Syntax and the Rhetorical Will? From Simple to Complex Language Structures 
in the Lake Chad Area

by Norbert Cyffer

We believe that one of the main factors of permanent linguistic change is the adaptation of a language to permanently changing social and human conditions. The factors may be internal and external (contact induced). Language is always trying to adapt to new situations.
Like many languages in the world, Kanuri, a Saharan language within the Nilo-Saharan phylum, has undergone extensive processes of linguistic change in the past. The changes are a result of a) internal grammaticalization processes, and b) contact phenomena with neighbouring languages. This is especially visible in the strategy of functional and semantic extensions of a) grammatical morphemes and b) the application of subordinate clauses in different sentence structure levels.
We propose that the original basic sentence structure is just a simple sentence (consisting of one main clause). In order to express more complex situations, e.g. a temporal subordination, many languages extend the main clause by a 'minor' clause (e.g. 'when I went to Mainz, I saw my friend Ivo). The typical Kanuri strategy is (or was) the insertion of the respective clause in a main clause constituent (e.g. Kanuri: 'I went to Mainz at the time that I saw my friend Ivo'). Instead of a minor clause, Kanuri applies an adverbial noun phrase where the noun ('time') is modified by a relative clause ('that the rain started').
In present Kanuri, this subordination pattern is still prevailing. On the other hand, sentences with minor clauses also frequently occur (Sentence = Main Clause + Minor Clause). However, in all such constructions linguistic innovation processes can be detected. These innovatory processes are achieved by functional semantic extensions (e.g. adverb 'first' to subordinator 'while'), external borrowing (e.g. Arabic ammá 'but'). Other languages of the area share a similar development. Examples are taken from Hausa.
The semantic and functional extension is another common feature of grammaticalization. This will be demonstrated by referential, directional and locative suffixes in Kanuri, where we can be deduce several new functions from one basic concept.