaticalization of non-categorial morphology whose function is to code the syntactic organization of the clause, i.e. the internal structure of the utterance; the coding of the category ‘goal’; and the coding of the domain of locative predication. Interestingly, the first and third grammaticalizations described here do not involve changes from a lexical item to a grammatical morpheme. The grammaticalization of non-categorial morphology has exploited phonological reduction to code one function and has exploited the most frequently used form in the coda of lexical items to code another function. The second grammaticalization, that of the category ‘goal’, may have a lexical item as its source. In addition to different sources, it appears that each grammaticalization had different motivations. [1] Chadic languages are the largest and the most diversified family within the Afroasiatic phylum. Out of some 140-160 languages, classified into three or four branches only 40 or so have descriptive grammars, in most cases one description per language.
The paper is a new contribution to revealing the Afro-Asiatic heritage in the lexical root stock of the Dangla-Migama group of Chadic languages by means of inter-branch comparison primarily using, among others, the ancient Egypto-Semitic etymological evidence.
The paper as part of a long-running series is devoted to the etymological analysis of a new segment (namely that with initial dental *z-) of the Angas-Sura root stock, a small group of modern languages remotely and ultimately akin to pharaonic Egyptian and the well-known Semitic languages or Twareg in the Sahara etc. Doing so, I wish to continue the noble tradition initiated by J.H. Greenberg (1958), the founding father of modern Afro-Asiatic comparative linguistics (along with I.M. Diakonoff), who was the first scholar ever to have established by Neo-Grammarian the methods regular consonantal correspondences between Angas-Sura and ancient Egyptian in his pioneering (painfully isolated) paper on the ancient trichotomy of the word-initial labials in both branches. Nowadays our chances in following this path are substantially more favourable being equipped with our gigantic comparative root catalogue system of the Egyptian etymologies ever published (ongoing since 1994) and of the Afro-Asiatic parental lexical stock (ongoing since 1999).
The paper as part of a long-running series is devoted to the etymological analysis of a new segment (namely that with initial dental *z-) of the Angas-Sura root stock, a small group of modern languages remotely and ultimately akin to pharaonic Egyptian and the well-known Semitic languages or Twareg in the Sahara etc. Doing so, I wish to continue the noble tradition initiated by J.H. Greenberg (1958), the founding father of modern Afro-Asiatic comparative linguistics (along with I.M. Diakonoff), who was the first scholar ever to have established by Neo-Grammarian the methods regular consonantal correspondences between Angas-Sura and ancient Egyptian in his pioneering (painfully isolated) paper on the ancient trichotomy of the word-initial labials in both branches. Nowadays our chances in following this path are substantially more favourable being equipped with our gigantic comparative root catalogue system of the Egyptian etymologies ever published (ongoing since 1994) and of the Afro-Asiatic parental lexical stock (ongoing since 1999).
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