Chapter 2 introduces the peculiar features that can be reconstructed for the vocal domain in Proto-Central Chadic, being made up of both vowels (*/a/, *ə) and the conditioned allophones [i] and [u] of the approximants */y/ and */w/. It then presents the reconstructed segments in terms of vowels, approximants, and consonants. It discusses the problematic phonetic nature of ‘schwa’ and its varying transcriptions. Root-and-pattern structure is then introduced, followed by a description of the diachronic process of root augmentation through petrified/fused morphological markers. Lastly, types and diachronic sources of ‘prosodies’ are described as ‘floating’ dis- and reassociated coarticulation features of segments.

Chapter 2 deals with methodological preliminaries and introduces the central theoretical concepts. It begins by outlining the extra-linguistic historical background regarding the present habitat of Central Chadic languages. It identifies the exceptional typology of Central Chadic languages, in particular regarding their enigmatic vocalic domain. The chapter introduces the problems of applying the classic comparative method and explains the value of internal reconstruction. It discusses problems of dealing with various formats of data transcription, and it introduces central notions such as vowel epenthesis, weak radicals, vocalisation, and prosodies. Finally, it positions the current study against the background of previous studies on the subject.