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Reviewed by:
  • Ogbronuagum (The Bukuma language) by Ethelbert E. Kari
  • Michael Cahill
Ogbronuagum (The Bukuma language). By Ethelbert E. Kari. (Languages of the world/Materials 329.) Munich: LINCOM Europa, 2000. Pp. iv, 71. ISBN 3895866180. $40.30.

This book is welcome as an accessible sketch of the phonology, morphology, and syntax of Ogbronuagum, a Cross River language of Nigeria. Kari frequently mentions a 1987 B.A. project by I. Alex as a source of more details but also has some original [End Page 348] contributions, including a different phonemic inventory and organization of the noun class system.

Phonologically, Ogbronuagum has a ten-vowel system with ATR harmony. It has high and low tone as well as downstep. Consonants include both labial-velar and implosive stops. Though K doesn’t specifically point it out, his data appear to include words with two adjacent syllabic nasals. He shows that three nasalized sonorants that Alex posited as phonemes are better analyzed as allophones of oral sonorants, but he also adds five other phonemes to the inventory.

In his morphology chapter, the most detailed section of the book, K lays out the noun class system, distinguished by different prefixes on the noun stems. He posits four more genders (singular/plural matchings) than Alex did. A number of morphemes illustrate underspecified vowels. Pronouns are listed. The verbal aspect system is then detailed, with positive and negative forms of factative, future, perfect, progressive, inceptive, obligative, optative, and ability presented. Several useful tables are included in the text to summarize discussion of manifold morphemes.

The syntax section presents a very short sketch of noun phrases and their components, concord within the NP and between NP and VP, serial verb constructions, coordination, subordination and relative clauses, cleft constructions, questions, and prepositions.

K includes a useful lexicon of approximately 500 words, a brief interlinearized folk tale text (handy for checking generalizations about morphology and syntax), and, somewhat unexpectedly, a brief history of the people in English.

Most shortcomings of the book have to do with the lack of discussion or evidence. For example, K mentions a ‘floating tone’ resulting from the deletion of a vowel and gives a form p 'resi ‘where’ with no indication if this tone is pronounced or not, or how we know it actually exists. There are tonal changes on nouns in the associative construction, but K does not mention this. Establishing phonological contrasts was sporadic: Contrast between [gb] and [γ] is documented but not between [g] and [γ]. The ‘subject-prominent cleft construction’ is virtually identical with the noun + relative clause construction, including the same particle, leading the reader to wonder if this ‘cleft’ is actually a noun phrase; but this similarity is not discussed. In a book with only fifty pages of discussion, one cannot realistically expect depth, but surprisingly, there is some duplication, as when nominal modifiers are discussed under both morphology and syntax.

There are also various infelicitous phrasings, such as when discussing a gender that ‘is mostly made up of mass nouns and a few parts of the body, only one of which has been found so far’. Still, those interested in languages in this part of the world should be grateful for the documentation offered here.

Michael Cahill
SIL International
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