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2 - Methodological Preliminaries

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  26 May 2022

H. Ekkehard Wolff
H. Ekkehard Wolff
Affiliation:
Universität Leipzig
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Summary

Chapter 2 deals with methodological preliminaries and introduces the central theoretical concepts. It begins by outlining the extra-linguistic historical background regarding the present habitat of Central Chadic languages. It identifies the exceptional typology of Central Chadic languages, in particular regarding their enigmatic vocalic domain. The chapter introduces the problems of applying the classic comparative method and explains the value of internal reconstruction. It discusses problems of dealing with various formats of data transcription, and it introduces central notions such as vowel epenthesis, weak radicals, vocalisation, and prosodies. Finally, it positions the current study against the background of previous studies on the subject.

Keywords

Historical backgroundlanguage typologyvocalic domaincomparative methodinternal reconstructiontranscriptionsvowel epenthesisweak radicalsvocalisationprosodies
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Chapter
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A Historical Phonology of Central Chadic
Prosodies and Lexical Reconstruction
 , pp. 27 - 75
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2022

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