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Mouton Grammar Library A Grammar of Ma'di Brought to you by | University of Sussex Authenticated | 172.16.1.226 Download Date | 7/29/12 7:52 PM Mouton Grammar Library 32 Editors Georg Bossong Bernard Comrie Matthew Dryer Mouton de Gruyter Berlin · New York Brought to you by | University of Sussex Authenticated | 172.16.1.226 Download Date | 7/29/12 7:52 PM A Grammar of Ma'di by Mairi Blackings Nigel Fabb 2003 Mouton de Gruyter Berlin · New York Brought to you by | University of Sussex Authenticated | 172.16.1.226 Download Date | 7/29/12 7:52 PM Mouton de Gruyter (formerly Mouton, The Hague) is a Division of Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co. KG, Berlin. © Printed on acid-free paper which falls within the guidelines of the ANSI to ensure permanence and durability. ISBN 3 11 017940 7 Bibliographic information published by Die Deutsche Bibliothek Die Deutsche Bibliothek lists this publication in the Deutsche Nationalbibliografie; detailed bibliographic data is available in the Internet at <http://dnb.ddb.de>. © Copyright 2003 by Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co. KG, D-10785 Berlin. All rights reserved, including those of translation into foreign languages. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopy, recording or any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher. Printed in Germany. Brought to you by | University of Sussex Authenticated | 172.16.1.226 Download Date | 7/29/12 7:52 PM To my late dad, Tadeo Nduru and my mother Malyamu Yakobo Yanga who in between them spoke more languages than I would ever. I would also like to dedicate this work to the family of my late brother in law, Jospeh Kebulu MP whose tragedy typified that of many Ma'dis both in the Sudan and in Uganda at the turn of the last century. Joseph Kebulu was dragged out of a public bus while on an election campaign and shot in full view of the rest of the passengers and in broad day light. His widowed wife, my sister, Cecilia Kebulu was blown to pieces when a hound hit her during the numerous shellings of Juba. Their son, John Kebulu, 'disappeared' when he was picked up by the security forces for interrogations in Juba and nothing was heard of him since then. Mairi Blackings Brought to you by | University of Sussex Authenticated | 172.16.1.226 Download Date | 7/29/12 7:52 PM Brought to you by | University of Sussex Authenticated | 172.16.1.226 Download Date | 7/29/12 7:52 PM Acknowledgements As our consultants, we thank Joseph Lagu, Ben Katoro, Betty Katoro, Rose Ti'bi, Peter Ti'bi, Inyani Murusali, Remigious Andruga, Antonieta Valfredo, Victor Vuni Joseph. We thank Lamin Joseph for sending materials, Amadra ori Okido for providing most of the material on Ugandan Ma'di, and Alfred Mondi who also sent material. We are grateful to Christina Ayo for her folktale, and to the following Ma'di elders Marko Espico, Yaba Franiko Olali, and Yaba Paulino Monyoro for participating in the discussion on marriage. We thank the Ma'di Community in Britain and the Association in Britain MEHWA. We owe a particular debt to Martin Ettore. We also thank Didier Demolin, Matthew Dryer, Caroline Heycock, Richard Larson, Peggy Speas; Janet Fabb for help with proofreading and formatting; our editor, Bernard Comrie; and Ursula Kleinhenz at Mouton de Gruyter. We have presented material from this grammar at various meetings of the Linguistics Association of Great Britain, the Linguistic Society of America, and the North East Syntax Seminar. The Society for the Protection of Science and Learning provided aid to Mairi Blackings in the form of a book allowance and the cost of local transport within the UK. The University of Strathclyde provided financial support for part of Mairi Blackings' research on this grammar, and both the University and the Department of English Studies have helpfully supported our work on this project over the past ten years. Publication of this book was enabled by a grant from the Carnegie Trust for the Universities of Scotland, and by a grant from the University of Strathclyde Research and Development Fund. Brought to you by | University of Sussex Authenticated | 172.16.1.226 Download Date | 7/29/12 7:52 PM Brought to you by | University of Sussex Authenticated | 172.16.1.226 Download Date | 7/29/12 7:52 PM Table of Contents 1. Introduction 1 1.1. The name of the language and of the people 1 1.2. Ethnology 2 1.3. Demography 3 1.4. Genetic affiliation 4 1.5. The sociolinguistic situation 4 1.6. Ma' di in print and on the radio 5 1.7. Dialects and clans 7 1.8. Previous research relating to Ma'di 10 2. An overview of Ma'di 13 2.1. Sound structure 13 2.2. Morphology and word classes 13 2.3. Inflected, uninfected and directive verbs 13 2.4. Arguments: subject and object 15 2.5. Noun phrases 16 2.6. Postposition phrases 18 2.7. Non-verbal clauses 18 2.8. Tense and aspect 19 2.9. Modality 19 2.10. Negation 20 2.11. Subordinate clauses 21 2.12. Focus strategies 23 2.13. Questions 25 2.14. Fixed final sentential elements 25 2.15. Freely placed sentential elements 26 2.16. Supra-sentential final elements 26 3. Phonetics 27 3.1. Consonants 27 3.2. Vowels 33 3.3. Syllable structure 34 3.4. Restrictions on consonant-vowel sequences 35 3.5. Tones 37 3.6. Notes on utterance-level prosody 42 3.7. Typical phonetic-level dialectal variations in cognates 44 3.8. Phonetic games (tongue twisters) 45 4. Phonology and Morphology 47 4.1. Vowel harmony for the Advanced Tongue Root feature (ATR) 47 Brought to you by | University of Sussex Authenticated | 172.16.1.226 Download Date | 7/29/12 7:52 PM χ Table of Contents 4.2. Vowel assimilation and vowel deletion 53 4.3. Tone deletion and tone raising 57 4.4. Phonological processes affecting consonants 63 4.5. The general morphology of Ma'di words 65 5. Verbs 71 5.1. Morphology of verbs 71 5.2. Some syntactic classes of verbs 84 5.3. The subject as the patient of a transitive predicate 88 6. Other word classes 97 6.1. Nouns 97 6.2. Adjectives 104 6.3. Postpositions 107 6.4. Pronominals 108 6.5. Determiners: articles and demonstratives 123 6.6. Adverbials 124 6.7. Numerals 128 6.8. Interjections and other one-word utterances 132 7. The uninflected verb 133 7.1. The uninflected verb in comparison with other types of verb 133 7.2. Subject 133 7.3. Object 139 7.4. Interpretation 140 7.5. The 'termination' constraint 146 7.6. Dialectal variation: 'Burulo 152 8. The inflected verb 155 8.1. The form of the verb 155 8.2. Subject 156 8.3. Object 160 8.4. Interpretation 164 8.5. Dialectal variation: 'Burulo 174 9. The directive verb 177 9.1. The directive verb 177 9.2. Subject 178 9.3. Object 182 9.4. Interpretation 183 9.5. The directive verb compared with the uninflected and inflected verbs 186 9.6. Dialectal variation: 'Burulo 186 9.7. The form which we call 'directive' is called 'subjunctive' by Tucker 189 Brought to you by | University of Sussex Authenticated | 172.16.1.226 Download Date | 7/29/12 7:52 PM