Cameroon

The general purpose of this study is to contribute to our understanding of the tense-aspectmood (TAM) categories and systems in proto or early Bantoid. Within that broad purpose, this study will give particular attention to the status of tense in Proto-Bantoid or early Bantoid. All Bantoid languages today systematically mark aspectual categories (e.g. imperfective) and modal categories (e.g. subjunctive). However, only some Bantoid languages mark tense as a grammatical category such as the Grassfields Bantu and Narrow Bantu languages. In other Bantoid languages, tense is absent such as in the Ekoid Bantu languages.