Clause chaining in Bambara

Ghana Journal of Linguistics, 2021

Toposa, an Eastern Nilotic language of South Sudan, has been identified as a clause-chaining language (Schröder 2013, Schröder 2020), because it does not allow two independent clauses following each other, but the fundamental sentence structure is that an independent clause is followed by a chained clause. The current paper claims that this clause-chaining constraint creates new syntactic and semantic functions of independent and subordinative clauses, whereby one syntactic function is clause-skipping that caters for adverbial clauses in the model. The structure of independent clause and chained clause yields semantically a distinction of foreground and background information. The foreground information is carried by the finite and the background information by the non-finite clauses. The interpretation of the foreground and background information is explained as cognitive pragmatic routines that guide the hearer to understand the foreground information as main events and the background information as explanations to the foreground information. The background information captured in the adverbial clauses provide explanations for time, reasonresult, means-result, purpose, conditions and contrast. The pragmatic analysis is based on the insights of Relevance theory (Sperber and Wilson 1995).

Bambara has just one valency changing derivational morpheme, but Bambara verbs very commonly have a variety of constructions reflecting the various types of valency changes that cross-linguistically tend to be encoded by means of derivational affixes. After a brief presentation of the situation of Bambara from the point of view of alignment typology (transitive construction and intransitive alignment -section 2, ditransitive alignment -section 3) and of causative derivation (section 4), this paper is mainly devoted to a presentation of the various types of transitivity alternations (i.e., the possible types of relations between an intransitive and a transitive construction of the same verb), alternations between two transitive constructions of the same verb, and alternations involving the reflexive construction. Sékou with anger.DEF come-PF.POS 'Sékou came angry' c. séku nà-na ní músa yé Sékou come-PF.POS with Moussa POSTP 'Sékou came with Moussa' 5 Some details in the use of the associative preposition are different in other Manding dialects, for example, in Kita Maninka -see Creissels To appear.

This paper discusses a typologically unusual relativization strategy attested in several Southeastern Mande languages. In this construction, the relativized noun phrase appears in its own non-reduced clause and is referred to by a pronoun in the main clause, as in constructions with correlative clauses (literally, “That man invited us, I am writing to him” for ‘I am writing to the man who invited us’). Unlike in typical cases of correlative clauses, however, the clause containing the relativized noun phrase appears inside the main clause, immediately preceding the resumptive pronoun (literally, “I am writing – that man invited us – to him”). I discuss the syntactic properties of this unusual construction and suggest a possible diachronic path for its development. In particular, I argue that the rise of clause-internal correlatives in Southeastern Mande is licensed by a typologically unusual syntactic property of those languages: clause-internal extraposition of noun phrases, which is in turn related to the clause-level adjunction of postpositional phrases. More generally, besides adding a previously unattested type to the typology of relativization strategies, I seek to illustrate how typologically unusual morphosyntactic properties provide the basis for the subsequent development of rare or unique constructions (the “Propagation of Rara” principle).

This paper deals with the syntactic status of postpositional arguments in South Mande and accounts for a reanalysis of the verb phrase structure. Mande languages, including South Mande, are characterized by a typologically unusial rigid S-O-V-X word order. It was argued in [Nikitina 2011] that oblique arguments (X) in Wan are not verb-phrase internal but rather attach to the clause like adjuncts. The evidence provided for such an interpretation is that adjacent placement of verb embedded in a postpositional phrase and its oblique argument is not allowed. In Mano, both constructions are allowed: the embedded verb and its oblique argument can be juxtaposed as well as separated by a postposition. I will show in this paper that Mano shows a higher degree of integration of oblique arguments than Wan. I will start the argumentation by showing that oblique arguments in Mano are much closer to direct objects that in Wan. I will start by the structure of relative clauses: if in Wan clause-internal correlative clauses can be attached only to the oblique arguments, which is supposed to prove their clause-level position, in Mano they are grammaticalized further and can be attached to the direct object, too, which proves that in this respect direct objects and oblique arguments behave seemingly. The argumentation will be supported by the evidence from the point of view of lability: it appears that not only transitive verbs, but also intransitive verbs with oblique arguments can be labile. Finally, reflexives in the direct object position and in the oblique position are controlled in the same way. The last argument will be given considering the behavior under nominalization. I will show then that oblique arguments in Mano, at least in some constructions, should be considered a part of the verb phrase, but on a higher level (a MaxVP).

Linguistik Indonesia, 2023

This study aims to formulate case markings in imperative clauses in the Manggarai language. This study examines several formulas of imperative clause rules in previous research, which distinguished the use of gi and ga in positive imperative clauses, and neka and asi markers in negative imperative clauses. An intense interview was conducted with native speakers of the Kempo dialect and compared other examples used in previous studies to build a thorough conclusion. Some critical findings in this research are, firstly, the particles gi and ga are not an enclitic attached to the word they follow; secondly, the particles gi and ga are not specific markers for imperative clauses because they can also appear in other clause forms (e.g., declarative clauses); and thirdly, the words neka and asi in the negative imperative clauses of the Manggarai language can be used interchangeably and do not change the meaning. Thus, this study proves that there are no unique markers in the imperative clauses of the Manggarai language because the form varies relatively depending on the context with whom one is talking.

Mandenkan, 2022

2021

This is a study of copular clauses in Guinea-Bissau Kriol (Guinean/Ginensi) and of related syntactic and semantic aspects. It aims to answer to the following questions: (i) Does the taxonomy of copular clauses apply to the case of Guinean? (ii) How does the semantics cope with the syntax? Do the semantic properties of the subject and complement of copular clauses affect the syntactic structure? (iii) Do substrate/adstrate languages have any influence on the syntactic behavior of copular clauses in GN?

Dombrowsky-Hahn , 2019

Different West African languages of the Gur and Mande families have a type of relative clauses additionally marked as conditionals. They function as generalizing relatives and occur often in proverbs. The paper proposes an analysis of these constructions in the Senufo languages Syer (Burkina Faso) and Supyire (Mali) and in the Manding variety Bambara (Mali). It discusses for each language first the formal aspects of the most typical relative clauses modifying a definite referent, then those of hypothetical and course of events conditionals. This aims at showing the cumulative marking of both the relative and the conditional in the third type, the conditional-relative clauses. In the last section I give an account of the generalizing function of the conditional-relatives arguing that the cumulation of formal means reflects the cumulation of functions. Thus, the encoding of an event in a conditional clause marks it as hypothetical, removing from it any property characteristic of a concrete instance of the event type. This abstraction from a concrete instance is most evident in course of event conditionals, which show a factual 'whenever' relationship between the event in the conditional clause and that in the main clause. A relative clause has the function to modify and restrict clausally the referent of a type of entity. The generalizing function of a conditional-relative clause is brought about by the fact that the restricting event is hypothetical and hence abstracted from a real event.

Studies in African Linguistics, 2020

Some languages make extensive use of clause-chaining. According to Payne (1997: 312), clause-chaining has been documented for languages in the highlands of New Guinea, Australia and the Americas. In Africa it is found in Ethiopia (Völlmin et al. 2007), in Kiswahili, a Bantu language (Hopper 1979: 213-215, Mungania 2018), in Anuak, a Western Nilotic language (Longacre 1990: 88-90 and 2007: 418) and in Toposa, a VSO language of South Sudan (Schröder 2011). Clause-chaining is characterized by a long combination of non-finite clauses that have operator dependency on a finite clause, and it usually signals foregrounded information in discourse (see also Dooley 2010: 3). Besides its discourse function, clause-chaining exhibits morpho-syntactic and semantic properties as demonstrated in this paper with examples from Toposa, an Eastern Nilotic language.