Wolof/Grammar

Grammar documentation - Wolof

• General overview of Wolof grammar
• Long academic grammatical description
• Noun classification resource
• Notable characteristics of Wolof Grammar
• Wolof Grammar Manual
• "Content question words and noun class markers in Wolof: reconstructing a puzzle"

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

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'"

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

• See pp 28-35 of Wolof Grammar Resources

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)
  • Not much documentation: highly variable in different contexts

Table: - adapted from pg 21 of "New Wolof" and "Wolof: A Grammatical Sketch" 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

• The demonstrative quality of a pronoun is signaled by a "-le" added at the end of noun determiners (which, as a reminder, signal the class of the noun by way of their first letter).
• These noun determiners use "i" for "this" and "a" for "that."
• For instance:

picc<n><cl6><sg> ↔ picc	mi <det><cl6><sg> ↔ mile	this bird
picc<n><cl6><sg> ↔ picc	mi <det><cl6><sg> ↔ male	that bird

Interrogrative Pronouns

• The following are Wolof's interrogative pronouns:

kan<det><sg> ↔ kan	who
kan<det><pl> ↔ ñan	who (pl)
lan<det><sg> ↔ lan	what
yan<det><pl> ↔ yan	what (pl)
fan<det> ↔ fan	where
kañ<det> ↔ kañ	when
nan<det> ↔ nan	how

• Wolof also has relative interrogative pronouns, which are modified from the non-relative interrogative pronouns:

kan<det><rel><sg> ↔ ku	who
kan<det><rel><pl> ↔ ñu	who (pl)
lan<det><rel><sg> ↔ lu	what
yan<det><rel><pl> ↔ yu	what (pl)
fan<det><rel> ↔ fu	where
kañ<det><rel> ↔ bu	when
nan<det><rel> ↔ nu	how

Indefinite Pronouns

• Wolof has indefinite pronouns modified from the interrogative pronouns:

kan<det><indef><sg> ↔ kenn	somebody
kan<det><indef><sg> ↔ képp	anybody
kan<det><indef><sg> ↔ keneen	somebody else
lan<det><indef><sg> ↔ lenn	something
lan<det><indef><sg> ↔ lépp	anything
lan<det><indef><sg> ↔ keneen	something else

Possessive Pronouns

• In Wolof, possessive pronouns signal the voice and number of the possessor in addition to the quantity of possessed objects.
  • Note: xarit is class 5 (i.e. l- class) because the example sentence on p47 of the Peace Corps Wolof Dictionary is: "Kale suma xarit la." => "That person is my friend." which has an l- signifier after it ("la").
• See a table of possessive pronouns below:
  • Note the alternate forms: sama=suma; samay=sumay; sunu=suñu; sunuy=suñuy

sama<det><pos><cl5><sg> ↔ sama	xarit <n><cl5><sg> ↔ xarit	my friend
sama<det><pos><cl5><pl> ↔ samay	xarit <n><cl5><pl> ↔ xarit	my friends
sa<det><pos><cl5><sg> ↔ sa	xarit <n><cl5><sg> ↔ xarit	your friend
sa<det><pos><cl5><pl> ↔ say	xarit <n><cl5><pl> ↔ xarit	your friends
	xarit <n><det><pos><cl5><sg> ↔ xaritam	their (sg, gender nonbinary) friend
sunu<det><pos><cl5><sg> ↔ sunu	xarit <n><cl5><sg> ↔ xarit	our friend
sunu<det><pos><cl5><pl> ↔ sunuy	xarit <n><cl5><pl> ↔ xarit	our friends
seen<det><pos><cl5><sg> ↔ seen	xarit <n><cl5><sg> ↔ xarit	your (pl) friend
seen<det><pos><cl5><pl> ↔ seeni	xarit <n><cl5><pl> ↔ xarit	your (pl) friends
seen<det><pos><cl5><sg> ↔ seen	xarit <n><cl5><sg> ↔ xarit	their (pl) friend
seen<det><pos><cl5><pl> ↔ seeni	xarit <n><cl5><pl> ↔ xarit	their (pl) friends

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	gis<v> ↔ gis	One has seen me. OR I have been seen.

Proximity markers

• there are two classes of distal/proximity markers: close to the speaker and far from the speaker
  • when ending in an i- suffix, the distal determiner is always assumed to be close to the speaker

nit<n><cl1> ↔ nit	ki <det><dst><cl1> ↔ ka	The person far [from the speaker]
nit<n><pl><cl9> ↔ nit	ki <det><dst><pl><cl9> ↔ ña	The people far [from the speaker]
xaj<n><cl2> ↔ xaj	ki <det><dst><cl2> ↔ ba	The dog far [from the speaker]
xaj<n><pl><cl10> ↔ xaj	ki <det><dst><cl10><pl> ↔ ya	The dogs far [from the speaker]
garab<n><cl3> ↔ garab	ki <det><dst><cl3> ↔ ga	The tree far [from the speaker]
jinax<n><cl4> ↔ jinax	ki <det><dst><cl4> ↔ ja	The mouse far [from the speaker]
yàpp<n><cl8> ↔ yàpp	ki <det><dst><cl8> ↔ wa	The mouse far [from the speaker]
meew<n><cl6> ↔ meew	ki <det><dst><cl6> ↔ ma	The meat far [from the speaker]
xorom<n><cl7> ↔ xorom	ki <det><dst><cl7> ↔ sa	The salt far [from the speaker]
lëf<n><cl5> ↔ lëf	ki <det><dst><cl5> ↔ la	The thing far [from the speaker]

Focus markers

Complement focus

,