The Clause Structure of Wolof
The Clause Structure of Wolof

Author: Harold Torrence

Publisher: John Benjamins Publishing

Published: 2013-01-29

Total Pages: 305

ISBN-13: 9027273014

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This volume investigates the clausal syntax of Wolof, an understudied Atlantic language of Senegal. The goals of the work are descriptive, analytical, and comparative, with a focus on the structure of the left periphery and left peripheral phenomena. The book includes detailed examination of the morpho‑syntax of wh‑questions, successive cyclicity, subject marking, relative clauses, topic/focus articulation, and complementizer agreement. Novel data from Wolof is used to evaluate and extend theoretical proposals concerning the structure of the Complementizer Phrase (CP) and Tense Phrase (TP). It is argued that Wolof provides evidence for the promotion analysis of relative clauses, an “exploded” CP and TP, and for analyses that treat relative clauses as composed of a determiner with a CP complement. It is further argued that Wolof has a set of silent wh‑expressions and these are compared to superficially similar constructions in colloquial German, Bavarian, Dutch, and Norwegian. The book also presents a comparison of complementizer agreement across a number of related and unrelated languages. Data from Indo‑European (Germanic varieties, French, Irish), Niger‑Congo (Atlantic, Bantu, Gur), and Semitic (Arabic) languages put the Wolof phenomena in a larger typological context by showing the range of variation in complementizer agreement systems.

The Cambridge Handbook of Linguistic Typology
The Cambridge Handbook of Linguistic Typology

Author: Alexandra Y. Aikhenvald

Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Published: 2017-03-30

Total Pages: 1661

ISBN-13: 1316790665

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Linguistic typology identifies both how languages vary and what they all have in common. This Handbook provides a state-of-the art survey of the aims and methods of linguistic typology, and the conclusions we can draw from them. Part I covers phonological typology, morphological typology, sociolinguistic typology and the relationships between typology, historical linguistics and grammaticalization. It also addresses typological features of mixed languages, creole languages, sign languages and secret languages. Part II features contributions on the typology of morphological processes, noun categorization devices, negation, frustrative modality, logophoricity, switch reference and motion events. Finally, Part III focuses on typological profiles of the mainland South Asia area, Australia, Quechuan and Aymaran, Eskimo-Aleut, Iroquoian, the Kampa subgroup of Arawak, Omotic, Semitic, Dravidian, the Oceanic subgroup of Austronesian and the Awuyu-Ndumut family (in West Papua). Uniting the expertise of a stellar selection of scholars, this Handbook highlights linguistic typology as a major discipline within the field of linguistics.

Guinea Languages of the Atlantic Group
Guinea Languages of the Atlantic Group

Author: William A. A. Wilson

Publisher: Peter Lang Gmbh, Internationaler Verlag Der Wissenschaften

Published: 2007

Total Pages: 276

ISBN-13:

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Atlantic is one of the most diversified and most problematic Niger-Congo families as far as evidence for a monogenetic origin is concerned. Moreover, the group remains poorly known. Besides well-studied languages such as Fula, Wolof and Serer some sixty lesser known languages of Senegal, Guinea-Bissau, Guinea, Sierra Leone and Liberia are currently believed to belong to Atlantic. Many of these languages are not yet documented, and some never will - they disappeared some decades ago or are just on the verge of extinction. This book provides an overview of Atlantic south of the Wolof, Serer and Fula-speaking regions. The sections on the various Atlantic languages present information on phonology, morphology and basic syntacticpatterns by using General Linguistic Theory. Lexical material is presented in comparative wordlists. All data stem from the author's own fieldwork in the 1950s and 1960s in Guinea Bissau and Guinea.