Chapter 5. Reconstructing the Niger-Congo Verb Extension Paradigm
What’s Cognate, Copied or Renewed?
You cannot reconstruct a language phylum unless you have good arguments about which language families it includes. The most striking case is Altaic, where one group of scholars produces thousands of reconstructed forms, and another denies that the major branches are even related. The most extreme case for Niger-Congo is Gerrit Dimmendaal’s 2011 book, which rejects numerous established branches and treats them as “independent”. (Blench 2012: 1)It is generally assumed that Proto-Niger-Congo (PNC) had a well-developed paradigm of verb-to-verb derivational suffixes known as verb extensions (Voeltz 1977; Hyman 2007). Specific language studies identify three types of extensions: valence increasing (e.g. causative, applicative, associative, instrumental), valence decreasing (e.g. reciprocal, reflexive, decausative, passive, stative) and valence neutral (e.g. intensive, attenuative, pluractional). Sometimes also implicated in the suffix system are inflectional suffixes marking aspect (e.g. (im)perfectivity)). Despite the assumption of such verb extensions at the PNC level, languages within the vast Niger-Congo family of ca. 1200 languages differ considerably: Some have very full paradigms of verb extensions, e.g. many Atlantic languages (Becher 2000) in the West and nearly all Bantu in the East (Meeussen 1967). Others have a limited subset of the above, only a few traces, or perhaps no verb extensions at all (e.g. much of Mande). This paper is concerned with strategies for determining whether the various reflexes of the causative, applicative etc are cognate, i.e. inherited from PNC, are copied directly or indirectly through external contact, or result from renewal via morphological cycles (Heath 1998). One problem is that head-marking and such verb extensions are found in all four of Greenberg’s (1963) original African macro-groups (Dimmendaal 2000: 187–188). Starting with Bantu and then moving out to other parts of Niger-Congo and bordering non-Niger-Congo, I address both the substantive and methodological issues involved in comparing phonetically and semantically similar verb suffixes and their linear ordering properties.
References
Aikhenvald, Alexandra Y
2011 Causatives which do not ‘cause’: On non-valency-increasing effects of valency-increasing derivations. In
Language at Large: Essays on Syntax and Semantics,
Alexandra Y. Aikhenvald &
Bob Dixon (eds), 86–142. Leiden: Brill.
Akumbu, Pius Wuchu
2008 Kejom (Babanki)-English Lexicon (Kay Williamson Educational Foundation). Bamenda.
Arnott, David Whithorn
1970 The Nominal and Verbal Systems of Fula. London: OUP.
Becher, Jutta
2000 Verbalextensionen in den Atlantischen Sprachen.
Hamburger Afrikanistische Arbeitspapiere 1: 1–36.
Bender, Lionel M
2000 Nilo-Saharan. In
African Languages: An Introduction,
Bernd Heine &
Derek Nurse (eds), 43–73. Cambridge: CUP.
Bila, Emmanuel Neba
1986 A Semantic-Syntactic Study of the Bafut Verb. PhD dissertation, Post-Graduate Diploma, U. Yaounde.
Blench, Roger
2011 Ngiemboon Verbal Extensions: A New Analysis. Cambridge: Kay Williamson Education Foundation.
Blench, Roger
2012 Niger-Congo: an alternative view.
[URL]
Bomhard, Allan R
2008 Reconstructing Proto-Nostratic: Comparative Phonology, Morphology and Vocabulary, 2 Vols. Leiden: Brill.
Bostoen, Koen
2008 Lexical reconstruction and early African history: Insights from Bantu crafts vocabulary and plant names. Powerpoint presentation.
[URL]
Boyd, Raymond
1995 De l’expression et de l’expressivité en morphologie: analyse comparée de la dérivation verbale en zande et en nzakala.
Afrikanistische Arbeitspapiere 43: 5–36.
Campbell, Lyle
1988 Review of Joseph H. Greenberg: Language in the Americas.
Language 64: 591–615.
Canu, Gaston
1976 La langue mò:rē. Paris: SELAF.
Cloirec-Heiss, France
1986 Dynamique et équilibre d’une syntaxe: Le banda-linda de Centrafrique. Publié par Cambridge University Press et les Éditions de la Maison des Sciences de l’Homme pour la SELAF.
Corbett, Greville G
2011 Number of genders. In
The World Atlas of Language Structures Online,
Matthew S. Dryer &
Martin Haspelmath (eds), Chapter 30. Munich: Max Planck Digital Library.
[URL] (9 February 2013).
Dimmendaal, Gerrit
1981 On verbal derivation in Nilotic: the case of Turkana. In
Nilo-Saharan: Proceedings of the First Nilo-Saharan Linguistics Colloquium
, Leiden, Sept. 8–10,
Thilo C. Schadeberg &
M. Lionel Bender (eds). Dordrecht: Foris.
Dimmendaal, Gerrit
2000.
Morphology. In
African Languages: An Introduction,
Bernd Heine &
Derek Nurse (eds), 161–192. Cambridge: CUP.
Doneux, Jean L
1975 Hypothèses pour la comparative des langues atlantiques.
Africana Linguistica 6: 41–129.
Eggert, Manfred K.H
2005 The Bantu problem and African archeology. In
African Archeology: A Critical Introduction[
Blackwell Studies in Global Archaeology 3],
Ann Brower Stahl (ed), 301–326. Malden MA: Blackwell.
Ehret, Christopher
2001 A Historical-Comparative Reconstruction of Nilo-Saharan. Cologne: Rüdiger Köppe.
Gerhardt, Ludwig
1988 Note on verbal extensions in Jarawan Bantu.
Journal of West African Languages 18: 3–8.
Givón, Talmy
1971 On the verbal origin of the Bantu verb suffixes.
Studies in African Linguistics 2: 145–163.
Greenberg, Joseph H
1963 The Languages of Africa. The Hague: Mouton.
Güldemann, Tom & Vossen, Rainer
2000 Khoisan. In
African Languages: An Introduction,
Bernd Heine &
Derek Nurse (eds), 99–122. Cambridge: CUP.
Hayward, Richard J
2000 Afroasiatic. In
African Languages: An Introduction,
Bernd Heine &
Derek Nurse (eds), 74–98. Cambridge: CUP.
Heath, Jeffrey
1998 Hermit crabs: Formal renewal of morphology by phonologically mediated affix substitution.
Language 74: 728–759.
Heath, Jeffrey et al.
2013 Dogon mediopassive and causative.
[URL] (14 February 2013).
Heine, Bernd & Reh, Mechthild
1984 Grammaticalization and Reanalysis in African Languages. Hamburg: Helmut Buske.
Heine, Bernd & Nurse, Derek
2000 African Languages: An Introduction. Cambridge: CUP.
Hoffmann, Carl
1963 A Grammar of the Margi Language. Oxford: OUP.
Hyman, Larry M
2003 Suffix ordering in Bantu: A morphocentric approach.
Yearbook of Morphology 2002: 245–281.
Hyman, Larry M
2007 Niger-Congo verb extensions: overview and discussion. In
Selected Proceedings of the 37th Annual Conference on African Linguistics,
Doris L. Payn &
Jaime Peña (eds), 149–163. Somerville MA: Cascadilla.
Hyman, Larry M
2011a The Macro-Sudan belt and Niger-Congo reconstruction.
Language Dynamics and Change 1: 1–47.
Hyman, Larry M
2011b Bantoid verb extensions. Presented at Workshop on Bantu and its Closest Relatives, 4th International Conference on Bantu Languages, Berlin, April 6–9, 2011. To appear in volume on Bantoid.
Jisa, Harriet
1977 Filecards of Babanki verbs.
Kanu, Sullay Mohamed
2004 Verbal Morphology of Temne. MA Thesis, University of Tromsø.
Kiessling, Roland
2004 Kausation, Wille und Wiederholung in der verbalen Derivation der westlichen Ring-Sprachen (Weh, Isu). In
Sprache und Wissen in Afrika,
Raimund Kastenholz &
Anne Storch (eds), 159–181. Köln: Rüdiger Köppe Verlag.
Kilian-Hatz, Christa
2005 Verbal derivation in Khwe (Central Khoisan).
Annual Publication in African Linguistics 2: 109–135.
Mbah, Boniface Monday & Mbah, Evelyn Ezinwanne
2012 Phonological features of verb compounds in Igbo.
Journal of West African Languages 39: 99–114.
McGill, Stuart John
2009 Gender and Person Agreement in Cicipu Discourse. PhD dissertation, School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London.
Meeussen, Achille E
1967 Bantu grammatical reconstructions.
Annales du Musée Royal de l’Afrique Centrale Tervuren 8: 80–121.
Mithun, MarianneThe reordering of morphemes
2000 In
Reconstructing Grammar [
Typological Studies in Language 43],
Spike Gildea (ed.), 231–255. Amsterdam: John Benjamins.
Ngum, Comfort Che
2004 Verbal Extensions in Meta. Maîtrise in Linguistics, University of Yaounde.
Nichols, Johanna
1986 Head marking and dependent marking.
Language 62: 56–119.
Rose, Sharon
2013 The morphological structure of the Moro verb. In
Nuba Mountain Language Studies,
Roger Blench &
Thilo C. Schadeberg (eds), 83–104. Köln: Rüdiger Köppe.
Schadeberg, Thilo
1981 The classification of the Kadugli language group. In
Nilo-Saharan,
Thilo C. Schadeberg &
M. Lionel Bender (eds), 291–305. Dordrecht: Foris.
Schadeberg, Thilo C
1989 Kordofanian. In
The Niger-Congo Language: A Classification and Description of Africa’s Largest Language Family,
John Bendor-Samuel (ed.), 66–80. Lanham MD: University Press of America.
Schadeberg, Thilo C
2003 Derivation. In
The Bantu languages,
Derek Nurse &
Gérard Philippson (eds), 71–89. London: Routledge.
Schadeberg, Thilo C
2011 The unique nature of the Niger-Congo noun class system, and a comparison of event participant marking in Bantu and Ebang (Kordofanian). Paper presented at the Fourth International Conference on Bantu Languages, Berlin.
Schaub, Willi
1985 Babungo.
[Croom Helm Descriptive Grammars.] Beckenham: Croom Helm.
Schneider-Blum, Gertud
2004 Verbal extensions in Alaaba.
Annual Publication in African Linguistics 2: 47–66.
Segerer, Guillaume
2002 La langue bijogo de Bubaque. Louvain: Peeters.
Stevenson, Roland C
2009 [1942 1943]
Tira and Otoro: Two Kordofanian Grammars by Roland C. Stevenson. Köln: Rüdiger Köppe.
Tamanji, Pius & Gabriel, Mba
2003 A morphological study of verbal extension in Bafut. In
Studies on Voice through Verbal Extensions in Nine Bantu languages spoken in Cameroon, Gabon, DRC and Rwanda,
Franck Idiata &
Gabriel Mba (eds), 15–38. Munich: LINCOM.
Thwing, Rhonda
2006 Verb extensions in Vute. Ms, SIL.
Trithart, Lee
1983 The Applied Suffix and Transitivity: A Historical Study in Bantu. PhD dissertation, University of California, Los Angeles.
Voeltz, Erhard
1977 Proto-Niger-Congo Extensions. PhD dissertation, University of California, Los Angeles.
Vossen, Rainer
1997 Die Khoe-Sprachen: ein Beitrag zur Erforschung der Sprachgeschichte Afrikas. Köln: Rüdiger Köppe Verlag.
Williamson, Kay & Blench, Roger
2000 Niger-Congo In
African Languages: An Introduction,
Bernd Heine &
Derek Nurse (eds), 11–42. Cambridge: CUP.
Wilson, William André Auquier
1989 Atlantic. In
The Niger-Congo Language: A Classification and Description of Africa’s Largest Language Family,
John Bendor-Samuel (ed.), 81–104. Lanham MD: University Press of America.
Cited by
Cited by 1 other publications
Dimmendaal, Gerrit J. & Anne Storch
2016.
Niger-Congo. In
Oxford Handbook Topics in Linguistics,
This list is based on CrossRef data as of 12 april 2024. Please note that it may not be complete. Sources presented here have been supplied by the respective publishers.
Any errors therein should be reported to them.