Reviewed by Michael W. Morgan, Indira Gandhi National Open University
This book opens with an introduction, in which Gerrit Dimendaal lays out several basic issues regarding participant coding: the distinction between core and peripheral constituents; the role of event structure and how it is framed in a language, case-marking and head-marking strategies (and cases where neither head nor dependent is marked), case alignment types (including ergativity, which until recently was thought absent among African languages), issues involving part-of-speech categorization (especially the ‘fuzziness’ of the noun-verb distinction), the role of constituent order, and the interaction of syntax and pragmatics.
A remarkable range of languages is covered in this book, balanced by geography, morphological type, and genetic affiliation. Chapters by Christa König on !Xun and Christa Kilian-Hatz on Khwe describe Khoisan languages, which, while both spoken in the Namibia, Botswana, and Angola border areas, differ notably. While both have core arguments unmarked (!Xun) or optionally marked (Khwe) but nevertheless allow for the omission of one or both main core arguments, !Xun is an isolating non-Khoe language, and Khwe a suffixing Khoe language.
Nilo-Saharan languages are represented in Christa König’s chapteron Ik, a Kuliak language of Uganda, and by Gerrit Dimendaal on Tama, an Eastern Sudanic language of Chad and Sudan. Ik is a verb-subject-object (VSO) language, with perhaps Africa’s most elaborate, albeit highly defective, case system. Accusative alignment competes with no alignment, distributed through five construction types. Tama has both subject-object-verb (SOV) and object-subject-verb (OSV) word orders (depending on assertive focus), extensive clitic case-marking, and has general dependent-marking, but head-marked subjects and differential object-marking.
From the Afro-Asiatic family, three Ethiopian languages are represented: one Highland-East Cushitic, Alaaba, by Gertrud Schneider-Blum; and two Omotic, Haro by Hirut Woldemariam, and Wolaitta by Azeb Amha. All three languages are basically SOV and agglutinative, and while all three employ case, subject-indexing, and word order to establish core arguments, Haro is notable with case-marking only assigned to definites and definites unmarkable for focus.
Three Niger-Congo languages are presented, each from a different branch. Anne Storch describes Hone, a Jukun, East Benue-Congo language of Nigeria with poor noun and verb inflection. Felix K. Ameka describes Likpe, a Kwa language of Ghana, which uses word order supported by cross-referencing of subject, and with different event structure perspectives employing specific constructions and coding devices. Makonde (Peter Kraal) is a Bantu language of Tanzania and Mozambique with typical Bantu noun-class agreement, but with a distinctive system of conjoint/disjoint verb forms.
Finally there are two languages with disputed genetic affiliation, although both are often classed as Niger-Congo. The Central Mande language Jalonke of Guinea (Friederike Lübke) has grammatical relations rigidly marked by word order, but also presents strong evidence for lexical (versus constructional) specification of argument structure. Tima of Sudan (Gerrit Dimendaal), possibly an isolate or Kordofanian, has three sets of subject-marking prefixes/enclitics (and double markings when specific tense-aspect markers are present) but is most notable for its split ergativity.
The chapters in this book have a comforting uniformity in organization and content, covering all pertinent aspects of noun and verb morphosyntax, with specific focus governed by the genius of each respective language. In addition, each chapter provides an introduction to the language and its speakers (including maps and discussion of genetic affiliation, dialects, sociolinguistic issues, and relations with neighboring languages), and a short typological overview, making each chapter a short reference grammar.
The languages discussed demonstrate that a broad range of strategies are deployed across Africa to mark argument structure and participant coding, with certain dedicated constructions and patterns in some languages, and with considerable pragmatic and semantic flexibility in others. This book and the language descriptions found within will be valuable to Africanists, language typologists, and morphosyntacticians alike.