Editorial Book Critique: A Grammar of Kusaal

Abstract

In this paper, we review Musah’s (2018) Grammar of Kusaal – a modern, carefully researched study of Kusaal, a Central-East Mabia language spoken in the Bawku Municipality and surrounding towns, and in parts of Burkina Faso and Togo. The review covers major topics in the book such as phonology, morphological affixes, syntax of nouns, verbs and modifiers, temporal and aspectual marking, argument structure and grammatical relations, serialization, and focus constructions. The author makes an effort to situate the Kusaal language in the larger Mabia cluster in the analysis of the data. More importantly, he provides fresh data and analysis of Kusaal that incorporates ethnolinguistic knowledge. The book is written in a clear language and effort is made to limit theoretical labeling and jargon to a minimum thus, making it accessible to those with limited background in linguistics.