Sereer Grammar
This is the Wiki page for Serer.
Serer 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 Serer 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
Serer words are made up of sounds called phonemes. There are many phonemes in Serer.
Phonology
Spectrograms and Audio Samples of Consonants
Phonotactics
Serer allows C and nC onsets and codas (if one assumes that nC onsets are not single segments, as they are in the table of phonemes above). Syllables without onsets and open syllables are also allowed. CC clusters are allowed, but no CCC clusters are yet attested.
It seems that syllable structure is strictly (C)V(C). Any C can be an onset, and so far it appears that any C can be a coda.
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 |
Verbal Morphology
Tense (and aspect) Paradigm Table
Syntax
Prepositions
Old Pages
- Bari grammar (old main page) - Recordings and transcriptions (Bari) - Bari lexicon
