The morphosyntax of Mada, an endangered Niger Congo language of North-Central Nigeria

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Grammatical description is crucial for language documentation, which mitigates the challenge of language endangerment. Mada, a Niger-Congo language in North-Central Nigeria is highly endangered due to insufficient documentation and the prevalence of linguistic exogamy among its native speakers. This study offers a detailed description of the grammatical categories of Mada and their relationships at phrasal, clausal and sentential levels. The data is based on a corpus of public and private monologues and dialogues constructed by the researcher. A robust morphosyntactic description is a foundation for developing primers for language teaching and learning, and improving native speakers' attitudes to the language. This research participates in the decolonising enterprise by tackling the imbalance in the documentation of languages of the Global South compared to the Global North, and demonstrates the role of native speakers in investigating, revitalising and reclaiming endangered languages.