Chapter 2 introduces the peculiar features that can be reconstructed for the vocal domain in Proto-Central Chadic, being made up of both vowels (*/a/, *ə) and the conditioned allophones [i] and [u] of the approximants */y/ and */w/. It then presents the reconstructed segments in terms of vowels, approximants, and consonants. It discusses the problematic phonetic nature of ‘schwa’ and its varying transcriptions. Root-and-pattern structure is then introduced, followed by a description of the diachronic process of root augmentation through petrified/fused morphological markers. Lastly, types and diachronic sources of ‘prosodies’ are described as ‘floating’ dis- and reassociated coarticulation features of segments.

Chapter 1 introduces the reader to the research history of comparative Chadic linguistics and why it is so problematic to reconstruct lexical items for Proto-Chadic in general, and for Proto-Central Chadic in particular. It offers an abstract model for the evolution from Proto-Central Chadic ‘simple roots’ to phonetic surface representations in modern Central Chadic languages, based on root types that developed from a root-and-pattern structure inherited from Afroasiatic, but which recognises only one phonemic vowel */a/. It introduces synchronically petrified root-augmentative former grammatical elements on roots, which can and must be reconstructed. It discusses the eminent role of vowel pro-/epenthesis and the emergence and spread of both phonological and morphological prosodies from diachronic and underlying ‘weak radicals’ */y/ and */w/, and labialised consonants.