SearchPublisher and Institutes
You are here: Home :: Area CULI :: Linguistics and literature
Birgit Hellwig
Fieldwork among the Goemai in Nigeria: discovering the grammar of property expressions
Keywords: Chadic languages, Goemai, adjectival concepts, fieldwork methodology, semantic-based approach to fieldwork
This paper describes fieldwork experiences among the Goemai of Central Nigeria. It first introduces the fieldwork setting, and then focuses on one illustrative example: the investigation of property-denoting ('adjectival′) expressions. The paper describes the different methods employed, compares them, and evaluates their results. It shows some advantages and disadvantages, and – on this basis – advocates using a combination of methods in order to benefit from each method′s advantages while counterbalancing its disadvantages. In particular, the paper argues in favour of a semantics-based approach to fieldwork, illustrating the invaluable insights to be gained from it.
STUF – Sprachtypologie und Universalienforschung, Akademie Verlag
Print ISSN: 0942-2919
Volume: 60, 01/2007
Pages: 067 - 080