| Abbreviations | xiii |
| Map | xv |
| 1 | Introduction | 1 |
| 1.1 | Generalities about Songhay | 1 |
| 1.2 | History and geography | 2 |
| 1.3 | Format of grammar | 5 |
| 1.4 | Transcriptional conventions | 6 |
| 1.5 | Literature review | 8 |
| 1.6 | Acknowledgements | 8 |
| 2 | Overview | 11 |
| 2.1 | Brief outline of typical sentence and NP structures | 11 |
| 2.2 | Distinctive features of Koyra Chiini | 15 |
| 2.3 | Internal variation within Koyra Chiini | 16 |
| 3 | Phonology | 17 |
| 3.1 | Consonants | 17 |
| 3.2 | Oral vowels | 18 |
| 3.3 | Diphthongs | 18 |
| 3.4 | Nasalized vowels and word-final nasal consonants | 21 |
| 3.5 | Syllabification | 23 |
| 3.6 | Consonantal assimilations and deletions | 29 |
| 3.7 | Vocalic contraction, deletion, shortening, and lengthening | 31 |
| 3.8 | Minor phonological alternations | 41 |
| 3.9 | Prosodics | 48 |
| 3.10 | Historical phonological notes | 49 |
| 4 | Nouns, pronouns, and nominal derivation | 55 |
| 4.1 | Personal pronouns | 55 |
| 4.2 | Demonstratives | 61 |
| 4.3 | Nominalizations | 63 |
| 4.4 | Morphology of adjectives | 71 |
| 4.5 | Quantificational adjectives | 74 |
| 4.6 | Nominal compounds | 77 |
| 5 | Nominal inflection and NP syntax | 83 |
| 5.1 | Overview | 83 |
| 5.2 | Possessives | 84 |
| 5.3 | Adjectives | 87 |
| 5.4 | Numerals and other quantifiers | 88 |
| 5.5 | Demonstrative woo | 97 |
| 5.6 | Definite di | 98 |
| 5.7 | Plural yo | 99 |
| 5.8 | Markers of discourse status | 100 |
| 5.9 | Adpositions and case-marking | 103 |
| 5.10 | Apposition | 110 |
| 5.11 | Instrumental, comitative, and conjoined NPs | 112 |
| 5.12 | Locational Phrases and Temporal Phrases | 122 |
| 6 | Verbal voice and verb derivation | 125 |
| 6.1 | Subcategorization for objects and adpositional phrases | 125 |
| 6.2 | Derived voice forms | 133 |
| 6.3 | Compounds | 138 |
| 6.4 | Verb-stem reduplication | 141 |
| 7 | VP structure | 143 |
| 7.1 | Types of predicates | 143 |
| 7.2 | Mood-aspect-negation (MAN) | 154 |
| 7.3 | Imperatives | 164 |
| 8 | Discourse-functional constructions and relativization | 166 |
| 8.1 | Focus constructions | 166 |
| 8.2 | Questions and answers | 174 |
| 8.3 | Relative clause constructions | 186 |
| 8.4 | Topic constructions | 206 |
| 8.5 | Emphatics and similatives | 216 |
| 8.6 | Co-occurrence of major discourse-functional categories | 237 |
| 9 | Sentence-level syntax and semantics | 243 |
| 9.1 | Object NPs and other postverbal constituents | 243 |
| 9.2 | Adjectival intensifying interjections | 249 |
| 9.3 | Operators and scope | 250 |
| 9.4 | Overview of complement clause types | 262 |
| 9.5 | Clause conjunction and indicative complement clauses | 263 |
| 9.6 | Subjunctive complements | 289 |
| 9.7 | Infinitival VPs and serial verbs | 304 |
| 10 | Anaphora, logophorics, and reported speech | 322 |
| 10.1 | Reported speech and logophoric pronouns | 322 |
| 10.2 | Reflexives and reciprocals | 329 |
| 10.3 | Generic and indefinite reference | 345 |
| 10.4 | Sloppy (partial) coreferentiality | 350 |
| 11 | Semantic topics | 353 |
| 11.1 | Spatiotemporal structures | 353 |
| 11.2 | Weather and ambient condition | 366 |
| 11.3 | Perception | 366 |
| 11.4 | Emotion and personality | 367 |
| 11.5 | Kinship | 368 |
| 11.6 | Flora-fauna | 371 |
| 11.7 | Body parts | 373 |
| Appendix 1 | Upriver dialects | 375 |
| Appendix 2 | Djenne Chiini | 380 |
| Text | 434 |
| References | 443 |
| Morpheme Index | 445 |
| Subject Index | 451 |
