Difference between revisions of "Sereer Grammar"

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Revision as of 14:51, 4 October 2012

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 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

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

Phonological Alternations

Phonotactics

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?):

Noun types!
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

Syntax

Question formation

Sentences with sound files

Possession

Word order in possessive constructions appears to be possessum-possessor, as seen in [muusnɛ noⁿdɛboᵑgɛ] 'a boy's cat' (040).

Prepositions

Position in Sereer is 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 kɛʋidna
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