Adverbial Clauses

Adverbial clauses are a type of adjunct clause (see also Relative Clauses). The currently attested adverbial clauses in Sereer are mostly temporal, specifying when the event described by the main clause occurred with reference to a second event. In some cases, adverbial clauses have verbal morphology not seen in main clauses.

Temporal Adverbial Clauses

Temporal adverbial clauses, also called temporal clause-linking constructions, are formed by two clauses that are connected with a temporal adverb. In Sereer, temporal markers can serve to link two verbal clauses, are will as NPs. The latter construction is discussed in Adpositions, while the former will be discussed here.

The currently attested types of temporal adverbial clauses are listed in the Table below. More work will determine what other temporal clause-linking strategies there are. As shown in Examples <glr id="before.1"/>, <glr id="whenever"/>, the second clause in these construction is always somehow marked as a subordinate clause, either with a relativizer -na as in <glr id="whenever"/> or by use of the subordinate subject agreement markers.

Tempora Clause-linkers

Gloss	Adposition			Source			Notes, Example Sentences
before	bala ~ balaa			VW_054, VW_167
after	acinj			VW_068			also locative "behind"
after	ye			VW_167
when, while	ye, yaa			VW_167
until	bo			VW_167
during	na			VW_068			also locative "in"

<gl id="before.1" fontsize=12> faak oyeng gimam balaa nɗaana \gll faak oyeng gim -am balaa n- ɗaan -a yesterday night sing -1S before 1S- sleep -NPT \trans Last night I sang before sleeping (167) </gl>

<gl id="whenever" fontsize=12> oɓox ole woxa yii yaa te ga'na muus ne \gll oɓox ole woxa yii yaa te ga' -na muus ne god DET bark PROG when 3S see -RLVZR cat DET \trans The dog barks when he sees the cat. (167) </gl>