The role of TAM and focus markers in paratactic clause‐linkage (The Wolof example)

Stéphane Robert (1)

1 LLACAN - Langage, LAngues et Cultures d'Afrique Noire

Wolof (Atlantic, Senegal) has a complex and interesting verbal system expressing, among others, distinctions related to information structure (focus). These are merged in the inflectional verbal morphemes with specifications for person, number, tense, aspect, mood and polarity. Another characteristic of this language, which is probably related to this particular verbal system, is the tendency in Wolof to express complex sentences paratactically, i.e. by juxtaposing clauses in a single sentence without any coordinating or subordinating morphemes. Subordinating morphemes do exist in the language (cf. Sall 2005) but the specific properties of its conjugations (Tense-Aspect-Mood-Focus markers) naturally allow certain types of interclausal relations to be expressed by simple parataxis and conjugation chaining. The study of clause combining shows that, with some restrictions on possible combinations, the various combinations of conjugations produce different but regular interclausal meanings, such as succession (1), causality (2), consecution (3) or opposition (4): Wolof (1)Ággna,tawbidoorna. arrivePRF.3SG,rainthebeginPRF.3SG ‘He arrived, (then) it started to rain.’ (2) Samacàmmiñwaxalmboog,mandamayàkkamti. My brotherspeak:IMPPTCLmeVBFOC.1SGbe.rushed ‘Come my friend, make up your mind (because) I am in a rush.’ [XCL] (3)Dafakofetal,mudee. VBFOC.3SGhimshoot,NULL.3SGdie ‘He shot him (therefore) he is dead.’ (4)Paakabimu ngiñawbe,ngakoyfoye! knifethePREST.3SG be.sharpsoNULL.2SGOPR:IPFVplay:INS ‘The knife is so sharp and (yet) you are playing with it!’ In this paper, I will first, present an overview of the morphosyntactic and semantic patterns observed in paratactic clause chaining and then show how, due to the nature of the different conjugations, paratactic clause chaining in Wolof yields different types of interclausal dependency, defining a gradient of syntactic integration, along with the semantic integration of the two events (Cristofaro 2003): from simple assertive juxtaposition to more integrated syntactic dependency, through lesser known types of dependency, defined here as ‘situational dependency’ and ‘pragmatic dependency’ (Robert 2010). Eventually, the observed semantic pattern will be paralleled with those produced by different morphosyntactic means for encoding interclausal relations with markers from outside the domain of clause linkage in an Australian language, Umpithamu (Verstraete 2010). References Cristofaro S. 2003. Subordination. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Robert S. 2010. Clause chaining and conjugations in Wolof: a typology of parataxis and its semantics. In I.Bril (ed), Clause hierarchy and clause linking: syntax and pragmatics. Amsterdam & Philadelphia: John Benjamins: 469-498. Sall, A. O. 2005. La subordination en wolof : description syntaxique. PhD dissertation, Université Cheikh Anta Diop de Dakar. Verstraete, J.C. 2010. Focus, mood and clause linkage in Umpithamu (Cape York Peninsula, Australia). In I.Bril (ed), Clause hierarchy and clause linking: syntax and pragmatics. Amsterdam & Philadelphia: John Benjamins: 451-468.

Domaines: Linguistique

Stéphane Robert. The role of TAM and focus markers in paratactic clause‐linkage (The Wolof example). Syntax of the World's Languages VI (SWL6), University of Pavia, Sep 2014, Pavia, Italy. ⟨hal-01494657⟩