A Grammar of Mani

Description

This book provides a complete grammar of the Mani language spoken in the Samu (alternate French spelling “Samou”) region of Sierra Leone and Guinea. The data come from a short pilot study conducted in 2000, and a larger study taking place over two years 2004-2006. That the Mani language will soon disappear is certain; just as certain is that this grammar will be the only one ever written. Acknowledgements Dedication Preface Conventions, abbreviations and symbols used Conventions Abbreviations Chapter 1: Introduction 1. Project location 2. Mani nomenclature 3. Demographics 4. Classification 5. Historical background 6. Pilot study: Language assessment survey (2000) 7. The Mani Documentation Project (2004–06) 8. Typological overview Chapter 2: Phonemic inventory 1. The consonants of Mani 2. The vowels of Mani 3. Syllabic nasals Chapter 3: Prosody 1. Nasalization 2. Syllable structure 3. Syllable-structure changes 4. Tone 5. Intonation Chapter 4: Word categories 1. Nouns 2. Names 3. Pronouns 3.1 Personal pronouns 3.2 Noun class pronouns 3.3 Demonstrative pronouns 3.4 Indefinite and locative pronouns 3.5 Reflexivity and reciprocity 4. Numbers 5. Adjectives and related forms 5.1 Adjectives 5.2 Demonstrative adjectives 5.3 Articles 5.4 Quantifiers and ordinal numbers 6. Verbs and verbal forms 7. The Copula 8. Adverbs 9. Ideophones 10. Adpositions 11. Conjunctions 12. Particles Chapter 5: Some remarks on semantics 1. Family relations 2. Mental and bodily states 3. Time words 4. Mood Chapter 6: The noun class system 1. The wɔ class 2. The ŋα class (human plurals) 3. The lε class 4. The sα class (animal plurals) and animate concord 5. The nyε class 6. The tα class (inanimate plurals) 7. The mα class 8. The noun-like indefinite pronoun pε 9. Final comments on the noun class system Chapter 7: Verbal morphology 1. Habitual 2. Perfective 3. Imperfective 4. Past 5. Hortative 6. Negative 7. Co-occurrence of kα and ce (summarized) 8. Other verbal matters Chapter 8: Derivational morphology 1. Verb extensions 1.1 Benefactive 1.2 Causative 1.3 Stative 1.4 Completive 1.5 Middle 1.6 Pluractional reduplication 1.7 Final comments on verb extensions 2. Other derivational processes 2.1 Adjectivalization 2.2 Nominalization 2.3 Masculine and feminine nouns / animals 2.4 Adverbialization Chapter 9: Compounding Chapter 10: Phrase-level syntax 1. The noun phrase 1.1 Possession 1.2 Attributive constructions 1.3 Distributive 2. The verb phrase 2.1 i Insertion 2.2 Split predicates, the S-Aux-O-V-X syntagm 2.3 The Inner VP 3. The adpositional phrase Chapter 11: Clause-level syntax 1. Questions 2. Focus 3. Comparative constructions 4. Topicalization Chapter 12: Subordination and coordination 1. Embedding 2. Relativization 3. Subordinate clauses 4. Coordination Chapter 13: Discourse and pragmatics 1. Discourse particles 2. Salutations, politeness formulae, terms of address Appendices Appendix 1: Texts “How to fish on the open sea” A section from a Mani history “Tomro and the hippopotamus” A Mani lullaby Some Mani proverbs Some Mani insults Appendix 2: Pedagogical materials Sample pages from a Mani primer (Childs 2007) Story from a Mani primer Notes References Index