Wandala is a hitherto undescribed Central Chadic language spoken in Northern Cameroon and
Northeastern Nigeria. The Grammar of Wandala describes in a non-aprioristic approach
phonology morphology syntax and all functional domains grammaticalized in the language. The
grammatical structure of Wandala is quite different from the structure of other Chadic
languages described thus far in both the formal means and the functions that have been
grammaticalized. The grammar provides proofs for the postulated hypotheses concerning forms and
functions. The grammar is written in a style accessible to linguists working within different
theoretical frameworks.The phonology is characterized by a rich consonantal system a three
vowel system and a two tone system. The language has abundant vowel insertion rules and a
vowel harmony system. Vowel deletion marks phrase-internal position and vowel-insertion marks
phrase-final position. The two rules allow the parsing of the clause into constituents. The
language has three types of reduplication of verbs two of which code aspectual and modal
distinctions. The negative paradigms of verbs differ from affirmative paradigms in the coding
of subject.The pronominal affixes and extensive system of verbal extensions code the
grammatical and semantic relations within the clause. Wandala has unusual clausal structure in
that in a pragmatically neutral verbal clause there is only one nominal argument either the
subject or the object. These arguments can follow a variety of constituents. The grammatical
role of that argument is coded by inflectional markers on the verb and most interestingly on
whatever lexical or grammatical morpheme precedes the constituent. The markers of grammatical
relations added to verbs are different for different classes of verbs.
