1 - Introduction

Summary

Chapter 1 introduces the reader to the research history of comparative Chadic linguistics and why it is so problematic to reconstruct lexical items for Proto-Chadic in general, and for Proto-Central Chadic in particular. It offers an abstract model for the evolution from Proto-Central Chadic ‘simple roots’ to phonetic surface representations in modern Central Chadic languages, based on root types that developed from a root-and-pattern structure inherited from Afroasiatic, but which recognises only one phonemic vowel */a/. It introduces synchronically petrified root-augmentative former grammatical elements on roots, which can and must be reconstructed. It discusses the eminent role of vowel pro-/epenthesis and the emergence and spread of both phonological and morphological prosodies from diachronic and underlying ‘weak radicals’ */y/ and */w/, and labialised consonants.