Difference between revisions of "Wolof/Grammar"

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Table: - adapted from pg 21 of New Wolof and Orange Website
 
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Revision as of 16:11, 16 February 2023

Grammar documentation - Wolof

  • General overview of Wolof grammar[1]
  • Long academic grammatical description[2]
  • Noun classification resource[3]
  • Notable characteristics of Wolof Grammar[4]
  • Wolof Grammar Manual[5]
  • "Content question words and noun class markers in Wolof: reconstructing a puzzle"[6]
Parts of Speech

Wolof is an SVO language

  • Verbs are static and do not change for tense, aspect, or mood
  • Nouns have 10 classes, 8 of which are singular classes and are marked by specific prefixes, and 2 are plural classes also marked by prefixes
    • However, these prefixes are not morphologically marked on the noun itself, but on the dependent that agrees with the noun
      • Therefore, plural and singular nouns cannot be distinguished unless they occur in a noun phrase
  • Pronouns in Wolof are the most morphologically complex
    • separated into five categories: personal, possessive, demonstrative, interrogative, relative, indefinite[7]

Noun classes

Singular Classes Plural Classes
k- ñ-
b- y-
g-
j-
l-
m-
s-
w-

The k- class and it's plural the ñ- class have rigid and exclusive membership. Nouns in this class are:

  • k- class includes nit "person", and kef "thing"
  • ñ- class includes nit "person", and (speaker dependent) jigeén "women", góor "men", gaa "people"
    • other than these nouns, plural nouns are always in the y- class
  • Although the classification system is far from simple, some categories include "liquids (m-class), trees (b-class), fruits (g-class), and family

members, especially those of maternal descent U-c1ass). Although the m-class contains certain liquids such as ndox 'water', meew 'milk', saw 'urine' and soow 'curdled milk', it also contains many words that are not liquids, and there are a great number of liquids that do not fall into that class, such as deret (j-class) 'blood', diwlin (j-class) 'vegetable oil', and kokaa (b-class) 'Coca-Cola'"[8]

examples
  • noun class examples with determiners
    • determiners will always have a prefix based on noun class and cannot exist without a class morpheme (ask about putting eng glossing after the arrows instead since the lemma cannot exist independently)
      • singular and plural noun class markers can occur on many other dependents including the definite article of a noun phrase, however, the examples will be given in determiners as the class prefixes remain the same
singular determiners
nit<n><cl1> ↔ nit i <det><cl1><sg> ↔ ki The person
tëgg<n><cl2> ↔ tëgg i <det><cl2><sg> ↔ bi The blacksmith
kër<n><cl3> ↔ kër i <det><cl3><sg> ↔ gi The house
jigéen<n><cl4> ↔ jigéen i <det><cl4><sg> ↔ ji The woman
ngunu<n><cl5> ↔ ngunu i <det><cl5><sg> ↔ li The chicken coop
picc<n><cl6> ↔ picc i <det><cl6><sg> ↔ mi The bird
ndaw<n><cl7> ↔ ndaw i <det><cl7><sg> ↔ si The young woman
waasintoor<n><cl8> ↔ waasintoor i <det><cl8><sg> ↔ wi The fish scale
plural determiners
nit<n><pl det> ↔ nit i <det><cl9><pl> ↔ ñi The people
kër<n><pl det> ↔ kër i <det><cl10><pl> ↔ yi The houses

Pronominal morphemes

Personal Pronouns

Wolof has three types of personal pronouns:

  • Independent:
    • Used for emphasis
  • Verb-Object:
    • Can be used to replace a nominal direct object
  • Verb-Subject (also called Object Emphasis Pronouns in the New Wolof Book)

Table: - adapted from pg 21 of New Wolof and Orange Website

English Independent Pronoun Verb-Object Pronoun Object Emphasis Pronoun
I Man Ma Laa(y)
You Yow La Nga(y)
Third Person Singular Moom Ko La(y)
We Nun/Ñun Ñu Lanu(y)
Second Person Plural Yeen Leen Ngeen(di)
Third Person Plural Ñoom Leen Lañu(y)
Demonstrative Pronouns
Interrogrative Pronouns
Indefinite Pronouns
Posessive Pronouns
Pronoun Conjugation
Voices

Wolof has three voices: active, semi-active, passive.

  • semi-active and passive voices are formed by adding the suffix -u
Aali tëj na bunt ba. Ali closed the door.
Bunt bi tëju na. The door is closed.
Aali gaañu na. Ali is injured.
  • The passive voice can also be done using the 3rd-person plural form with an active form; this is similar to the English structure "one".
Ñoo ngi may gis. One has seen me. OR I have been seen.
ma<prn><present> ↔ may me
gis<v> ↔ gis see One [presentative] me see
Proximity markers
  • there are two classes of proximity markers: close to the speaker and far from the speaker
nit<n><dst> ↔ nit ki <det><dst> ↔ ka The person far [from the speaker]
nit<n><dst> ↔ nit ki <det><dst><pl><cl9> ↔ ña The people far [from the speaker]
xaj<n><dst> ↔ xaj ki <det><dst><cl2> ↔ ba The dog far [from the speaker]
xaj<n><dst><pl> ↔ xaj ki <det><dst><cl10><pl> ↔ ya The dogs far [from the speaker]

glosses

xeet-am, muy-toj sa-bopp

son.3pPOSS F.crush 2pPOSS.head

Her son will crush your head,

  1. ↑ Languages Gulper Grammar
  2. ↑ Wolof: A Grammatical Sketch
  3. ↑ NOUN CLASSIFICATION IN WOLOF: WHEN AFFIXES ARE NOT RENEWED
  4. ↑ Peace Corps New Wolof Book
  5. ↑ Wolof Grammar Manual pdf
  6. ↑ Content question words and noun class markers in Wolof: reconstructing a puzzle
  7. ↑ Wolof Morphology
  8. ↑ NOUN CLASSIFICATION IN WOLOF: WHEN AFFIXES ARE NOT RENEWED
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