Armbruster C.H. Dongolese Nubian: a grammar

Cambidge: Cambridge University Press, 1960. — XXXII + 462 p.Nubian, like Romance, is not a single language but a group of cognate languages. Of these, Dongola Nubian has not hitherto received the separate treatment accorded by Griffith and Zyhlarz to Old Nubian, by Lepsius to Mahasi, by Schafer and others to Kenzi, and by Kauczor and others to Mountain Nubian.In the present treatise an attempt is made to carry the presentation of the grammar of Dongola Nubian a stage onward from the point it was left at in their comparative grammars by Lepsius, Reinisch and Almkvist. These studies have made it clear to me that I have by no means exhausted the subject; my successors will find numerous questions requiring further investigation and various problems still awaiting solution.This book has been on the stocks for many years; begun in Dongola in 1901 and completed there on a smaller scale by 1903, it has since been continually expanded by the incorporation of material subsequently acquired (§ 16), and revised in the light of subsequent experience. It has, therefore, the patchwork character inevitable in a record of observations made in different places over a long period, frequently corrected, supplemented and interspersed with inferences, conclusions and attempts at definitions. In a grammar other considerations must be subordinated to those of clarity and accuracy; if these have been attained, incidental inconcinnities of style will meet with indulgence. While I have tried to avoid unnecessary repetition, I have thought it more important that a thing should be easily found than that it should not be repeated, provided always that it is something worth repeating.During my years in Dongola Lord Kitchener’s order that ‘Inspectors will not have offices’ still held good, so that I spent my time in travelling about the country; this gave me ample opportunities of observing native life and acquiring Nubian, in which I learned in course of time to converse with a certain ease. The later years of an official’s service see him more and more confined to his office, and in the Sudan Government of my day the leisure of even senior officials was apt to be distressingly subject to interruption and disturbance, so that during the latter part of my life in the Sudan I was seldom allowed to devote to Nubian the undivided attention it deserved.The sketch of the language has various shortcomings; there are many points where such investigations as I was able to make have left me with a desire to pursue them further; but that, as I have said, will be for my successors.By hearing a language spoken daily for years a sympathetic student grows accustomed to following its speakers’ ways of thinking, and at the same time by dint of continually using it to answer and express himself he learns, at any rate for the time being, to adapt his mental processes more or less to those of his interlocutors, to think, in fact, in their language. The speech of any one person will usually prove to contain inconsistencies; when one aims at describing the speech of the average man, it is at first difficult to prepare a satisfactorily balanced and consistent account. However, in course of time one gradually accumulates a record of what is generally current and may fairly be termed normal, of what variations are common and what less so.to describe the material of this volume one must needs generalize; in doing so I have tried to avoid any disconcerting inconsistencies or self-contradictions; but the practice of different speakers varies much, there is no accepted standard of speech in an unwritten language, and sometimes it seems possible that the only rule without exception is that there is an exception to every rule. Where a word has several meanings, these have been summarized as briefly as possible, usually only the principal meaning being given here and the others with illustrative phrases, sentences and dialogues relegated to the lexicon written to accompany this grammar.My continual references to the works of Lepsius, Reinisch and Almkvist show how greatly I am indebted to these pioneers.I would express here my special indebtedness to Gardiner’s invaluable Theory of Speech and Language, in which we find for the first time clearly formulated the cardinal distinction between language, which is the store of tools (fonds de langage, Sprachgut), and speech, which is the use of the tools.Let me record here my abiding gratitude to those no longer living who encouraged, helped and advised me in this work, Reinisch, Budge, Sayce and Griffith — הנפלים היו בערץ בימים ההם — to the Governors of Dongola in my time, Col. A. W. McKerrell and Gen. Sir Herbert Jackson, to Michel Bey Phares, Sir Stephen Gaselee and F. H. Merk.I am also much indebted for assistance of various kinds to Prof. Marcel Cohen, Sir Alan H. Gardiner, Prof. Dr. J.-J. Hess, Prof. Dr. A. Klingenheben, R. E. Massey, E. M. Roper, the late Prof. Dr. G. Steindorff and the late Gen. Sir F. R. Wingate, formerly Governor- General of the Sudan.Lastly I have to thank our faithful servant Magdalena Jaume Fiol for preserving the MS. of this book during our absence from Spain through the years of the Civil War.
C.H. A.Preface.
Abbreviations, Signs and Symbols.
Prolegomena.

Phonology
Peculiarities, Anomalies and Variations in Pronunciation.
Tones.
Stress.
Morphology and Accidence
Preliminary Remarks.
The Noun (nomen substantivum).
The Compound Noun.
(A) The Composite Nominal Stem.
(B) THE Complex Nominal Stem.
Foreign Nominal Stems
The Noun: Accidence.
The Article.
The Adjective (nomen adiectivum).
The Compound Adjective.
(A) The Composite Adjectival Stem.
(B) The Complex Adjectival Stem.
Foreign Adjectival Stems.
The Adjective: Accidence
The Pronoun.
The Numeral.
Fractions
The Verb.
The Verb — Conjugation.
Paradigm of the Regular Verb.
Conjugational Peculiarities of Certain Stems.
Stems ending in a vowel.
The Causative Stem.
The Verb-complex.
The verb-complex: some common beginnings.
The verb-complex: some common endings.
The verb-complex with both parts complex.
The Sign of Predication
The Particle.
The Preposition.
The Postposition.
The adverb-forming postposition
The Adverb.
The Conjunction.
The Interjection.
The Apocritic Sentence-word.
Roots and Elements.
Syntax
The Noun.
The Noun-complex.
The Noun-concretion
The Article.
The Adjective.
The Adjective-complex.
The Longer Complex Adjective.
The Adjective-concretion
The Pronoun.
The Pronoun-complex.
The Pronoun-concretion
The Numeral.
The Numeral-complex.
The Numeral-concretion.
Arithmetical Processes
The Verb.
The Moods.
The Indicative Mood.
The Imperative Mood.
The Subjunctive Mood.
The Conditional Mood.
The Participle.
The Complex Participle.
The Participle-complex.
The Participle-concretion.
The Infinitive.
The Infinitive-complex.
The Plural-object Conjugations 409.
The Interrogative Conjugation.
The Negative Conjugation.
The Negative Interrogative Conjugation.
Usage of Certain Verbs.
Other Verbs Expressing be.
Usage of Certain Other Verbs.
Usage of the Causative Verb.
The Verb-complex.
Special Types of Verb-complex.
The Verb-concretion.
The Sign of Predication
The Particle.
The Postposition.
The Adverb.
The Adverb-complex.
The Adverb-concretion
The Conjunction.
The Interjection.
The Apocritic Sentence-word.
The Complex-sentence.
The Noun-clause.
The Adjective-clause.
The Adverb-clause
Conditional Sentences.
Co-ordinate Sentences.
Formulae for Greeting and Thanking.
Borrowing from Arabic.
Homophones.
Tales.
Riddles.
English Index.
Nubian Index