The Chadic Verbal System and its Afroasiatic Nature

Some scholars, especially Diakonoff, have delineated a number of general Afroasiatic structural features which are present in the Chadic family. Most such comparative work has relied heavily on Hausa, but Hausa viewed alone does not always give an accurate picture of deeper Chadic patternsUsing data from Chadic languages in addition to Hausa we find many specific features of the Chadic verbal system correspond closely to those reconstructible for proto-Afroasiatic. Two such features are (1) use of a subject prefix, and (2alterations of verb stems to indicate aspect.