5 - Hidden Reflexes of Proto-Afroasiatic Language Features

Summary

Chapter 5 looks at hidden reflexes of Proto-Afroasiatic language features in Central Chadic which have hitherto largely gone unnoticed. These are in particular the fundamental root-and-pattern structure, the relatively high frequency of triradical roots, the structural relevance of ‘weak radicals’ that function as both consonants and high vowels, the sporadic local emergence of synchronic glottalised consonants, the synchronic presence but historical absence of prenasalised obstruents, the high frequency of the reconstructable polyfunctional prefix *{ma-}, and the remnants of a set of determiners as reconstructed for Proto-Chadic by Schuh (1983).