What is it about?
A substantially new system of directly marking pronominal-possessor categories on possessed nouns has been developed in a few hundred years in this Songhay language.
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Why is it important?
Some linguists claim that head-marking versus dependent-marking is a stable feature of languages. This case study shows how a language can "flip" in a short time.
Perspectives
Casts doubt on the use of head-marking as an indicator of distant genetic relationships of languages.
Jeffrey Heath
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This page is a summary of: Innovation of head-marking in Humburi Senni (Songhay, Mali), Diachronica, May 2011, John Benjamins,
DOI: 10.1075/dia.28.1.01hea.
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