Abstract
After presenting some basic genetic, historical and typological information about Wolof this chapter outlines the quantification patterns it expresses. It illustrates various semantic types of quantifiers, such as generalized existential, generalized universal, proportional, definite and partitive which are defined in the Quantifier Questionnaire in Chapter 1. It partitions the expression of the semantic types into morpho-syntactic classes: Adverbial type quantifiers and Nominal (or Determiner) type quantifiers. For the various semantic and morpho-syntactic types of quantifiers it also distinguishes syntactically simple and syntactically complex quantifiers, as well as issues of distributivity and scope interaction, classifiers and measure expressions, and existential constructions. The chapter describes structural properties of determiners and quantified noun phrases in Wolof, both in terms of internal structure (morphological or syntactic) and distribution.
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Notes
- 1.
Abbreviations: cl: noun class marker, CREL: relative clause complementizer, def.dist: definite distal, def.prox: definite proximal, fin: head of FinP, imperf: imperfective auxiliary, inf: non-finite clause complementizer, ndef: indefinite article, part: partitive clitic, pl.agr: plural agreement marker.
- 2.
- 3.
See Church (1981).
- 4.
See Seck (1997) for additional overview of Wolof nouns and determiners.
- 5.
The Dakar dialect, for example, essentially uses the bi, yi, ki, and ñi classes for the most part.
- 6.
The ‘%’ symbol indicates that not all speakers share this judgment.
- 7.
The ‘%’ symbol indicates that not all speakers share this judgment.
- 8.
These two forms are not equivalent, however. This can be seen when the demonstrative is focused (and prenominal):
(i)y-iigóór‘THESE men’
(ii)*ñ-iigóór
(ii) shows that the yi-class demonstrative can precede the noun, but the ñi-class demonstrative cannot.
- 9.
See (52) for further intricacies of multiple determiners.
- 10.
Bare NPs are also indefinite and are typically interpreted as non-specific indefinites or generics; see Sections 17.3.1.1, 17.3.1.2 and 17.3.1.3 for more discussion.
(i)
Xaj
d-u
macc
màngo
dog
imperf-neg
suck
mango
‘Dogs don’t suck mangos’
(ii)
Gis-na-a
xaj
see-Fin-1sg
dog
‘I saw a dog (i.e. some dog or other)’
- 11.
The precise inventory and interpretation of the determiner vowels seems to vary according to dialect. Extrapolating from Pichl (1972), in some dialects, the equivalent of NP cl-i means, ‘the NP here or now’, NP cl-a means, ‘the NP somewhere (here)’, and NP cl-u means, ‘the NP far away’. Seck (1997) also reports the existence of a (post-nominal) definite article, cl-u and indicates that this form does not provide any information about the spatial or temporal location of the NP. Unfortunately, neither Pichl nor Seck mention the dialects that they worked with and we do not know speakers that use these forms.
- 12.
Demonstratives form a phonological unit with the noun and are ATR harmonic to it. See Ka (1988), Sy in preparation.
- 13.
In fact, there are a number of extremely interesting differences between ordinary relative clauses and adjectival relative clauses. For example, as indicated by the translations, changing the relative marker with adjectival relative clauses can trigger an emphatic reading, as in (23b). We leave these issues for future research as there is no systematic description of these effects. (See Torrence (2005) for some discussion.)
- 14.
See Section 17.5 on value judgment quantifiers.
- 15.
Recall that not all speakers use the plural agreement marker i.
- 16.
We discuss cases like (32b) in terms of a null determiner for the purpose of symmetry with the overt determiners. However, these could also simply involve bare NPs. We leave this as an open question here.
- 17.
These examples sentences are based on those from Chung and Ladusaw (2004, #31).
- 18.
Note that in some dialects, e.g. Gambian Wolof (Gamble 1991) this marker has been generalized so that even the numeral ‘1’ may take the i:
(i)
benn
(i)
xale
one
pl.agr
child
‘one child, a child’
- 19.
As pointed out by a reviewer, (63) looks very much like the partitive en construction in French:
(i)
J’en
ai
tappé
quatre
I of.them
have hit
four
‘I hit four of them’
- 20.
Ka (1988) reports that the post-nominal universal quantifier cl -epp is ATR harmonic to the noun. For some speakers though, in certain configurations, the postnominal cl- epp is pronounced with a +ATR vowel. These are speakers who otherwise readily harmonize vowels. It is unclear what to make of this lack of vowel harmony. One possibility is that the lack of ATR harmony signals the presence of a related, but distinct universal quantifier. That is one universal is ATR harmonic and the other is not. This is particularly plausible given the data in Section 17.4.1.2 with mass nouns. We don’t pursue this further here, but leave it as a question for future research.
- 21.
See Kihm (2005) for discussion of noun class in Niger-Congo and Romance, focusing on the Atlantic language Manjaku.
- 22.
Recall that the prenominal cl- epp + N is typically modified, especially in episodic contexts.
- 23.
See Gil (1995) for much relevant discussion of reduplication as a means of expressing universal quantification.
- 24.
See Beghelli (1995) for discussion of left peripheral quantifiers.
- 25.
Intonationally, floated quantifiers that occur on the right edge of the clause are typically preceded by a (potentially very short) pause and have higher pitch than the rest of the sentence. See Rialland and Robert (2001) for discussion of intonation in Wolof.
- 26.
See Torrence (2010) for fuller discussion of A’-quantifier float.
- 27.
The verbal element doon is complex and appears to be composed of the imperfective marker di plus the past tense marker –oo n. For the purposes of this paper, we treat it as an auxiliary-type verb.
- 28.
A related construction is used to form concessive conditionals, which involve either a free relative clause and verb reduplication (i) or a free relative clause and mën-t i (ii):
(i)
L-u
ma
lekk
lekk,
da-ma
xiif
cl-CRel
1sg
eat
eat
do-1SG
hungry
‘No matter what I eat, I am hungry’
(ii)
L-u
ma
mën-ti
lekk
da-ma
xiif
cl-CRel
1sg
can-?
eat
do-1SG
hungry
‘No matter what I eat, I am hungry’
- 29.
That tuuti is a quantifier inside of the DP, as opposed to a modifier of the verb is supported by the fact that tuuti and the object can be clefted together, suggesting that they form a constituent. This is unexpected if the tuuti is a verbal modifier:
(i)
[Tuuti
ceeb]
l-a-a
lekk
small
rice
xpl-cop-1sg
eat
‘I ate a little rice ’
Coordination facts also suggest that in cases like (104b–c), tuuti quantifies over the noun:
(ii)
Lekk-na-a
tuuti
ceeb
ak
tàndarma
y-u
bëri
eat-fin-1sg
small
rice
and
date
cl.pl-c Rel
be.many
‘I ate a little rice and many dates’
If tuuti were modifying the extent of the action of the verb in (ii), then we might expect (ii) to be contradictory or at least quite strange. This is because (ii) would mean that the extent of my eating was little, but I ate a lot of dates. Instead, it simply indicates that the quantity of rice was small and the quantity of dates was big.
- 30.
The word yoon is like the French fois ‘time’ in the sense of ‘occasion’, rather than temps ‘time’ the abstract concept.
- 31.
If these DPs are modified, they become grammatical in existentials:
(i)
Am-nagóór [ y-u njool ]ciarmeb-iØ-det
exist-finmancl.pl-CReltallParmycl-def.prox
‘There are tall men in the army’
(ii)
Am-nay-enn góór [ y-u njool]ciarmeb-icl-some
exist-fin cl.pl-some mancl.pl-CReltallParmycl-def.pro
‘There are some tall men in the army’
- 32.
Recall that zero-marked DPs cannot be subjects in episodic contexts. Thus, we cannot test them here.
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Tamba, K., Torrence, H., Zimmermann, M. (2012). Wolof Quantifiers. In: Keenan, E., Paperno, D. (eds) Handbook of Quantifiers in Natural Language. Studies in Linguistics and Philosophy, vol 90. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-007-2681-9_17
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