Difference between revisions of "Adverbs"
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</gl> |
</gl> |
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| − | When adverbs modify adjectives, they cannot intervene between the stative verb and bare adjective with those adjectives that have a verb-adjective form, like balig 'black': |
+ | When adverbs modify adjectives, they can come before or after the verb phrase, but cannot intervene between the stative verb and bare adjective with those adjectives that have a verb-adjective form, like balig 'black': |
oɓoxole fop aɓalga ɓalig |
oɓoxole fop aɓalga ɓalig |
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‘the boy and girl all are smart’ |
‘the boy and girl all are smart’ |
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| − | + | The most remarkable think about adverbs in Sereer is that, like adjectives, there is a group of words that can serve adverbial, adjectival and even verbal functions. For instance, fop can be the adverb 'completely', or the quantifier 'all' in a partitive construction: |
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fop no ɓoxole aɓalga ɓalig |
fop no ɓoxole aɓalga ɓalig |
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‘Swim quickly!’ ‘Hurry up and swim!' |
‘Swim quickly!’ ‘Hurry up and swim!' |
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| − | The most remarkable think about adverbs in Sereer is that, like adjectives, there is a group of words that can serve adverbial, adjectival and even verbal functions. |
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Revision as of 23:47, 13 December 2012
The positioning of adverbs in the sentence is as flexible in Sereer as in English, as examples (1) to (4) show:
<gl id="ex1" fontsize=12> \gll gim -am apaax / tok sing 1sg very / a-lot \trans I sing loudly </gl>
<gl id="ex2" fontsize=12> \gll appax / tok gim -am very / a-lot sing 1sg \trans loudly I sing loudly </gl>
<gl id="ex3" fontsize=12> \gll nang -am weʄ -a legleg habitual 1sg swim INF sometimes \trans I swim often </gl>
<gl id="ex4" fontsize=12> \gll legleg nang -am weʄ -a sometimes habitual 1sg swim INF \trans often I swim </gl>
When adverbs modify adjectives, they can come before or after the verb phrase, but cannot intervene between the stative verb and bare adjective with those adjectives that have a verb-adjective form, like balig 'black':
oɓoxole fop aɓalga ɓalig oɓoxole aɓalga ɓalig fop *oɓoxole aɓalga fop ɓalig 'The dog is completely black.'
The adverb fop can also mean 'both':
okoor fo o tew fop a ƈiʄ ‘the boy and girl all are smart’
The most remarkable think about adverbs in Sereer is that, like adjectives, there is a group of words that can serve adverbial, adjectival and even verbal functions. For instance, fop can be the adverb 'completely', or the quantifier 'all' in a partitive construction:
fop no ɓoxole aɓalga ɓalig ‘All of the dogs are black.’
The ability of adverbs to be used as verbs can be illustrated with these minimal pairs:
retam ñofu ñofam o ret ‘I go quickly.’ ‘I hurry up and go.’
weʄi ñofu ñofi weʄ ‘Swim quickly!’ ‘Hurry up and swim!'
Go back to: Sereer Grammar
Oana 00:47, 8 December 2012 (UTC)
