PAPERS ON BADE

• Descriptive works on Bade
• Works on the Bade-Ngizim language group including significant discussion of Bade

Items on this page describe features of Bade linguistic structure. Most of the descriptive works are on the Western dialect, particularly that of Amshi and other villages in the "central" part of the Western Bade-speaking area.

Descriptive papers on Bade

"Western Bade Phonology." Manuscript, UCLA. no date (late 1970's).

A description of the phonology of Western Bade, originally intended as a chapter in a reference grammar that was never written (at least not yet!).

"Western Bade verbal morphology." Manuscript, UCLA. no date (late 1970's).

A description of the verbal morphology of Western Bade, originally intended as a chapter in a reference grammar that was never written (at least not yet!).

"Western Bade nominal morphology." Manuscript, UCLA. no date (late 1970's).

A description of the nominal morphology of Western Bade, originally intended as a chapter in a reference grammar that was never written (at least not yet!).

"Using dialect geography to determine prehistory: a Chadic case study." Sprache und Geschichte in Afrika 3:201-250, 1981.

Bade falls into three major dialect areas. The dialects differ by what I refer to as isophones and isomorphs (area of shared phonological and morphological innovations respectively). There is some "leakage" along dialect boundaries, but innovations tend to form bundles that define areas, with the exception of one town, Karege, which seems to have random mix of features from its neighbors.

"Voicing dissimilation in Western Bade." 2002. Ms, UCLA

This paper was written as a sample paper for a UCLA introductory class in phonology, but it is an original piece of research. Schuh (1997) documents a sound change by which voiced obstruents in Bade become voiceless if the next syllable begins in a voiced obstruent. In the far-western part of the Western Bade dialect area (in towns such as Tagali, Sugum, Adiya, and Madamuwa), this sound change remains an active phonological process whereby clitics and prefixes alternate in voicing of their consonant depending on the phonology of their hosts.

"Bade morphology." In Alan S. Kaye (ed.), Morphologies of Africa and Asia, Volume 1, pp. 587-639. Winona Lake, Indiana: Eisenbrauns, 2007.

This is a descriptive paper of the inflectional and derivational morphology of the western variety of Bade, a West Chadic-B language. Notable features are an active grammatical gender system, citation of nouns with an erstwhile determiner (referred to as "nunation"), which is omitted in a variety of environments, productive processes of participial adjective and agentive derivation from verbs, and morphology on many verbs that shows transitive or intranstive use. This downloadable version is the original manuscript and differs from the published from in have a more comprehensive description of the phonology and more examples of some of the morphological patterns.

Papers with Significant Descriptive Portions
on Bade Together with Ngizim

"Bode, Ngo:djin and Do:ai in the Polyglotta Africana."  African Languages/Langues africaines 1:290-299.

Exegesis of wordlists in Koelle's Polygotta Africana for Bade, Ngizim, and Duwai.

"Bade/Ngizim determiner system." Afroasiatic Linguistics 4(3):101-174, 1977.

A complete description of determiners in three dialects of Bade, Ngizim and Duwai. The description includes marking for definiteness/indefiniteness, demonstratives, presentatives, and genitive phrases.

"Bade/Ngizim vowels and syllable structure." Studies in African Linguistics 9:247-283, 1978.

A description of distribution of vowels, particular schwa, whose presence is determined by syllabic exigencies and whose quality is determined by consonantal environment. The paper shows how, historically, Bade (all dialects) has shifted from an earlier stage, represented by Ngizim, where word initial CC require schwa between the consonants, to the modern Bade stage, where consonants form sequences if they can and the schwa is prothetic.

"Changes in obstruent voicing in Bade/Ngizim." 1997. Ms, UCLA

This paper was written as a sample paper for a UCLA introductory class in historical linguistics, but it is an original piece of research. In Ngizim, when a word begins in an obstruent and the next syllable begins in a voiced obstruent, the first obstruent has become voiced if it was voiceless. In Bade, on the other hand, if the second syllable begins in a voiced obstruent, the first obstruent has become devoiced if it was voiceless.

"The Linguistic Influence of Kanuri on Bade and Ngizim". Maiduguri Journal of Linguistic and Literary Studies (MAJOLLS), 5:55-89, 2003

Kanuri has had considerable linguistic influence on Bade and Ngizim for several centuries. Kanuri loanwords in Bade and Ngizim preserve phonological properties that Kanuri itself has change in more recent times. On the other hand, Bade and Ngizim have altered Kanuri words phonologically and morphologically in order to integrate them into the native system. (abstract of the paper)