Sereer Grammar
This is the Wiki page for research on the Saalum (or Saloum) dialect of Sereer, as conducted by the 2012-2013 Graduate Field Methods class in the UC Berkeley Department of Linguistics.
Sereer is a language of the Senegambian branch of the Niger–Congo languages spoken by 1.2 million people in Senegal and 30,000 in The Gambia. It is the principal language of the Sereer people. Some documentation of Sereer exists; however, most existing documentation is for the significantly different Siin dialect (MacLaughlin 1994, 2000, 2005).
Morphosyntactically, Sereer is largely head-initial, suffixing, and agglutinative (especially in the case of derivational verbal morphology). A clause's tense, aspect, person-number agreement, and negation are most frequently expressed in polyexponent verbal suffixes, although prefixing or procliticizing of person-number agreement sometimes occurs. The language is notable for its extensive noun class concord and its system of consonant mutations, the latter of which is exploited in the language's numerous processes of nonconcatenative inflectional and derivational morphology. Sereer also makes use of an unusually large number of stop consonants, including areally unusual uvulars and an extremely rare series of phonemic voiceless implosive stops.
Ancillary pages
List monomorphemic lexical items and associated information here.
Upload recordings and annotations here.
Backup and download the FLEx files here.
This is where wordlists for individual elicitation sessions can be uploaded and checked to avoid redundant work.
Upload completed PDFs of class presentations and class assignments here.
Find code here to make things (tables, interlinear glosses) on the Wiki.
To Do
- Nouns
- Verbs
- subject paradigms
- object markers
- tense/aspect marking
- voice
- Adjectives
- etc.
Phonology
The phonology of Sereer is characterized by a large inventory of consonants, particularly stops, and a vowel length distinction. The surface form of these segments is fairly predictable, due in part to the relatively rigid phonotactics of Sereer. Sereer is a stress language.
Main article: Phonological Inventory
Phonological Inventory
Consonants
The consonant inventory of Sereer Saalum is given below. Working orthography for a given symbol is indicated in parentheses following a symbol if the orthography differs from the IPA.
Some discussion of the notable properties of this inventory should be provided.
| Labial | Alveolar | Palatal | Velar | Uvular | Glottal | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| V'less | p | t | c | k | q | ʔ (') | |
| Voi. | b | d | ɟ (j) | g | |||
| Stops | Impl. | ɓ | ɗ | ʄ | |||
| V'less Impl. | ƥ | ƭ | ƈ | ||||
| Prenas. | ᵐb (mb) | ⁿd (nd) | ᶮɟ (nj) | ᵑg (ng) | ᶰɢ (nq) | ||
| Nasal | m | n | ɲ (ñ) | ŋ | |||
| Fricative | f | s | χ (x) | ||||
| Tap/Trill | r | ||||||
| Liquid | l | ||||||
| Glide | w | j (y) |
Additional information about the realization of these consonants as well as minimal pairs can be found in the more detailed description of the Phonological Inventory. Spectrograms and Audio Samples of Consonants are also available.
Vowels
The vowel inventory of Sereer Saalum is given below. Vowel length is contrastive; all vowels have long versions.
| Front | Central | Back | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| High | i ii | u uu | ||
| Mid | e ee | o oo | ||
| Low | a aa |
Vowels after implosive consonants are sometimes creaky; this is not contrastive.
Vowel hiatus, perhaps on an attached page?
Phonotactics
Maximal syllable structure is CVC. The syllable template more broadly seems to be (C)V(V)(C), with an optional onset and coda, and the option of short or long vowels completely independent of these. Any C may appear in the onset, and so far it appears that any C may appear in the coda.
For more on this topic, see Phonotactics.
Stress
Serer makes use of stress. Stress is largely assigned metrically, with a preference for left-anchored iambs (if V-shaped prefixes are taken to be part of the noun's phonological word) or right-anchored trochees (if they are not). Some irregularities, especially concerning the frequent noun plural agreement prefix xa-, are yet to be worked out.
Morphology
All of the sections below here eventually need some basic text. The text in the sections should be roughly equivalent to what would be the introduction to this section in the grammar.
Morphophonological Processes
Consonant mutation
Sereer has three distinct patterns of consonant mutation, which occur in different contexts throughout the language. All three processes affect the initial consonant of a stem in largely predictable ways. These processes are detailed in the page on phonological alternations.
Reduplication
Reduplication is prevalent in Sereer, occurring in verbs, nouns, and prepositions in three different structures. Bare stative verbs can be fully reduplicated at the end of sentences: ambeel ale axooɗa xooɗ 'The lake is deep'. Agentive nouns are derived from verb stems through partial reduplication of the stem: xoox 'cultivate' > oqooxoox 'farmer'. Locative prepositions can be reduplicated to indicate precision: pam 'next to' > pam e pam 'right next to'.
Vowel hiatus (word internal)
(text)
Nominal Morphology
Sereer nouns fall into nine noun classes, which indicate both number and agreement with determiners and adjectives. Noun class markers are prefixed to the stem, and in some cases will trigger mutation of the initial consonant of the stem. Adjectives agree with the noun they modify; this agreement is morphologically realized via concordant prefixes.
Example:
- a-tuul a-tadak a-ƥaal ak-e
- (ak-pig ak-three ak-black ak-DET.prox)
- ‘three small black pigs'
Noun classes
There are eight distinct patterns for singular nouns and six for plural nouns. Four of these patterns (two singular and two plural) are exclusively devoted to two noun classes, consisting of reflexes of productive augmentative and diminutive derivational processes (the gak/gal and ong/fn noun classes, respectively). Two of these paterns are exclusively devoted to the ox/w noun class, which consists entirely of nouns denoting humans. The other eight patterns combine in a non-corresponding fashion in six further noun classes, which have no obvious semantic basis in modern Sereer.
| Class | Example | Det. | English | Plural | Det. |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| ox/w | o-tew | oxe | woman | Ø-rew | we |
| ol/ax | o-fiiɗ | ole | butterfly | xa-piiɗ | axe |
| l/ak | Ø-xomb | le | turtle | a-qomb | ake |
| f/k | Ø-xaarit | fe | friend | Ø-qaarit | ke |
| n/k | Ø-nqoox | ne | bull | Ø-qoox | ke |
| al/k | a-mbeel | ale | lake | Ø-peel | ke |
| al/ak | a-koong | ale | monkey | a-koong | ake |
| ong/fn | o-ndew | onge | woman [DIM] | fo-ndew | ne |
| gal/gak | ga-ndew gi-ndew |
ale | woman [AUG] | ga-ndew | ake |
Nominalization
Sereer has multiple deverbal nominalization processes. Agent nominalization is a reduplicative process whereby the body of the first syllable of the verb stem is reduplicated: lay 'talk' > olaalay 'one who talks a lot'. Other deverbal nominalizations, including event and instrument nominalization, are zero-derivational processes, consisting of the addition of a noun class prefix to a verb stem.
Parts of the Noun Phrase
Determiners and Demonstratives
Verbal Morphology
Sereer inflectional morphology includes affixes, proclitics, and auxilliary verbs. Subject agreement is obligatory on verbs, and is usually preverbal. Object marking is not obligatory, and the pronominal forms appear as postverbal clitics. Either tense or aspect must be marked on verbs that are not in citation form, but not both. Aspect can be marked using suffixes, proclitics, and auxiliary verb, or combinations of the three.
Inflectional Verbal Morphology
Subject Marking
Sereer verbs agree with subject; the following table shows the basic subject marking paradigm, which occurs when no pre-verbal morphology is present:
| Gloss | Sereer | Gloss | Sereer |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1SG | -m | 1PL | i-[mut] |
| 2SG | -' | 2PL | nu-[mut] |
| 3SG | a- | 3PL | a-[mut] |
Singular and plural forms for first, second, and third person are all distinguished from each other. The only distinguishing characteristic between singular and plural third person, however, is the stem-initial consonant mutation of the verb stem. Initial consonant mutation occurs with all plural subjects.
The paradigm above is one of many: type of subject agreement is conditioned (at least) by clause type, negation, focus, and presence or absence of auxiliaries. Most subject agreement morphemes within these paradigms are prefixes. Regardless of subject agreement type, all plural subjects trigger verb stem-initial consonant mutation.
When the preverbal aspect marker xe/we is present, a different subject marking paradigm occurs:
| Gloss | Sereer | Gloss | Sereer |
|---|---|---|---|
| -xe | -we | ||
| 1SG | me- | 1PL | in- |
| 2SG | we- | 2PL | nuun- |
| 3SG | a- | 3PL | a- |
With the auxiliary verb xan, or special preverbal clitic "kan", subject marking always occurs immediately before the verb stem:
| Gloss | Sereer | Gloss | Sereer |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1SG | -m | 1PL | i-[mut] |
| 2SG | o- | 2PL | nu-[mut] |
| 3SG | a- | 3PL | a-[mut] |
Tense and aspect
Matrix verbs are obligatorily marked for either tense or aspect in Sereer, and are often marked for both. The three tense markers are suffixes:
| Gloss | Sereer | |
|---|---|---|
| Simple past | -'a | |
| Proximal | -aa | |
| Progressive past | -eega |
The suffix -aa is glossed as proximal tense. It marks events that happened temporally close to the speech act, which includes the present or recent past. Events outside of the recent past-present time frame cannot be marked with -aa. The future aspect when marked with xan, however, can take -aa marking to indicate future progressive.
The auxiliary verb xan can also appear by itself without any suffix aspect marking, and is glossed as the simple future.
Another auxiliary, kan, behaves similarly to xan with regards to subject marking and position relative to the verb, but whose semantic applications are quite different. So far, the best gloss of kan is as a marker of predicate focus.
The proclitic progressive aspect marker xe/we must occur with either proximal tense or progressive past tense. With proximal tense -aa, xe/we is glossed as present progressive, and is past progressive with -eega. xe/we has special person marking; see the section on subject marking.
For paradigms of tense and aspect inflection, see example verb paradigms.
Object marking
Sereer object marking varies based on how the subject is marked (which in turn varies based on tense/aspect marking). When there is no pre-verbal morphology and the subject is 3s or plural, the 'basic' subject marking appears, which can the following objects:
| Gloss | Sereer | Gloss | Sereer |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1SG | =xam | 1PL | ='in |
| 2SG | =ng | 2P | =nuun |
| 3SG | =n | 3P | =den |
When there is basic subject marking, and the subject is 1s or 2s (which are post-verbal suffixes), the singular object marking changes:
| Gloss | Sereer | Gloss | Sereer |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2SG | =xong | 2P | =nuun |
| 3SG | =num | 3P | =den |
| Gloss | Sereer | Gloss | Sereer |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1SG | =xamo | 1PL | ='in |
| 3SG | =no' | 3P | =den |
Pronominal objects are marked by enclitics. These are in complementary distribution with full nominal objects.
Things that we need to talk about (--Nico 07:56, 30 November 2012 (UTC))
- Suffixes or clitics?
- Status of the singular vs. pl
- Movement of the object markers from one verb to another
- -xong vs. -ong, -xam vs. -um/-am, etc.
Derivational morphology
Main page: Derivational Verbal Morphology
Derivational morphology of Sereer verbs is almost entirely suffixing. Verbal derivational affixes can be used to form other verbs, adjectives, or nouns:
Takes verb, makes verb:
- -ir, a reciprocal suffix
- -in, a causative suffix (e.g. gɛf "to break, explode (intr.)" --> gɛfin "break it"). Allomorphs -an or -n occur when co-occurring with person marking, and sometimes when another suffix precedes (e.g. xum 'to tie', xum-ir 'to tie RECP', xum-r-an 'to tie to each other' (061)
- -it, a reversive suffix
- -an, an applicative. Licenses an additional argument, a beneficiary
- -it, an instrumental applicative. Licenses an additional argument, an instrument.
- -ik, which indicates directed motion in doing a verb X ("to go do X")
- -oox, which seems to be stativizing or anti-causative. Its derived forms are somewhat less semantically consistent than the others.
- -and, a causative/transitivizing suffix
- -loox/-noox, a suffix of possibly causative meaning that has mutiple allomorphs (or is actually more than one suffix)
- -noor, a causative suffix (possibly more than one suffix fused together?)
Takes verb, makes adjective:
- -u , a suffix that takes a verb and turns it into an adjective (e.g. saɗik "to be strong, tough" -> saɗku "strong, tough"; may "to be many" -> mayu "many")
- -na, seemingly equivalent with -u but agreeing with presence of an "article" on a noun
Takes verb, makes noun:
- -ir, a suffix that makes instrument-type nouns from verb stems (e.g. βɛʄ "to swim" --> bɛʄir "thing used to swim")
- RED-, prefixing partial reduplication: makes a noun from a verb "X" meaning "one who (habitually) X"
- NC- + mutation(s), forms a deverbal noun.
Negation
Verbal negation is expressed by negative allomorphs of the tense suffixes. The table lists the negative allomorphs for each tense:
| Gloss | Sereer | |
|---|---|---|
| Simple negated past | -'i | |
| Negated proximal | -ii | |
| Negated progressive past | -eegi | |
| Negated future | -ki |
Syntax
- Basic order is S-V-O, etc.
- Sereer is mostly head initial/final, evidence from auxiliaries, relatives, adpositions, etc.
main clause word order and pronominalization
- many of these data should be included in the following section
Verb phrases
In a simple transitive clause, the object follows the verb in the verb phrase.
(needs)
- How are ditransitives ordered?
- How are applicative arguments ordered?
- Where do adverbs and other modifiers occur relative to verbal arguments?
Valence patterns and alignment
Noun phrases
Main article: Noun Phrases
Noun phrases (NPs) in Sereer consist of a noun optionally modified by any or all of the following components: any number of adjectives, a single determiner, a prepositional phrase, a relative clause, and a possessive NP. These components are ordered as follows:
- 1) Noun
- 2) Adjectives (in any order)
- 3) Determiner
- 4) PP and/or Relative clause (in either order)
- 5) Possessive NP
Adjectives and determiners agree in noun class with the head of the NP.
Compounds Should this actually be called "compounds"? These seem more like using measure words to quantify amounts of mass nouns. Faytak 18:42, 2 November 2012 (UTC)
Adjectives and Adverbs
Adjectives
Sereer uses a handful of predicational and modificational patterns to put across properties and attributes of nominals, but does not have a dedicated adjectival word class. (Please see the section on Nominal Modifiers above for more details on noun class agreement). Some more prototypical adjectival morphologies include the suffix -u and a nominalizing construction involving the relative pronoun na. This section will outline all of the observed nominal modification strategies.
There does not seem to be any ordering constraints on the logical ordering of adjectives. That is, “the delicious sour fruit” is just as natural and acceptable as “the sour delicious fruit”. The only constraint is that the adjective or adjectives remain post-nominal. There is also an intermixing of modification strategies when multiple modifications occur (see section below on Adjective Ordering).
Because physical and psychological qualities - such as visual and physical attributes (color, size, texture), emotional states, and other such descriptors usually put across by use of adjectives in some languages - are expressed by use of stative verbs in Sereer, much of the discussion about Sereer adjectives will entail a discussion of verb syntax, particularly copular predication.
Modification Strategies: This section outlines all the ways in which Sereer can syntactically and morphologically modify nouns, including -u adjectives, relativizing na-adjectives. There is also a general discussion about true adjectives as opposed to stative verb modification, and a section on notable coherent subclasses showing uniform morpho-syntactic patterns.
Predication Strategies: This section details modification at the clausal level, particularly with respect to the several kinds of predicational copular clauses.
Adjective Ordering: This section discusses the ordering constraints (or lack thereof) when multiple modifiers layer on a noun.
Degrees of Comparison: This section outlines comparative, superlative, and positive relations between two nouns.
Possessives with Adjectives: This section illustrates the interesting interaction between modification morphology and the possessive suffix.
Adverbs
Adpositions
Adpositions serve to mark a semantic relationship between adjacent noun phrases in a sentence. Sereer exhibits exclusively prepositions, which are morphologically free particles.
Negation
Negation is marked by a suffix on the verb. We have not yet found any negator that functions as a separate word. The exact form of negation is conditioned by voice, tense, and (maybe?) clause type.
WH- and Focus Fronting
Sereer has grammaticalized focus marking, which involves fronting of the focused element and (often) specific verbal morphology: a verbal suffix -u co-occurs with this fronting in nearly all cases; this can perhaps be analyzed as a marker for the extracted argument. Fronting of an argument or constituent and extraction morphology on the verb is also characteristic of wh-questions. Examples are given below, and will be elaborated upon eventually.
| a buga [o gar]. |
| a= | bug | -a | o= | gar |
| 3SG | want | NPT | 2SG | come |
He wants you to come. (151)
| [o gar] a bugu. |
| o= | gar | a= | bug | -u |
| 2SG | come | 3SG | want | EXTR.ARG |
He wants you to come. (151)
Note that reduplication of predicates cannot occur when subject extraction is marked: qaarit ke a laaɓiira (laaɓiir) 'the friends are generous' but qaarit qum laaɓiiru (*laaɓiir)?, 'which friends are generous?' (115)
We should think about the way we want to structure the discussion of focus marking, wh-questions, and clefts (X ref [clause]), since they seem to be so tightly tied together. I'm just not sure how to do it right now.--Nico 07:54, 30 November 2012 (UTC)
- Do we have a distinction between "focus" (non-WH-fronting) and "clefts"? I didn't think there was any difference. I agree that cleft and WH structures are both fronted in the same way, though, and that we should merge discussion of those things under one heading, at the expense of some of the content I might have put in Questions. I will move things around shortly if there's agreement. Faytak 15:50, 30 November 2012 (UTC)
- What I mean is that we've got the kind of focus structure in the examples above, where you get fronting and -u/focus morphology on the verb, and then you've got Jegan refu oxe okoor oxe anafna 'Jegan is the one the man hit'. Both can be used in wh-question formation: an jaw'eeru ñaamel ke? 'Who didn't cook the food' vs. an refu oxe jaweerna ñaamel ke? 'Who is it that didn't cook the food.' So although he translates regular constituent focus as clefts in English, I don't know if we should structurally treat the front + -u forms as clefts. The constructions with refu really do look like clefts to me. Both are used in question formation and you can do the refu cleft thing on regular non-wh constituents, so we should figure out how to integrate that observation here.--Nico 18:00, 30 November 2012 (UTC)
- Whenever possible, try to keep 'constructionally related' data together. So everything that gets the same -u suffix on the verb should go in the same section. So it seems that both wh-questions and these focus constructions (however they are best characterized) should go in this section. The X ref RC constructions Nico mentioned probably would go better in the copular clause section, since they seem to be copular clauses (i.e. pseudoclefts). relative clauses should be their own section as well, whether in noun phrases or sentential embedding. jenks 23:35, 12 December 2012 (UTC)
Mood and Utterance Type
As one might expect, different moods and clause types in Sereer correspond to different syntax. Mood is frequently marked with TAM suffixes, but a zone in the left periphery of the clause also hosts particles that express different moods. Numerous other utterance types are cued by pragmatics and have reduced or no inflectional morphology. Sereer exhibits WH-fronting when forming WH- and WH-constituent questions.
Subordination
There are several types of clausal subordination in Sereer:
Texts
File:121011G 067 Sereer time anecdote.wav
File:Sereer 121010I MR millet text.wav
File:Sereer 121010I MR millet text.TextGrid
Other Pages
- MediaWiki Handbook - Bari grammar (old main page) - Recordings and transcriptions (Bari) - Bari lexicon
