Somali
| Trinity College, Dublin
Somali is spoken by more than nine million people in the Horn of Africa and by expatriate communities in the Middle East, Europe and North America. It is the official language of Somalia and an important regional language in Ethiopia and Kenya. As a Cushitic language Somali is part of the great Afroasiatic language family whose other branches include Semitic, Berber, Chadic and Ancient Egyptian. This book provides a comprehensive description of the grammar of the language that will be of interest to non-specialists and linguists interested in typology and language comparison. The authors accessible investigation of the phonology, morphology, syntax and discourse structure allows the reader a clear view of the linguistic character of Somali and, through Somali, of a Cushitic language. A further important feature of the book is its use of authentic data from a range of sources, including prose, poetry and proverbs.
[London Oriental and African Language Library, 10] 1999. xv, 295 pp.
Publishing status: Available
© John Benjamins Publishing Company
Table of Contents
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Preface
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xi
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List of Abbreviations and Symbols
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xiii
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Introduction
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1
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Phonological units
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7
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Phonological rules
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25
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Grammatical categories
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53
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Word formation
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133
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Phrases
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163
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Simple sentences
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183
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Subordinate clauses
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209
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Discourse
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229
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Appendix I : Data sources
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251
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Appendix II : Selected texts
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253
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Notes
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267
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References
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279
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Index
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289
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“This well-written and intelligibly explained work help to improve the knowledge of Somali among linguists and readers interested in Somali matters and in the peoples and languages of the Horn of Africa. S should be thanked and congratulated for this delightful book.”
Gonzalo Rubio, Ohio State University, USA
“[...] is refreshingly data-oriented, down-to-earth, as regards the descriptive approach, and at the same time up-to-date, as regards sophistication of analysis, without highlighting methodological aspects and avoiding esoterisms of particular grammatical theories. [...] What makes monograph so valuable is its abundance of details that you won't normally find in a grammatical description generally and in one of Somali in particular. [...] Readers who want to get a clear picture of Somali and at the same time an idea of what Cushitic languages are like are well-served with this book.”
Roland Kiessling, in Afrika und Ubersee, Band 84, 2001
Cited by
Cited by 15 other publications
No author info given
2011.
In The Handbook of Phonological Theory,
► pp. 779 ff. 
Baerman, Matthew, Dunstan Brown & Greville G. Corbett
2005.
In The Syntax-Morphology Interface,
BARILLOT, XAVIER, SABRINA BENDJABALLAH & NICOLA LAMPITELLI
2018. Verbal classes in Somali: Allomorphy has no classificatory function.
Journal of Linguistics 54:1 ► pp. 3 ff.
Bateman, Nicoleta
2011. On the Typology of Palatalization.
Language and Linguistics Compass 5:8 ► pp. 588 ff.
Esling, John H., Scott R. Moisik, Allison Benner & Lise Crevier-Buchman
2019.
In Voice Quality,
Ganuza, Natalia & Christina Hedman
2019. The Impact of Mother Tongue Instruction on the Development of Biliteracy: Evidence from Somali–Swedish Bilinguals.
Applied Linguistics 40:1 ► pp. 108 ff.
Green, Christopher R. & Michelle E. Morrison
2016. Somali wordhood and its relationship to prosodic structure.
Morphology 26:1 ► pp. 3 ff.
Hyman, Larry M.
2018.
In The Study of Word Stress and Accent,
► pp. 60 ff.
Igartua, Iván
2019.
In Perspectives on Language Structure and Language Change [Current Issues in Linguistic Theory, 345],
► pp. 81 ff.
Kramer, Ruth
2016.
In Morphological Metatheory [Linguistik Aktuell/Linguistics Today, 229],
► pp. 95 ff.
MATIĆ, DEJAN & DANIEL WEDGWOOD
2013. The meanings of focus: The significance of an interpretation-based category in cross-linguistic analysis.
Journal of Linguistics 49:1 ► pp. 127 ff.
Pannain, Rossella & Anna Riccio
2014.
In Word Classes [Current Issues in Linguistic Theory, 332],
► pp. 161 ff.
Smith, Peter W., Beata Moskal, Ting Xu, Jungmin Kang & Jonathan David Bobaljik
2019. Case and number suppletion in pronouns.
Natural Language & Linguistic Theory 37:3 ► pp. 1029 ff.
Treis, Yvonne
2017.
In Similative and Equative Constructions [Typological Studies in Language, 117],
► pp. 91 ff.
Van Alsenoy, Lauren & Johan van der Auwera
2014.
In The Diachrony of Negation [Studies in Language Companion Series, 160],
► pp. 13 ff.
This list is based on CrossRef data as of 11 may 2021. Please note that it may not be complete. Sources presented here have been supplied by the respective publishers. Any errors therein should be reported to them.
Subjects
Linguistics
BIC Subject: CF – Linguistics
BISAC Subject: LAN009000 – LANGUAGE ARTS & DISCIPLINES / Linguistics / General