A grammar of Tadaksahak a northern Songhay language of Mali

Christiansen-Bolli, R. (2010)

Doctoral Thesis

This dissertation is a descriptive grammar of the language Tadaksahak spoken by about 30,000 people living in the most eastern part of Mali. The four chapters of the book give 1. Information about the background of the group. 2. The phonological features of the language with the inventory of the phonemes and the observed sound rules. 3. The description of the morphology. It is shown that verbal derivation pulls on unrelated Tamasheq for causative, reciprocal and middle as well as passive. In addition, any verb root that is of Songhay origin is suppleted when derived and a semantic equivalent of Tamasheq origin takes its place. Another non-Songhay feature concerns inflection where the subject pronoun cliticizes to the verb and is always present even when a noun phrase holds the subject slot. The nominalization strategy used depends on the etymology of the term, a feature paralleled in the formation of adjectives. 4. Basic syntax. Noun phrases, simple clauses, focalization and topicalization, question words with their syntax, complement clauses and the two possible relativization strategies as well as subordinate clauses are described. The appendixes provide texts with glosses, lists of verb roots with their suppletions when derived, and two differently organized wordlists.

• Etymology
• Language contact
• Suppletion (verb)

• All authors: Christiansen-Bolli, R.
• Supervisor: Mous, M.
• Co-supervisor: Kossmann, M.G.
• Qualification: Doctor (dr.)
• Awarding Institution: Faculty of Humanities, Leiden University
• Date: 2010-03-31
• Title of host publication: Berber Studies
• ISBN (print): 9783896459312
• Name: 31
• Court: LEI Universiteit Leiden
• Sponsorship: NWO (Netherlands Organization for Scientific Research) research project “Tuareg and the Central Sahelian Languages, A History of Language Contact”