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4 - Selected Issues in Central Chadic Historical Linguistics

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  09 November 2023

H. Ekkehard Wolff
H. Ekkehard Wolff
Affiliation:
Universität Leipzig
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Summary

Chapter 4 looks in detail at selected issues of historical Central Chadic phonology, by first of all confronting hypotheses about regular ‘natural’ vs. sporadic ‘contact-induced’ sound changes. It then discusses at some length the vocalogenesis scenario by which a minimal vowel system becomes massively enriched via phonologisation of allophones and variants of reconstructed vowels and approximants. The chapter than discusses canonical root shapes and the potential functionality of root types, not least in the light of different sound changes affecting different root types. It then looks in some detail at the various markers that are used as root-augmental material, including a discussion of potential circumfix marking in the proto-language. It then introduces the hitherto neglected prosodies of ‘glottalisation’ and obstruent ‘prenasalisation’ and their historical origins in the proto-language. It concludes by discussing alternative diphthong and monophthong word endings.

Keywords

regular sound changesporadic sound changevocalogenesis by phonologisationcanonical root shapesfunctionality of root typesroot-augmental materialmorphological markerssynchronic glottalisationsynchronic prenasalisationmonophthongisation of final diphthongs
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Chapter
Information
Lexical Reconstruction in Central Chadic
A Comparative Study of Vowels, Consonants and Prosodies
 , pp. 167 - 414
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2023

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