Frontmatter; Contents; List of maps, tables, and figures; Abbreviations and conventions; Chapter 1. The framework, aim, and data of this study; Chapter 2. The internal structure of quotative indexes; Chapter 3. Quotative indexes and their linguistic context; Chapter 4. Previous research on the history of quotatives and a new approach: mimesis; Chapter 5. The origin of quotative indexes; Chapter 6. The functional extension of reported-discourse constructions; Chapter 7. Grammatical functions unrelated to reported-discourseconstructions; Chapter 8. Summary; Backmatter
Summary
The book represents the results of a synchronic and diachronic cross-African survey of quotative indexes. These are linguistic expressions that signal in the ongoing discourse the presence of a quote (often called "direct reported speech"). For this purpose, 39 African languages were selected to represent the genealogical and geographical diversity of the continent. The study is based primarily on this language sample, in particular on the analysis of quotative indexes and related expressions from a text corpus of each sample language, but also includes a wide range of data from the
Bibliography
Includes bibliographical references (pages 612-654) and indexes
