Cover not available
Article published In:
Linguistics in the Netherlands 2023
Edited by Sterre Leufkens and Marco Bril
[Linguistics in the Netherlands 40] 2023
► pp. 4–22

The contact-based emergence of the subject-focus construction in Wolof

A dynamic perspective

| Radboud University Nijmegen
| Radboud University Nijmegen

In this article, we focus on the origin of the Wolof subject-focus construction (SFC) from a dynamic perspective. In Wolof, argument focus is expressed morpho-syntactically by means of copulaless cleft constructions consisting of the juxtaposition of the focus and a free relative clause. The free relative clause is headed by a determiner, which takes the form a in the case of the SFC. The determiner a is not found anywhere else in the language outside of SFC. We hypothesise that Wolof borrowed its SFC from Berber languages. The sociohistorical scenario, based on oral tradition, could have been the emergence of Wolof, as a crucible of contact between peoples of diverse origin including Berber groups. This finding is strengthened by the occurrence of other elements common to Wolof and Berber languages, such as clitic attraction, negation, copula insertion, as well as a number of lexical parallelisms.

Keywords: Wolof, Berber, contact, subject focus, cleft
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.The Wolof subject-focus construction
  • 3.Grammatical evidence for a borrowing scenario from Berber languages to Wolof
    • 3.1The expression of focus in Berber languages
    • 3.2Grammatical parallelisms between Wolof and Berber languages
    • 3.3Lexical parallelisms
  • 4.Triangulating evidence from history and oral tradition
    • 4.1Historical evidence
    • 4.2Oral tradition
  • 5.Final ideas
  • Acknowledgements
  • Notes
  • Abbreviations
  • References
Available under the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) 4.0 license.

For any use beyond this license, please contact the publisher at [email protected].

Published online: 3 November 2023
DOI logo
https://doi.org/10.1075/avt.00076.bou
References
Amazit-Hamidchi, Fadma & Mohand Lounaci
2005 Le kabyle de poche. Paris: Assimil.Google Scholar
Bao Diop, Sokhna
2017 Le baynunk guñaamolo, une langue du sud du Sénégal. Analyse phonologique, morphologique et syntaxique. Paris: L’Harmattan.Google Scholar
Bailey, Charles-James N.
1973 Variation and Linguistic Theory. Arlington, Virginia: Center for Applied Linguistics.Google Scholar
Boulègue, Jean
1987 Le Grand Jolof. Paris: Diffusion Karthala.Google Scholar
Bourdeau, Corentin
N.d., accepted. “The Wolof argument-focus constructions as copulaless clefts”. Journal of African Languages and Linguistics. DOI logo
Dallet, Jean-Marie
1985 Dictionnaire Français-Kabyle : Parler Des At Mangellat, Algérie [2]. Paris: Selaf.Google Scholar
de Motylinski, Adolphe
1908 Grammaire, Dialogues et Dictionnaire Touaregs [1]. Alger: Imprimerie orientale Pierre Fontana.Google Scholar
Diouf, Jean-Léopold
2009 Grammaire Du Wolof Contemporain. Paris: L’Harmattan.Google Scholar
Faidherbe, Léon
1877 Le Zenaga Des Tribus Sénégalaises : Contribution à l’étude de La Langue Berbère, 〈[URL]〉
Fagerberg, Sonja
1983 Discourse strategies in Pulaar the use of focus. Studies in African Linguistics, 14 (2), 141–158. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Favaron, Pedro
2022 “La Pedagogía de la Madre Tierra: una propuesta reflexiva a partir de las prácticas y testimonios del sabio indígena Abadio Green Stocel”. Interpretatio. Revista de hermenéutica 7(2): 129–154. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Faye, Waly
1979 “Etude morphosyntaxique du sereer singandum : parler de Jaxaaw et de Ñaaxar”. PhD dissertation, Grenoble: Université Stendhal – Grenoble.
Faye, Souleymane & Maarten Mous
2006 “Verbal system and diathesis derivations in Seereer”. Africana Linguistica 12(1): 89–112. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Galand, Lionel
2014 “Typology of relative clauses: the case of Berber”. STUF – Language Typology and Universals 67(1): 81–96. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Heath, Jeffrey
2005 A Grammar of Tamashek (Tuareg of Mali). Berlin & New York: Mouton De Gruyter. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
2006 Dictionnaire touareg du Mali: tamachek-anglais-français. Paris: Karthala.Google Scholar
Levtzion, Nehemia
1978 “The Sahara and the Sudan from the Arab Conquest of the Maghrib to the rise of the Almoravids”. The Cambridge History of Africa [2] ed. by John D. Fage & Roland Oliver, 637–384. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
2000 “Islam in the Bilad al-Sudan to 1800”. The history of Islam in Africa ed. by Nehemia Levtzion & Randall Pouwels, 63–91. Athens, OH: Ohio University Press.Google Scholar
Lüpke, Friederike
2016 “Pure fiction – the interplay of indexical and essentialist language ideologies and heterogeneous practices. A view from Agnack”. African language documentation: new data, methods and approached ed. by Mandana Seyfeddinipur, 8–39. University of Hawai’i Press.Google Scholar
2017 “African(ist) perspectives on vitality: Fluidity, small speaker numbers, and adaptive multilingualism make vibrant ecologies (Response to Mufwene)”. Language 93(4): 275–279. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
McLaughlin, Fiona
1997 “Noun classification in Wolof when affixes are not renewed”. Studies in African Linguistics 26(1): 1–28. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Merrill, John T. M.
2021 “The evolution of consonant mutation and noun class marking in Wolof”. Diachronica 38(1): 64–110. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Mettouchi, Amina
2009 “The system of negation in Berber”. Negation Patterns in West African Languages and Beyond ed. by Norbert Cyffer, Erwin Ebermann & Georg Ziegelmeyer, 287–306. Amsterdam & Philadelphia: John Benjamins. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Mettouchi, Amina & Axel Fleisch
2010 “Topic-Focus Articulation in Taqbaylit and Tashelhit Berber”. The expression of information structure. A documentation of its diversity across Africa ed. by Ines Fiedler & Anne Schwarz, 193–232. Amsterdam & Philadelphia: John Benjamins. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Naro, Anthony J.
1978 “A Study on the Origins of Pidginization”. Language 54(2): 314–347. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Oulhadj, Lahsen
2014 English-Amazigh (Tashlhit). [URL]
Pozdniakov, Konstantin & Guillaume Segerer
2017 “A Genealogical classification of Atlantic languages”. Oxford Guide to the World’s Languages: Atlantic ed. by Friederike Lüpke. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Price, Richard
1990 Alabi’s World. JohnHopkins University Press. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
2002 “Maroons in Suriname and Guyane: How Many and Where”. NWIG: New West Indian Guide / Nieuwe West-Indische Gids 76(1/2): 81–88. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Price, Richard & Sally Price
2002 Les Marrons en Guyane. Châteauneuf-le-Rouge: Vents d’ailleurs.Google Scholar
Robbeets, Martine, Remco Bouckaert, Matthew Conte, Alexander Savelyev, Tao Li, Deog-Im An, Ken-ichi Shinoda, et al.
2021 “Triangulation supports agricultural spread of the Transeurasian languages”. Nature 599(7886): 616–621. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Robert, Stéphane
2000 “Le verbe wolof our la grammaticalisation du focus”. Topicalisation et focalisation dans les langues africaines ed. by Bernard Caron, 229–267. Louvain: Peeters.Google Scholar
2018 “Predication in Wolof (Niger-Congo)”. Corpus-based cross-linguistic studies on Predication (CorTypo) ed. by Amina Mettouchi, Zygmunt Frajzyngier & Christian Chanard. 〈[URL]〉
Rojas-Berscia, Luis Miguel
2020 “The Chachapuya language and Proto-Kawapanan: Lexical Affinities and Hypothetical Contact Scenarios”. INDIANA 34(1): 155–188.Google Scholar
2021 Pre-Historical Language Contact in Peruvian Amazonia: A Dynamic Approach to Shawi (Kawapanan) [Contact Language Library]. Vol. 581. Amsterdam: John Benjamins Publishing Company. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Seuren, Pieter A. M.
1982 “Internal variability in competence”. Linguistische Berichte 771: 1–31.Google Scholar
Shoup, John
2007 “The griot tradition in Hassāniyya music: the “iggāwen”.” Quaderni di Studi Arabi 21: 95–102.Google Scholar
2014 “Saharan Crossroads Music in Tarab al-Baydan: The Iggawin”. Saharan crossroads: Exploring historical, cultural, and artistic linkages between North and West Africa [Chapter 8] ed. by Tara F. Deubel, Scott M. Youngstedt & Hélène Tissières. Cambridge: Cambridge Scholars Publishing.Google Scholar
Suleimanova, Olga & Marina Fomina
2023 “Triangulation as a Research Method in Experimental Linguistics”. Computational Linguistics and Intelligent Text Processing [Lecture Notes in Computer Science] ed. by Alexander Gelbukh, 109–120. Cham: Springer Nature Switzerland, DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Taine-Cheikh, Catherine
2008 Dictionnaire Zénaga-Français. Cologne: Rüdiger Köppe Verlag.Google Scholar
2010 “The role of the Berber deictic ad and TAM markers in dependent clauses in Zenaga”. Clause Linking and Clause Hierarchy. Syntax and pragmatics ed. by Isabelle Bril, 355–398. Amsterdam & Philadelphia: John Benjamins. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
2011 “L’énoncé négatif en berbère zenaga”. Parcours berbères ed. by Amina Mettouchi, 533–551. Cologne: Rüdiger Köppe Verlag.Google Scholar
Tamari, Tal
1991 “The Development of Caste Systems in West Africa”. The Journal of African History 32(2): 221–250. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Thurston, William
1987 Processes of Change in the Languages of North-Western New Britain [Pacific Linguistic: Series B 99]. Canberra: Research School of Pacific and Asian Studies, Australian National University.Google Scholar
Urban, Matthias
2021 “Cholón and the linguistic prehistory of northern Peru: triangulating toponymy, substrate lexis, and areal typology”. Linguistic Discovery 17(1): 63–83. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Webb, James L. A.
1995 “The Evolution of the Idaw al-Hajj Commercial Diaspora”. Cahiers d’études africaines 35(138–139): 455–475. DOI logoGoogle Scholar