Overview of Verbal System 1. Definitions: a.

Mood Grammatical mood (also mode) is one of a set of distinctive verb forms that are used to signal modality. Currently identified moods include conditional, imperative, indicative, injunctive, optative, potential, subjunctive, and more. (Wiki) Aspect Aspect concerns how the speaker views the progress of the action. The action could be imminent (on the point of being begun), uncompleted (at the start of being accomplished; in progress or near the end of being accomplished), or completed = perfect (just completed or completed). There is also a habitual situation. The length of the event affects its categories: events of short duration vs events of long duration. Aspect usually shows us things like whether the action is finished or not, or if something happens regularly. English has two (progressive and perfect) (Wiki easy English) L'aspect traduit l'angle sous lequel le locuteur voit les diffrents moments de l'action. C'est "le procs considr sous l'angle de son dveloppement interne". D'une manibre gnrale le locuteur peut envisager que le droulement de l'action se prpare, qu'il se ralise ou qu'il est achev. (Cisse 1984) Tense Tense is mainly used to say when the verb happens: in the past, present, or future. Some languages have all three tenses, some have only two, and some have no tenses at all. English has two (past and present) (Wiki Easy English) Voice In grammar, the voice (also called diathesis) of a verb describes the relationship between the action (or state) that the verb expresses and the participants identified by its arguments (subject, object, etc.). When the subject is the agent or actor of the verb, the verb is in the active voice. When the subject is the patient, target or undergoer of the action, it is said to be in the passive voice. (Wiki) Polarity Grammatical polarity is the distinction of affirmative and negative Notion of time Time can be either absolute (the event is described with respect to the moment it is being described) past present future or relative (the event is described with respect to some point in time apart from the present). prior to at the same time as after Furthermore the reference point in time could be itself in the past or in the future.

b.

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2.

The verbal system of Wolof is very difficult to describe using classic terminology. There are no verb conjugations, nor tenses. The verb remains invariable, apart from changes brought about by derivation. Rather there are complex sets of markers including personal markers often incorrectly called pronouns which serve to indicate person & number, grammatical mood, focus, tense, aspect and voice. There is considerable debate as to how to describe the Wolof verbal system. The classic description is one of 6 indicative moods and 2 injunctive moods, which may be either perfect or imperfect according to the presence of the imperfective marker. Each has its negative form. However this system poses problems as some of the marker sets have similarities to but do not function purely as modes tense, nor aspects. Others would differentiate one system for stative verbs and another for active verbs. In the end the difficulty in describing the verbal system may be due to the existence of a heterogenous system rather than a homogenous system. In the end I will describe 8 sets of markers, and a further two negative sets, which when combined with past time and perfective markers, allow the speaker to convey a large range of nuances about time, aspect, polarity and focus.

In Wolof, tense is best described as psychological time. The listener often needs more than the sentence predicate to compute the time frame and other meaning-related forms. In other words, the whole syntactic structure is accountable for time reference. In Wolof the aspectual values serve best to designate the appropriate tense for meaning. Finite verbs, namely verbs with auxiliary markers, show that the action is either incomplete or has been completed before another action took place. 3. Resume chart. Narrative 1st p.sg. 2nd p.sg. 3rd p.sg. 1st p.p. 2nd p.p 3rd p.p. ma nga mu nu ngeen u Completed 1st p.sg. 2nd p.sg. 3rd p.sg. 1st p.p. 2nd p.p 3rd p.p. naa nga na nanu ngeen nau Presentative maa yaa mu nu yeena u ngi ngi ngi ngi ngi ngi Negatif -uma -uloo -ul -unu -uleen -uu Verbal Emphasis dama danga da(fa) danu dangeen dau Incomplete Negative duma doo du dunu dungeen duu Subject Emphasis maa yaa moo noo yeena oo Optative naa nanga na nanu nangeen nau -leen -l/-al Complement Emphasis laa nga la lanu ngeen lau Imperative

Mu jox leen ab tere. Mu ngi leen jox ab tere. Dafa leen jox ab tere. Moo leen jox ab tere. Ab tere la leen jox. Jox na leen ab tere. Joxul leen ab tere. Du leen jox ab tere. Na leen jox tere. Jox leen ab tere. 4. 5.

He gave them a book. He is giving them a book. He gave them a book. It was he who gave them the book. (or He gave them a book.) It was a book that he gave to them. (or He gave them a book.) He gave them a book. He did not give them a book. He will not give them a book. Let him give them a book. Give them a book.

The imperfective marker, di/y, indicates that the action referred to by the verb is incomplete or progressive. The past markers, (w)oon or (w)aan, indicates an action which was completed or a state that existed at some time prior to the present. It expresses an action whose consequences have no role in the present or a state which no longer exists. (W)aan refers to events in the more distant past to (w)oon without indicating a particular point in time. Combination with the imperfective marker (di + oon = doon, daan) indicates an habitual action or state occurring in the past. (W)oon presents an action in its totality in contrast to doon which presents it in its progress. Wolof uses a combination of the past markers, the imperfective marker and a variety of time expressions to express time, rather than tenses. e.g. Dem na Ndar He went to St Louis (and is still there) Demoon na Ndar He went to St Louis (and has returned)

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The time interval is less important than the fact as to whether the action continues or not. e.g. Demoon naa Ndar tey si suba I went to St Louis this morning (and have returned) Dem na Ndar; booba ak tey jurom fukki at la He went to St Louis (to live) 50 years ago Dafa baaxoon He was good (but is not anymore) a. b. e.g. bi/ba/bu ...verb+-ee Wolof has a full set of time related adverbs dmb yesterday bs bu nekk every day bu ygg for a long time leg-leg occasionally There are also several aspect related verbal suffixes -agul not yet -atul no longer There is not necessarily concordance of time between a principal clause and its subordinate clause.1

c. e.g.

d.

Principal clause Perfective

Subordinate clause Durative aspect (past) Simple Durative Past Perfect Simple Perfect Anteriority

Example Gis naa gaal gu doon sux. Gis naa gaal gu daan sux. Gis naa gaal guy sux. Gis naa gaal gu suxoon. Gis naa gaal gu sux. Bi ma fa demee gis naa gaal gu sux. Doon naa gis xale uy dem ekool. Daan naa gis xale uy dem ekool.

Translation I saw a boat that was sinking. I saw a boat that used to sink (habitually). I saw a boat that was sinking. I saw a boat that was sunken. I saw a boat that sank. When I went there I saw a sunken boat. I used to see children who were going to school. I used to see children who used to go the school.

Imperfective

Simple Durative

Durative Doon na gis xale u daan dem aspect (past) ekool. After Cisse 1984 p46, 49-52 (48, 51-54) e. e.g.

There are semantic differences relating to time between the different moods. Dafa gumba. He is blind [from birth]. vs Dafay lekk. He is in the process of eating. vs Dina naan. He drinks [habitually]. vs Gumba na. He [has become] blind. Lekk na. He has eaten. Mu ngi naan. He is in the process of drinking.

7. Voice. Sylvie Voisin-Nouguier2 suggests that there are 6 voices in Wolof: middle, causative, applicative, co-participation, antipassive and possessive. They define possessive as a type of valency change systematically coded in Wolof by means of a verbal suffix, whereby an intransitive verb expressing a quality attributed to the referent of the subject is converted

Cisse 1984 p. 47 (49)

CREISSELS, Denis; NOUGUIER-VOISIN, Sylvie 2004 The verbal suffixes of Wolof coding valency changes and the notion of co-participation VOISIN-NOUGUIER, Sylvie 2002 Relations entre fonctions syntaxiques et fonctions smantiques en Wolof

into a transitive verb attributing the same quality to the referent of its object, and assigning to the referent of its subject the role of possessor, as in the following example: Woto bi gaaw na. The car is fast Gaaw-le naa woto. I have a fast car type of valency change middle causative applicative co-participation antipassive possessive possible markers -u -e, -al, -le, -lu, -loo -e, -al -e, -oo, -ante, -andoo, -aale -e -le

She suggests that Wolof does not have passive proper, and regularly uses constructions combining object topicalization and subject focalization with a function similar to that fulfilled by passive constructions in other languages; however, some uses of the middle marker -u can be considered as quasi-passive. There are 3 means of expressing the passive: The passive and semi-active are formed by adding the suffix -u. e.g. Aali tj na bunt ba. Ali closed the door. Bunt bi tju na. The door is closed. Aali gaau na. Ali is injured. The passive can also be formed by using the 3rd person plural form with an active form. In this case it indicates the equivalent of the English structure "one ...". e.g. oo ngi may gis One has seen me. OR I have been seen. The passive can also be indicated by the structure -ees/-eef. See Samb p 109-113 for more details. 8. References

CAMARA, Sana 2006 Wolof Lexicon and Grammar (NALRC Press, Madison) CISSE, Momar 1984 Lide de Pass : Etude contrastive franais/wolof (Universit de Dakar, memoire de maitrise) KA, Omar 2009 Nanu Dgg Wolof: A Multidimensional Approach to the Teaching and Learning of Wolof as a Foreign Language (NALRC Press, Madison) ROBERT, Stphane 1991 Approche nonciative du systme verbal le cas du Wolof: Le cas du wolof (Editions du Centre national de la recherche scientifique, Paris) TORRENCE, William Harold 2005 On the Distribution of Complementizers in Wolof (UCLA doctoral thesis)