A note on kanakuru tense/aspect/mood (TAM)

Kanakuru, the south-easternmost language belonging to the West branch of Chadic is structurally very similar to Hausa, the north-westernmost West Chadic language. Kanakuru is a strict SVO language. It indicates TAM by overt TAM markers combined with distinct preverbal pronoun paradigms, sometimes accompanied by inflection in the verb form itself or by the use of a verbal noun in place of the finite verb. The only exception is the imperative, which uses a bare verb with no preverbal marker or subject pronoun. Negation is indicated by a discontinuous negative marker w(o)... u, reminiscent of Hausa ba(a)... ba. The perfect is obligatorily replaced by a corresponding "second perfect" TAM in relative clauses or when a focused or interrogative element occurs to the left of the verb. This second perfect is also required in the negative whether focus or relativization is present or not.