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

The basic word order of Wolof is SVO, however, when the object or the verb is in focus, the word order changes to OSV.

Subject focus

Subject focus is the default in all Wolof noun phrases since the neutral word order is SVO, [...]

Complement focus

,