Rebecca Voll
A grammar of Mundabli
A Bantoid (Yemne-Kimbi) language of Cameroon
This book is the first description of Mundabli, a Southern Bantoid (Niger-Congo) language spoken by 350-450 speakers in Northwest Cameroon. Mundabli is part of Southern Bantoid, but its exact genetic affiliation is unclear. The current description presents novel data, which will help to throw light on the genetic affiliation of Mundabli andother unclassified languages in the area.
Mundabli has four level tones plus a number of contour tones. Its phonology is further characterized by a complicated vowel system including a set of pharyngealized vowels. Its noun class systemis similarly elaborate as those of Bantu languages. However, nouns often have no class marker. Some singular-plural class pairings are instead marked by stem-initial consonant mutation or by tonal changes. Agreement is restricted to the noun phrase. Verbs belong to one of three inflectional classes. Verb tones vary, with all verbs of the same inflectional class displaying the same tone in a given context. Mundabli makes use of two future tenses and four non-future tenses. Its unmarked word order is SVO, but word order variations are possible.
As a description of a Bantoid language of unclear exact genetic affiliation, this book is of particular interest to Bantoid and Niger-Congo scholars. Presenting novel data from a formerly undocumented language and describing rare linguistic phenomena, such as pharyngealization and an unusual relative clause structure, this grammar is also of interest to scholars in linguistic typology and theoretical linguistics.
