A Grammar of Mbembe

Book excerpt: A Grammar of Mbembe is a description of a little studied Jukunoid language which is spoken in the borderland of Nigeria and Cameroon. Present-day structures of different dialects are described and discussed with respect to diachronic developments. It is based on extensive fieldwork, but also takes into consideration previous work on Mbembe and other Jukunoid languages. The main topics in the chapters on the noun phrase and the verb and simple sentence structures are nominal classification and number marking based on Ablaut phenomena and tone, argument structure, and serial verb constructions. The remaining chapters cover phonology, complex structures, information structure and requesting information, and other word classes. This is complemented by example texts and a word list in the appendix.