A Grammar of Ma'di

Mairi Blackings, Nigel Fabb

• Publisher: De Gruyter Mouton
• Year: 2011
• Print ISBN: 9783110179408
• eBook ISBN: 9783110894967
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Sprachen & Linguistik
• Subtopic: Sprachwissenschaft

This grammar provides one of the most detailed accounts available of the syntax of a Nilo-Saharan language. It fully describes some of the unusual characteristics of Ma'di, including the different word orders associated with different tenses, the particle-based modal and focus systems, the full range of adverbials, and the structure and meaning of the noun phrase. The grammar also describes the phonetics, phonology, morphology, and aspects of the lexicon of the language.

Table of contents

• 1. Introduction
• 1.1. The name of the language and of the people
• 1.2. Ethnology
• 1.3. Demography
• 1.4. Genetic affiliation
• 1.5. The sociolinguistic situation
• 1.6. Ma’di in print and on the radio
• 1.7. Dialects and clans
• 1.8. Previous research relating to Ma’di
• 2. An overview of Ma’di
• 2.1. Sound structure
• 2.2. Morphology and word classes
• 2.3. Inflected, uninflected and directive verbs
• 2.4. Arguments: subject and object
• 2.5. Noun phrases
• 2.6. Postposition phrases
• 2.7. Non-verbal clauses
• 2.8. Tense and aspect
• 2.9. Modality
• 2.10. Negation
• 2.11. Subordinate clauses
• 2.12. Focus strategies
• 2.13. Questions
• 2.14. Fixed final sentential elements
• 2.15. Freely placed sentential elements
• 2.16. Supra-sentential final elements
• 3. Phonetics
• 3.1. Consonants
• 3.2. Vowels
• 3.3. Syllable structure
• 3.4. Restrictions on consonant-vowel sequences
• 3.5. Tones
• 3.6. Notes on utterance-level prosody
• 3.7. Typical phonetic-level dialectal variations in cognates
• 3.8. Phonetic games (tongue twisters)
• 4. Phonology and Morphology
• 4.1. Vowel harmony for the Advanced Tongue Root feature (ATR)
• 4.2. Vowel assimilation and vowel deletion
• 4.3. Tone deletion and tone raising
• 4.4. Phonological processes affecting consonants
• 4.5. The general morphology of Ma’di words
• 5. Verbs
• 5.1. Morphology of verbs
• 5.2. Some syntactic classes of verbs
• 5.3. The subject as the patient of a transitive predicate
• 6. Other word classes
• 6.1. Nouns
• 6.2. Adjectives
• 6.3. Postpositions
• 6.4. Pronominals
• 6.5. Determiners: articles and demonstratives
• 6.6. Adverbials
• 6.7. Numerals
• 6.8. Interjections and other one-word utterances
• 7. The uninflected verb
• 7.1. The uninflected verb in comparison with other types of verb
• 7.2. Subject
• 7.3. Object
• 7.4. Interpretation
• 7.5. The ‘termination’ constraint
• 7.6. Dialectal variation: ’Burulo
• 8. The inflected verb
• 8.1. The form of the verb
• 8.2. Subject
• 8.3. Object
• 8.4. Interpretation
• 8.5. Dialectal variation: ’Burulo
• 9. The directive verb
• 9.1. The directive verb
• 9.2. Subject
• 9.3. Object
• 9.4. Interpretation
• 9.5. The directive verb compared with the uninflected and inflected verbs
• 9.6. Dialectal variation: ’Burulo
• 9.7. The form which we call ‘directive’ is called ‘subjunctive’ by Tucker
• 10. Suffixed subordinate verbs
• 10.1. The morphology of the suffixed verb
• 10.2. Verbs suffixed with rε̄ (and ɓá)
• 10.3. Verbs suffixed with lέ
• 10.4. Verbs suffixed with dʒɔ́
• 10.5. Verbs suffixed with -kā
• 10.6. Other syntactic characteristics of clauses with suffixed verbs
• 10.7. Dialectal variation
• 11. Sentences with nonverbal predicates
• 11.1. The predicate
• 11.2. Subject and adjoined subject of the nonverbal predicate
• 11.3. Sentential modifiers in the nonverbal clause
• 11.4. Tense
• 11.5. Sentences with nonverbal predicates as complements to verbs
• 11.6. The use of drʊ̄ with a nonverbal predicate
• 12. Noun phrases
• 12.1. Overview: the structure of noun phrases and their interpretation
• 12.2. Bare indefinite
• 12.3. zì-phrase (with the indefinite determiner zì)
• 12.4. Personal Names
• 12.5. Place names
• 12.6. LOW-phrase (with the low tone suffix which is a specific definite determiner)
• 12.7. Demonstrative phrases
• 12.8. rɨ̀-phrase (distal discourse determiner rɨ̀)
• 12.9. uā-phrase (with proximal discourse determiner nā)
• 12.10. The addition of specificity to definite noun phrases
• 13. Modification of the noun (including possession)
• 13.1. Premodifiers
• 13.2. Postmodifiers
• 13.3. A ‘separable’ modifier: the drɨ́-phrase
• 14. Nonsingular noun phrases
• 14.1. The number of the subject
• 14.2. Adjunction to pɨ̄
• 14.3. Conjunction of noun phrases (and other constituents)
• 14.4. Quantifiers
• 14.5. Numerals
• 15. Postposition phrases and other location expressions
• 15.1. Postpositions and their complements
• 15.2. Syntactic locations of postposition phrases
• 15.3. sɨ̀ : source
• 15.4. drɨ́: temporary location (at, to)
• 15.5. ʔà: possession
• 15.6. gá: location at or to
• 15.7. nɨ́: benefactive
• 15.8. trɔ̀: with
• 15.9. à-phrases as locational expressions
• 15.10. ʔā ‘in the centre of’ (Ugandan Ma’di)
• 15.11. Lexical nouns which express location
• 15.12. ‘Grammatical’ location nouns
• 15.13. Location pronominals
• 15.14. Modifiers of location expressions
• 16. Verbs and clausal complements
• 16.1. The syntactic location of clausal complements
• 16.2. Lexical verbs which take full clausal complements
• 16.3. Lexical verbs which take suffixed clausal complements
• 16.4. Grammatical verbs (with full clausal complements) which express sequence
• 16.5. Grammatical nì: consequence
• 16.6. Grammatical mū and tʃā: something is going to happen
• 16.7. (Grammatical) fʊ̀: consequential non-occurrence
• 16.8. (Grammatical) kɔ̄: prospective
• 16.9. (Grammatical) zɨ̄: simultaneous action
• 16.10. (Grammatical) rɨ̀: past habitual
• 16.11. (Grammatical) āpá: something almost happened
• 16.12. Coreference involving arguments in different clauses
• 17. Modals and negation
• 17.1. rá: affirmation, certainty
• 17.2. wà: possibility
• 17.3. kpέ: non-possibility
• 17.4. Negation: kʊ (nonpast) and kʊ̄rʊ̀ (past)
• 18. Adverbials
• 18.1 Freely placed adverbials
• 18.2 Fixed final adverbials
• 18.3 Temporal nouns
• 18.4 Sentence-initial adverbials
• 18.5 Adverbials with a discourse function
• 18.6 Subordinate clauses which function as adverbials
• 19. Focus
• 19.1 Order and realization of arguments, and information structure
• 19.2 Null focus
• 19.3 Focus particle ʔɨ̄
• 19.4 Object focus particle áʊ̄
• 19.5 Focus particle nɨ̀̀̀
• 19.6 The object focus strategies compared
• 19.7 Similarities between focus on an object and nonverbal predication
• 19.8 The LOW-ʔɨ̄ focus strategy
• 19.9 The use of sáà ‘even’ in focus constructions
• 19.10 Focus and the bare modal/negation particle
• 19.11 Focus and Modals/negation/adverbial + rɨ̀
• 19.12 Focus on the verb
• 19.13 Sentences with multiple focus
• 20. Questions
• 20.1. Information (‘wh-’) questions
• 20.2. Information (‘wh-’) questions in subordinate clauses
• 20.3. Yes-no questions
• 20.4. Implicatures of certain questioning strategies
• 21. Lexicon
• 21.1. Word list
• 21.2. Some lexical classes of verbs
• 21.3. Some lexical classes of nouns
• 21.4. Colour adjectives
• 22. Texts
• 22.1 Hare, Caragule, and the water dance
• 22.2 Fines and violations
• References
• Index