1994
XX, 312 pp.
Appendix: 1. Originaltext der Rede des Kwami-Königs, 2. Schematisierte Verbreitungskarte der Kwami und ihrer beiden Dialekte
Text language: German
The present work is the first grammatical description of Kwami, a Chadic language belonging to the Bole-Tangale sub-group (Western Chadic A.2). Kwami is the first language of approximatively 15,000 speakers (1994) in north-eastern Nigeria. Following the introduction which gives an overview of the history, the sociolinguistic situation of the Kwami, the material and methods used, the author describes the phonological and tonal system of the language. Kwami is a tonal language with both lexical and grammatical tone, which are described exhaustively, including tonal rules and variations.
The greatest emphasis is placed on morphology and syntax. Linguists will find in this description both a number of features of universal significance as well as many typological pecularities attested to other Chadic languages. The Kwami language does not have gender differentiation in the plural. There is no strong distinction between nouns and adjectives. Nouns have no exponents of grammatical gender. Like in Hausa, there are many methods of plural formation, but plural forms are rarely used, especially when plurality is expressed in another way.
Under these links you will find descriptions of further Nigerian languages of various language families:
