Linguistic ``oddities'' explained

This paper investigates irregular phenomena or “oddities” in Hausa, Kanakuru, and
Tera, three languages belonging to the Chadic family. These phenomena appear
odd in that they seem to be at variance with the patterns and normal grammat-
ical formation rules in these languages. The Hausa anomalies are the plurals of
the words màatáa ‘woman’ and ’yáa ‘daughter, small’ (máatáa ‘women’ and ’yáa
‘daughters’, respectively). The Kanakuru anomaly, which also involves plurality,
is the strange pair buut ‘he-goat’, plural bukurin ‘he-goats’. The anomaly in Tera
relates to the form of the Linker -t(ǝ), which normally suffixes to the stem, e.g. luku
‘garment’, luk-tǝ-ku ‘garments’, but in rare cases replaces the final consonant of the
noun to which it is attached, e.g., sǝɗi ‘snake’, sǝ-tǝ-ku ‘snakes’. It is shown that with
a fuller and richer understanding of these languages, one can explain all of these
supposed oddities as manifestations of regular morphological and phonological
processes, whether viewed as deep synchronic morphophonology or as historical
vestiges.