Reduplication in the Chadic Languages : A Study of Form and Function

This study is a survey of the form and function of reduplication within the three branches (West, Central and East) of the Chadic language family. The Chadic languages along with Ancient Egyptian, Semitic, Berber and Cushitic comprise the Afroasiatic phylum otherwise known as the Hamito-Semitic. Although the study has centrally to do with Chadic, it contains discussion and examples on other African and non-African languages from different parts of the world. This has made it not only possible to specify the morphological, morphophonological and semantic characteristics of reduplication in Chadic vis-a-vis other languages, but also to review some aspects of general linguistics.