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This is the first broad, detailed grammar of the Giziga language, which belongs to the Chadic branch of the Afro-Asiatic language family and is spoken in parts of the Far North Region of the Republic of Cameroon.

The volume consists of papers prepared for the International Symposium of Chadic Linguistics (Boulder, Colorado, May 1-2, 1987). Although the papers are representative of the current work being done in the field of Chadic linguistics, they also reflect the current and past interests and methodologies of general linguistics. The papers included in the volume should therefore be of interest to a general linguist as much as to the Chadicist or a specialist in some other Afroasiatic branch. The papers are grouped by the areas of linguistic fields and methodologies. Papers on syntax are followed by papers on morphology, phonology, and methodology of historical reconstruction.

We present novel evidence for iconicity in core morphophonological grammar by documenting, describing, and analysing two patterns of tonal alternation in Tal (West Chadic, Nigeria). When a non-proximal deixis modifies a noun in Tal, every tone of the modified noun is lowered. When the nominal modifier is a proximal deixis, the final tone of the modified noun is raised. The tone lowering and raising are considered the effects of non-proximal and proximal linkers, which have the tone features [–Upper, –Raised] and [+Raised] as their respective exponents. The realisation and maximal extension of the non-proximal tone features are considered effects of morpheme-specific featural correspondence constraints. Similarly, the exponent of the proximal linker docking on the final TBU is due to the relative ranking of the proximal-specific correspondence constraints. The association of the tone features [–Upper, –Raised] and [+Raised] with non-proximal and proximal linkers, respectively, is in line with crosslinguistic patterns of magnitude iconicity. Given that the local and long-distance realisations of the proximal and non-proximal featural affixes respectively are perceptually similar to deictic gestures, the locality of the featural affixation is considered a novel pattern of iconicity. To motivate this pattern of iconicity, we extend the notion of perceptual motivation in linguistic theory to include the crossmodal depiction of sensory imagery. Consequently, Tal presents evidence for iconicity as a motivation for morphophonological grammar.

This paper examines the structural similarities between English and Chadian languages. Chad is a country in Sub Sahara Africa that exhibits a linguistic heterogeneous situation. The estimate of the number of indigenous languages and dialects spoken in Chad is 180. Thus, the languages chosen for the purpose of this study are Ngambay, Mundand, Musey, Tupuri, and Chadian Arabic. It should be noted that all these languages are not only spoken, but they are also written and used for literary education. In addition, English is a foreign language. It is taught as a subject in secondary schools and as a course at universities. French and Arabic are official languages. So, Chadian students studying English therefore have a complex linguistic background. A case in point concerns students of the Higher Teachers’ Training School in N’Djamena. This paper therefore is an attempt to compare the structure of English with the students’ mother tongues in written production. The Chadian National Alphabet has been used for the transcription of the students’ indigenous languages. The Contrastive Analysis theory has also been adopted to compare the structures of these languages. In a linguistically multi-setting like Chad, it is important to attempt to bring languages closer in order to identify the differences and similarities between them from the point of view of their structures, and problematic linguistic areas that prevent students from learning English successfully. But it is found that students’ mother tongues do not pose any problem, in contrast to French language that has been used in education.

This study examines the structure of conditional constructions in Buwal and their functions. Conditionals in Buwal can be divided into four major categories according to how they are marked: possible, counterfactual, necessary and concessive. Possible conditionals include both reality and unreality conditionals. The usual order is for the protasis to precede the apodosis, but the reverse order is also possible. All types of tense/aspect marking are possible in both the protasis and the apodosis with variations arising from semantic rather than grammatical restrictions. The possible conditional marker can also function as a temporal marker in certain contexts. In a conditional construction, the protasis provides a framework or background for the apodosis.

In A Grammar of Makary Kotoko, Sean Allison provides a thorough description of Makary Kotoko - a Chadic language of Cameroon, framing the discussion within R.M.W. Dixon's functional/typological approach known as Basic Linguistic Theory.

The paper is a new contribution to revealing the Afro-Asiatic heritage in the lexicon of the Dangla-Migama group of Chadic languages by means of interbranch comparison using a.o. the ancient Egypto-Semitic evidence.

The paper is a new contribution to revealing the Afro-Asiatic heritage in the lexicon of the Angas-Sura group of Chadic languages by means of interbranch comparison using a.o. the ancient Egypto-Semitic evidence.

This article attempts to provide a description of topic constructions in the Guiziga language within the cartographic framework. Data for this work were collected using both the primary and secondary source. The analyses reveal that this language does not select topicalizers as it is the case in other Chadic languages (Bebey 2015 and 2018). It also demonstrates that the topicalized constituents undergo an upward movement to land in the Spec,Top, while it leaves an empty trace in the original position. The language tolerates multiple Topic Phrases (TopP) in the sentence left periphery.  Also, it is demonstrated that the subject –NP involves the apparition of the presumptive pronoun given the prominence of the latter. At the semantic level, the article indicates that topics in Guiziga are revelations about old information, rather than simple old information.

The volume consists of papers prepared for the International Symposium of Chadic Linguistics (Boulder, Colorado, May 1-2, 1987). Although the papers are representative of the current work being done in the field of Chadic linguistics, they also reflect the current and past interests and methodologies of general linguistics. The papers included in the volume should therefore be of interest to a general linguist as much as to the Chadicist or a specialist in some other Afroasiatic branch. The papers are grouped by the areas of linguistic fields and methodologies. Papers on syntax are followed by papers on morphology, phonology, and methodology of historical reconstruction.