An edited collection of essays discussing the linguistic relationships between African languages.
List of maps viiList of figures viiiList of tables ixList of contributors xiSeries editor's foreword xiiAcknowledgments xivAbbreviations xvIntroduction Bernd Heine Derek Nurse 1Is Africa a linguistic area? Bernd Heine Zelealem Leyew 15Africa as a phonological area G. N. Clements Annie Rialland 36Africa as a morphosyntactic area Denis Creissels Gerrit J. Dimmendaal Zygmunt Frajzyngier Christa Konig 86The Macro-Sudan belt: towards identifying a linguistic area in northern sub-Saharan Africa Tom Guldemann 151The Tanzanian Rift Valley area Roland Kiessling Maarten Mous Derek Nurse 186Ethiopia Joachim Crass Ronny Meyer 228The marked-nominative languages of eastern Africa Christa Konig 251Africa's verb-final languages Gerrit J. Dimmendaal 272Notes 309References 323Index 354