{"title":"Noun classes and grammatical gender in Wolof","authors":"C. Babou, M. Loporcaro","doi":"10.1515/jall-2016-0001","DOIUrl":null,"url":null,"abstract":"Abstract In this paper, we propose a reassessment of Wolof noun morphology and morphosyntax. Wolof is usually said to possess a total of 10 noun classes (8 for the singular, 2 for the plural), marked today exclusively on agreement targets. We provide evidence that two more plural noun classes must be recognized, which have so far been misinterpreted as “collective” rather than plural: the evidence we provide is morphosyntactic (from verb agreement) as well as morphological (from class-related asymmetries in the paradigm of the indefinite article). As for method, the main thrust of the paper consists in showing that an accurate analysis of the Wolof data must make use of the three distinct notions “noun class”, “inflectional class” and “agreement class” (or gender). Under the analysis defended here, Wolof turns out to have a fairly complex gender system, featuring 17 distinct gender values. Our analysis – and especially the discussion of Wolof so-called “collectives” – also bears on the general theoretical issue of how to establish the values of the number category.","PeriodicalId":43215,"journal":{"name":"Journal of African Languages and Linguistics","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.4000,"publicationDate":"2016-10-16","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1515/jall-2016-0001","citationCount":"15","resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":null,"PeriodicalName":"Journal of African Languages and Linguistics","FirstCategoryId":"98","ListUrlMain":"https://doi.org/10.1515/jall-2016-0001","RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"文学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":null,"EPubDate":"","PubModel":"","JCR":"N/A","JCRName":"LANGUAGE & LINGUISTICS","Score":null,"Total":0}
引用次数: 15
Abstract
Abstract In this paper, we propose a reassessment of Wolof noun morphology and morphosyntax. Wolof is usually said to possess a total of 10 noun classes (8 for the singular, 2 for the plural), marked today exclusively on agreement targets. We provide evidence that two more plural noun classes must be recognized, which have so far been misinterpreted as “collective” rather than plural: the evidence we provide is morphosyntactic (from verb agreement) as well as morphological (from class-related asymmetries in the paradigm of the indefinite article). As for method, the main thrust of the paper consists in showing that an accurate analysis of the Wolof data must make use of the three distinct notions “noun class”, “inflectional class” and “agreement class” (or gender). Under the analysis defended here, Wolof turns out to have a fairly complex gender system, featuring 17 distinct gender values. Our analysis – and especially the discussion of Wolof so-called “collectives” – also bears on the general theoretical issue of how to establish the values of the number category.
期刊介绍:
The Journal of African Languages and Linguistics was founded in 1979 and has established itself as an important refereed forum for publications in African linguistics. The Journal of African Languages and Linguistics welcomes original contributions on all aspects of African language studies, synchronic as well as diachronic, theoretical as well as data-oriented. The journal further contains a list of recently published books on African languages and linguistics, which many libraries find to be of use for the acquisition of books. The Journal of African Languages and Linguistics is a peer-reviewed journal of international scope.