Case in AfricaThis book provides a typological overview of the different manifestations of grammaticalized case systems in African languages. After defining and distinguishing case systems, Christa König begins a thorough analysis of case in roughly 100 African languages and reveals several features, such as tone as a marker for case and the marked-nominative system, which are rare phenomena in other languages of the world. Wherever possible, the author takes into account data from her own substantial and highly regarded field research. The book provides answers to questions such as the following: What is the relationship between definiteness and case. Are case phenomena areally or genetically motivated? Why are case distinctions neutralized in nearly all case languages with verb initial or verb medial word order? Which grammaticalizations appear with case? What is the relationship between topics and nominative cases, or focus and accusative cases? |
Contents
1 Introduction | 1 |
2 Accusative | 36 |
3 Ergativity | 95 |
4 Markednominative | 138 |
5 Special phenomena | 204 |
6 Conclusions | 283 |
Appendix I Case in Africa | 290 |
Appendix II Genealogical overview of case languages in Africa | 292 |
Terminology | 302 |
| 309 | |
| 325 | |
| 329 | |
| 335 | |
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Common terms and phrases
accusative languages accusative pattern accusative system adpositions Africa Afroasiatic Aikhenvald Andersen Anywa augment Bantu languages Berber languages bound pronouns citation form clause types constituent order constructions copula core participants Cushitic languages definite marker definite nouns Dhaasanac Dimmendaal Dinka East Cushitic East Cushitic languages encoded ergative case marker ergative languages ergative marker ergative pattern ergative system example expressed by tone focus clauses functions genetically genitive grammaticalized Hutchison indefinite inflexion initial H intransitive Jur-Luwo Kanuri Kemantney locative Lukas marked nominative marked-nominative languages marked-nominative system Masalit Miller and Gilley morphologically unmarked form Nilo-Saharan Nilotic languages nominal predicate nominative and accusative NP-initial clauses object obligatory occurs Omotic Omotic languages Päri passive clauses peripheral participants personal pronouns plural postpositions pragmatic preposition presented preverbal Saharan languages Schadeberg Shilluk suffix Surmic Surmic languages syntactic Table Tennet third person Toposa Tosco Turkana Umbundu verb verb-initial clauses verb-medial verbal vowel West Nilotic