Papers by Denis Creissels
Linguistics
In the adnominal possessive construction of Mandinka (a West Mande language spoken in Gambia, Sen... more In the adnominal possessive construction of Mandinka (a West Mande language spoken in Gambia, Senegal, and Guinea Bissau), the possessor NP may be simply juxtaposed to the possessee or flagged by the postposition lá. This coding split shows unusual properties in comparison with most of the languages having formally similar coding splits. Crucially, any noun can be modified by an unflagged possessor, depending on the semantic nature of the possessor and of its relation to the possessee. The present-day distribution of the two constructions cannot be analyzed as reflecting an alienability contrast, nor can the alienability contrast account for the emergence of this coding split. The data analyzed in this study suggest that the lá-construction initially referred to situations where the possessor determines the location of the possessee, but is grammaticalized differently depending on the grammatical nature of the head noun and the semantic nature of the modifier. The Mandinka data also...
De Gruyter eBooks, Aug 28, 2015
The first part of the present article concentrates on noncausal/causal pairs whose noncausal memb... more The first part of the present article concentrates on noncausal/causal pairs whose noncausal member is a monovalent verb referring to a process typically undergone by concrete inanimate entities. The cross-linguistic variation in the coding of such pairs is analyzed in a convenience sample of 30 sub-Saharan languages from various genetic units. 10 of the 30 languages show an extremely high degree of preference for the ambitransitivity strategy in the coding of this particular type of noncausal/causal pairs, whereas none of them shows such a high degree of preference for any of the other possible strategies. The second part of the article concentrates on the 10 languages of the sample making a systematic use of the ambitransitivity strategy for the type of noncausal/causal pairs investigated in the first part of the article. It analyzes the extension of the ambitransitivity strategy to the coding of other semantic types of noncausal/causal pairs and to the coding of the psych alternation. In the questionnaire used to test the extension of the ambitransitivity strategy, a sizeable proportion of ambitransitive pairs is found in only three languages. In the others, the lack of any systematicity is the situation that predominates for the semantic types of noncausal/causal pairs other than that investigated in the first part of the article and for pairs of psych verbs.
Language in Africa, Jul 23, 2022
In this article, we describe and analyze a set of alternative forms of class prefixes found in th... more In this article, we describe and analyze a set of alternative forms of class prefixes found in the inflection of adnominals and pronouns that have never been mentioned so far in the literature on Jóola Fóoñi. This alternative form of class prefixes differs from the standard form by the presence of a vowel a. We argue that the existence of the Ca-variant of the class prefixes of adnominals and pronouns is not related to the fact that some nouns have a Ca prefix, and results rather from the reanalysis of the prefixal sequence that characterizes participles as an alternative set of class prefixes whose use tends to be extended to other types of noun modifiers.
The Italian Journal of Linguistics, 2017
Atypical objects are defined as phrases that do not represent participants in the event denoted b... more Atypical objects are defined as phrases that do not represent participants in the event denoted by the verb and nevertheless are encoded like typical patients. Soninke (West-Mande) has cross-linguistically uncommon types of atypical objects expressing duration, interval/distance, or quantitative specification. Their identification as syntactic objects is facilitated by the fact that Soninke has a particularly clear-cut distinction between transitive and intransitive constructions. They can be equally found with otherwise strictly intransitive verbs or with transitive verbs, in which case they occupy the slot normally reserved to the patientive argument
ELLUG, Université Stendhal eBooks, 1991
L'objectif essentiel est d'apporter une information sur des types de st... more L'objectif essentiel est d'apporter une information sur des types de structuration syntaxique attestés dans les langues négro-africaines mais les questions abordées sont constamment situées dans la perspective de l'élaboration d'un cadre théorique susceptible d'être ...
Human cognitive processing, Jul 15, 2023
De Gruyter eBooks, Jun 7, 2022
Gobierno de Navarra eBooks, Sep 30, 2020
Lanak adituek berrikusi dituzte, itsu bikoitzeko sistemaren bidez/Los trabajos han sido revisados... more Lanak adituek berrikusi dituzte, itsu bikoitzeko sistemaren bidez/Los trabajos han sido revisados por pares doble ciego.
Syntaxe & sémantique, Dec 31, 2022
Cet article analyse l’évolution de la construction communément utilisée en jóola fóoñi pour expri... more Cet article analyse l’évolution de la construction communément utilisée en jóola fóoñi pour exprimer le souhait du locuteur concernant un état de choses qui échappe au contrôle des participants à l’acte de langage. À l’origine, il s’agit d’une construction bi-propositionnelle dans laquelle la proposition principale est Ɛmɩtεy εkaan ‘Fasse Dieu que’, mais la possibilité de répéter Ɛmɩtεy ‘Dieu’ comme sujet de la proposition subordonnée référant à l’état de choses souhaité montre que la construction a été réanalysée en tant que construction monopropositionnelle dans laquelle l’ancienne proposition principale joue le rôle d’une particule optative, dont la structure interne, bien qu’encore visible, n’est plus pertinente.
Presses de l’Inalco eBooks, 2020
Les constructions prédicatives communément désignées comme « existentielles » partagent avec la p... more Les constructions prédicatives communément désignées comme « existentielles » partagent avec la prédication de localisation l’aptitude à encoder des relations figure-fond prototypiques, mais elles encodent une perspectivisation différente des relations figure-fond. Beaucoup de langues n’ont pas de construction prédicative existentielle vraiment différente de la prédication de localisation. Il y a toutefois une forte minorité de langues dans lesquelles la prédication existentielle met en jeu un prédicatif utilisé aussi dans une construction possessive de type transpossessif, définie comme construction prédicative dans laquelle les rôles sémantiques de possesseur et de possédé sont assignés aux référents de groupes nominaux dont les caractéristiques de codage sont identiques à celles de l’agent et du patient de verbes d’action typiques. La notion de possession définie comme inclusion dans la sphère personnelle d’un individu a une affinité évidente avec la notion de localisation à un endroit donné. Ceci explique pourquoi des prédications possessives plus ou moins alignées avec la prédication de localisation sont aussi courantes. Toutefois, cette affinité ne doit pas être surestimée. Il y a quelques dizaines d’années, il était communément admis que les verbes transitifs de possession constituent une bizarrerie typologique des langues actuellement parlées en Europe. Plus récemment, Freeze (1992) a proposé une version plus élaborée de l’hypothèse selon laquelle les prédications locative, existentielle et possessive dérivent d’une même structure sous-jacente dans laquelle « une préposition est la tête du groupe prédicatif », mais cette hypothèse n’est pas confirmée par les données typologiques.Les constructions transpossessives sont très courantes dans les langues du monde, et les constructions existentielles mettant en jeu un prédicatif utilisé aussi dans une construction transpossessive ne sont pas rares. Le développement historique de constructions existentielles à partir de constructions transpossessives peut s’analyser comme ayant pour point de départ la dépersonnalisation de la construction possessiveUn autre aspect important entre la prédication existentielle et les constructions transpossessives est l’évolution par laquelle une construction possessive qui est au départ une variante de la prédication de localisation peut acquérir des caractéristiques de codage qui tendent à s’aligner sur celle de la construction transitive.The predicative constructions commonly designated as “existential” share with plain locational predication the ability to encode prototypical figure‑ground relationships, but encode a different perspectivization of figure‑ground relationships. Many languages do not have an existential predicative construction really distinct from the locational predicative construction. There is however a substantial minority of the languages in which existential predication involves a predicator also found in a possessive construction of the transpossessive type, defined as a predicative construction in which the semantic roles of possessor and possessee are assigned to the referents of noun phrases whose coding characteristics are identical to those of the agent and patient of typical action verbs.The notion of possession defined as inclusion in the personal sphere of an individual has an obvious affinity with the notion of location at some place. This explains why possessive predications more or less aligned with locational predication are so common. However, this affinity should not be overestimated. Some decades ago, it was commonly admitted that transitive verbs of possession constitute a typological oddity of modern European languages, and are virtually absent in the languages spoken in other parts of the world. More recently, Freeze (1992) put forward a more elaborate version of the view that locative, existential and possessive predications derive from a single underlying structure in which “a preposition is the head of the predicate phrase”, but such views are not supported by typological data.Transpossessive constructions are quite frequent in the languages of the world, and existential constructions involving a predicator also found in a transpossessive construction are not rare. The historical development of existential constructions from transpossessive constructions can be analyzed as starting from the depersonalization of the possessive construction.Another important aspect of the relationship between existential predication and transpossessive constructions is the “have‑drift” (acquisition of coding properties typical of transitive predication) that may affect possessive predications in which the possessee is originally encoded like the figure in a locational/existential predication
Language Typology and Universals, Nov 1, 2022
In the existential domain, Classical Arabic expresses the ground > figure perspectivizatio... more In the existential domain, Classical Arabic expresses the ground > figure perspectivization in locational predication by a mere change in constituent order, but Modern Arabic varieties have variously grammaticalized existential particles that tend to acquire verb-like properties. In the possessive domain, Classical Arabic and Modern Standard Arabic have a typical oblique-possessor (or locational possessive) construction in which the possessor phrase is flagged by a preposition. In the vernacular varieties, this preposition has become a possessive predicator with some verbal properties, whose coding frame is similar (although not fully identical) to that of a transitive verb. More radical changes in the existential and possessive domains are attested in pidginized/creolized Arabic varieties.
De Gruyter eBooks, Sep 13, 2012
De Gruyter eBooks, Aug 16, 2013
Studies in language companion series, 2013
This paper examines aspects of the evolution of possessive and existential constructions that she... more This paper examines aspects of the evolution of possessive and existential constructions that shed interesting light on the affinities between possession and the notions underlying existential predication, comitative predication and transitive predication. The unity of the notion of possession follows from the notion of personal sphere of an individual, but the relationships between an individual and the elements of his/her personal sphere are very diverse, and sometimes ambiguous, with respect to the control exerted by the possessor. Consequently, whatever the source of a predicative construction expressing possession (existential, comitative, or transitive), its extension to the whole domain of possession implies extension to situations that differ from those encoded by the source construction in terms of control, which favors further evolutions. This explains why many languages have constructions expressing predicative possession that are fully aligned with none of the constructions that can be their historical source. Keywords: possession; existence; comitative; transitivity
Typological studies in language, 2006
... It proposes a typology and examines the case of languages in which locative adpositions or ca... more ... It proposes a typology and examines the case of languages in which locative adpositions or case affixes are not sensitive to ... is placed on a strategy particularly common among the languages of Subsaharan Africa, whereby the valency properties of motion verbs are organized ...
Institut d'études slaves eBooks, 1977
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Papers by Denis Creissels
Sans unité thématique, ce n° 2 (juin 2016) présente quatre études sur le tswana, le cuwabo et le makhuwa, le ǁgana et le shingazidja, soit en anglais, soit en français, ainsi que quatre comptes-rendus (v. la table des matières en téléchargement).
Vendu 20 euros en librairie, ce numéro est téléchargeable en libre accès ("fair open access") en cliquant sur le lien ci-dessous.