Transcript Document

Verbal morphosyntax in
SW Mande
Elements of Reconstruction
Kirill Babaev
Russian Academy of Sciences, Institute for Oriental Studies
RSUH, 22 March 2013
Project (1 min)
“Towards Proto-Niger-Congo: Comparison and
Reconstruction”
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Starostin’s 2004 Initiative
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Objectives
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Participants
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Paris Congress 2012
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Further perspectives
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Mande team
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Work done and to be done
SW Mande Challenge (2 min)
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Little morphology
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Vast and complicated tonology
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Short and uncomparable morphs (V, N, CV)
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Fast regeneration, duplication and fusion of
markers
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Dropped *N and its influence on morph
boundary alternations
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Reconstructing constructions rather than
morphs
SW Mande Type (3 min)
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Morph positions and origins:
(1) Initial
(2) Post-subject
(3) Post-predicate
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Post-subject markers resulting in person marker
series
SW Person markers (3 min)
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Reconstruction:
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Origin: fusion of PS verb markers with person
markers
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PS markers as reduced auxiliary verbs
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S-V-O-VN > S-Aux-O-V
PS markers in diachrony (2 min)
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Reconstruction:
•
Origin: fusion of PS verb markers with person
markers
•
PS markers as reduced auxiliary verbs
•
S-V-O-VN > S-Aux-O-V
Reconstructibles (5 min)
Conclusions (2 min)
• A few morphs may be reconstructed for TA and negation
marking in Proto-SWM
• Origins of these morhps may in most cases
established in either the noun or the verb system
be
• The basic opposition PFV / IPFV is duly confirmed, the
perfective cluster being marked by the basic (unmarked)
person marker series
• Modality is represented mostly by the imperative and
conditional moods (probably irrealis)
• Regeneration of the verbal systems and fast ‘cycles of
grammaticalisation’ make it a tricky task to go deeper
that 1500-2000 years in reconstructing the Proto-Mande
verb system
Thanks for your attention
[email protected]