This study is a survey of the form and function of reduplication within the three branches (West, Central and East) of the Chadic language family. The Chadic languages along with Ancient Egyptian, Semitic, Berber and Cushitic comprise the Afroasiatic phylum otherwise known as the Hamito-Semitic. Although the study has centrally to do with Chadic, it contains discussion and examples on other African and non-African languages from different parts of the world. This has made it not only possible to specify the morphological, morphophonological and semantic characteristics of reduplication in Chadic vis-a-vis other languages, but also to review some aspects of general linguistics.

Autorentext

The Author: Bello Sodangi Yaro Al-Hassan was born in 1956 in Birnin-Kebbi, Nigeria. After the Bachelor's degree in 1979, he took up an appointment with the Ahmadu Bello University, Zaria, a premier University in Africa, where he was Senior Lecturer until 1992 when he gained the DAAD scholarship to study comparative African Linguistics at the J.W. Goethe-Universität in Frankfurt am Main which he accomplished in 1997. He is back to Ahmadu Bello University, Zaria, Nigeria, as lecturer in the Department of African Languages.

Inhalt
Contents: The general concept of reduplication - The phonology of reduplication - The morphology and semantics of reduplication - The form and function of reduplication in Chadic languages.