1996
XXII, 273 pp.
3 maps, 2 diagrams, numerous tables
Text language: French
Bankon is spoken by about 12,000 people in the West of Cameroon (SIL: 2001), north of Douala, and was classified by Guthrie as A.40 (Equatorial Bantu). The present detailed description is the result of several years’ linguistic research in Cameroon and is meant to preserve the Bankon language from being displaced by the more frequent Douala.
As linguistic model, the author uses the autosegmental theory, developed by the generative transformational grammar. This approach has the advantage of being at the same time a descriptive and an explicative description of a language. The author analyses the phonology, the nominal and verbal morphology and the tonology of Bankon. The phenomenon of tone shift is discussed in detail.
Under these links you will find descriptions of further Cameroonian Bantu and Grassfields Bantu languages:
