Sereer Grammar
This is the Wiki page for Sereer.
Sereer a language of the Senegambian branch of Niger–Congo spoken by 1.2 million people in Senegal and 30,000 in The Gambia. It is the principal language of the Sereer people.
Getting started
The handout provided by MediaWiki is below:
In addition to the handbook, a great way to learn how to format Wiki is by poking around Wikipedia, looking for interesting ideas, and clicking the edit button next to them. This is how I figured out how to create sortable lists, for example.
Another question is how we will generate interlinear glosses. The table environment is probably our best bet. This is how most LaTeX glossing packages work.
Ancillary pages
Upload recordings and annotations here.
This is where wordlists for individual elicitation sessions can be uploaded and checked to avoid redundant work.
Phonology
Main article: Phonological Inventory
Consonants
A tentative consonant inventory of Serer:
| Labial | Alveolar | Palatal | Velar | Uvular | Glottal | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Stops | V'less | p | t | c~ʧ | k | q | ʔ |
| Voiced | b | d | ɟ~ʤ | g | |||
| Implosive | ɓ | ɗ | ʄ | ||||
| Voiceless Implosive | ƥ | ƭ | ƈ | ||||
| Prenasalized | ᵐb | ⁿd | ᶮɟ | ᵑg | ᶰɢ | ||
| Nasal | m | n | ɲ | ŋ | |||
| Fricative | f | s | χ~h | ||||
| Tap/Trill | ɾ~r | ||||||
| Liquid | l | ||||||
| Glide | ʋ~β̞~w | j | |||||
Vowels
A tentative vowel inventory of Serer:
| Front | Central | Back | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| High | i ~ ɪ | u ~ ʊ | ||||
| Mid | e ~ ɛ | ɔ ~ o | ||||
| Low | a~ə | |||||
Serer also has diphthongs: aɪ, oɪ, ɔɪ.
Vowel length is contrastive.
Vowels after implosive consonants are sometimes creaky; this does not seem to be contrastive.
Suprasegmentals
Serer makes use of stress. (?) It is unclear at this point whether it is automatically/metrically assigned to words or if it is lexically specified and unpredictable.
Plural marker χa- (supposing that it is a separate morpheme) seems to attract stress in some instances (e.g. aˈlas "tail", ˈχalas "tails").
Spectrograms and Audio Samples of Consonants
Loanword Phonology
Borrowed words show phonemes that are not normally present in Serer, like /y/, in the word borrowed from French for 'wall' (etc).
Morphology
Nominal Morphology
Nouns can be divided into patterns (classes/genders?):
| Gloss | Noun (sg.) | Definite article | Noun (pl.) | Definite article | Adjective Prefix |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Fence | a-ɗiŋg | a-ɗiŋg-alɛ | a-ɗiŋg | a-ɗiŋg-akɛ | |
| Elephant | 0-faɲiik | 0-faɲiik-fɛ | (a-)paɲiik | (a-)paɲiik-kɛ | |
| Cat | 0-muus | 0-muus-nɛ | 0-muus | 0-muus-kɛ | |
| Horn | o-ɟan | o-ɟan-olɛ | ha-can | ha-can-ahɛ | |
| Tongue | 0-ɗɛlɛm | 0-ɗɛlɛm-lɛ | a-ƭɛlɛm | a-ƭɛlɛm-akɛ | |
| Stove | 0-ⁿdɛn | 0-ⁿdɛn-nɛ |
Negation of a noun is indicated by the free morphology word [ɟɛgɛ]. It's unclear if this element can function verbally or if it can only negate nouns.
Verbal Morphology
Tense (and aspect) Paradigm Table
Derivational Verbal Morphology
Syntax
Possession
Word order in possessive constructions appears to be possessum-possessor, as seen in [muusnɛ noⁿdɛboᵑgɛ] 'a boy's cat' (040).
Adpositions
Position in Sereer is mostly indicated with prepositions. Currently, it's not clear if all these prepositions can be used verbally. Some can, i.e. ɟof no taχarkɛ "towards the trees" and mɛhɛ ɟofaa "I am going toward (something)".
| Gloss | Adposition | Example Sentence |
|---|---|---|
| by, next to, near | pam | pam ⁿdaχarnɛ "by the tree" |
| behind | acinᶮɟ | acinᶮɟ ᵐbinɛ "behind the house" |
| amidst/between/surrounded by/inside | ⁿdɛɛr | ⁿdɛɛr taχarkɛ "amidst the trees" |
| between, in the middle between | ⁿdɛɛⁿdɛr | ⁿdɛɛⁿdɛr taχarkɛ "between the (two) trees" |
| at | non | non ⁿdaχarnɛ "at the tree" |
| under | ɗoχaᵑɡ, ɗoχaŋ | ɗoχaᵑɡ ᵐbaɟnɛ "under the blanket" |
| toward | ɟof, ɟofin, ɟofna | ɟofna noqololɛ "toward the field" |
| near to | mɛmaʔna | mɛˈmaʔna ⁿdaχarnɛ "close to the tree" |
| far from | mɛgotna | mɛgotna ⁿdaχarnɛ "far from the tree" |
| behind | kaˈtaa | |
| around | kɛˈʋidna | |
| outside | ˈtafil | |
| inside/in | kam | |
| over/above/on | tok | |
| in front of | ᵐbaaᵐbir |
Old Pages
- Bari grammar (old main page) - Recordings and transcriptions (Bari) - Bari lexicon
