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Article published In:
Morphology and its interfaces: Syntax, semantics and the lexicon
Edited by Dany Amiot, Delphine Tribout, Natalia Grabar, Cédric Patin and Fayssal Tayalati
[Lingvisticæ Investigationes 37:2] 2014
► pp. 209–224

Les prédicats complexes en wolof

Unités morphologiques ou constructions syntaxiques ?

| Université Sorbonne Nouvelle — Paris 3

Determining the morphosyntactic status of verbal constructions is an enduring issue in African linguistics. In Wolof, most verbal constructions are split predicate constructions involving a predicative marker, which encodes the greater part of the grammatical content, and a verb, which contributes to the lexical content. The aim of the current paper is to investigate the morphosyntactic status of these complex predicates. Based on several kinds of criteria (phonology, morphology and semantics), I show that the predicative markers must be analysed as phonologically dependent words (clitics). Thus, Wolof complex predicates clearly display syntactic construction features and cannot therefore be considered as morphological units.

Keywords: complex predicates, Wolof, clitics, morphology-syntax interface

Article language: French

Published online: 22 May 2015
DOI logo
https://doi.org/10.1075/li.37.2.02gue
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Cited by

Cited by 2 other publications

Bourdeau, Corentin
2023. The Wolof argument-focus constructions as copulaless clefts. Journal of African Languages and Linguistics 44:2 ► pp. 155 ff. DOI logo
Guérin, Maximilien
2022. Optatif et prohibitif en wolof : description et hypothèses de grammaticalisation. Syntaxe & Sémantique N° 22:1 ► pp. 121 ff. DOI logo

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