Includes bibliographical references and index.

List of Tables -- Symbols and Abbreviations -- 1 Introduction -- 1.1 The Cangin Languages -- 1.2 Sources -- 1.3 Comparison with Drolc (2005) -- 2 Phonology -- 2.1 Consonants -- 2.2 Vowels -- 2.3 Phonotactics and Borrowing -- 2.4 Summary of Sound Changes -- 3 Nominal Morphology -- 3.1 Noun Class Morphology -- 3.2 Determiners -- 3.3 Numerals -- 3.4 Derivational Suffixes -- 3.5 Summary -- 4 Verbal Morphology -- 4.1 Pronouns -- 4.2 Inflectional Morphology -- 4.3 Derivational Suffixes -- 4.4 Summary -- 5 Cangin in an Areal and Niger-Congo Context -- 5.1 Phonology -- 5.2 Noun Class -- 5.3 Verbal Derivational Suffixes -- 5.4 The Place of Cangin within Niger-Congo -- 5.5 Conclusion -- Appendix 1: Proto-Cangin Lexical Reconstructions -- Appendix 2: Outside Cognates -- References -- Index.

The Cangin languages of Senegal remained hidden from linguists for years, and have only recently been seriously documented. This book traces the history of the Cangin languages, and presents a reconstruction of Proto-Cangin through careful application of historical linguistic methods. This is one of few in-depth historical treatments of a West African language family, and takes into account all existing sources, including previously unpublished data from my own work on Noon. The reconstruction of Proto-Cangin reveals a number of important features now obscured in the modern languages, including a surprisingly rich inventory of noun class prefixes, which are of great importance to the study of the world’s largest language family, Niger-Congo. Included is a catalogue of over 600 Proto-Cangin reconstructions.

English

Description based on print version record.