![]() ![]() The language exhibits a number of interesting features, reflecting its Chadic roots, in the domain of Tense, Aspect and Mood (TAM). Mada is a Central-Chadic language spoken in the Far-North Region of Cameroon. 1995), it is argued that the present-day function of this second construction goes back to the restriction of the ambiguous simple present to a habitual/generic reading plus the semanticization of a future-oriented implicature. Drawing on data from languages of the wider area and on findings from formal semantics (e.g. The second configuration in question features the prefix of this new present plus a general imperfective suffix -aga, yielding a non-compositional future-oriented modal meaning. Based on Haspelmath (1998), it is argued that the specialization of this construction to narrative discourse is a side-effect of the advanced grammaticalization of a new present tense construction marked by a prefix (i)kʊ-…-FV. The first configuration constitutes a dedicated narrative paradigm whose shape lɪnkʊ-.-FV resembles a present progressive or simple present widespread across Bantu (Bastin 1989a, 1989b). In this paper, two verbal configurations in Nyakyusa, a Bantu language of southern Tanzania (Guthrie-Code M31), are discussed with regard their synchronic meaning and use and their diachronic origins. ![]()
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