Difference between revisions of "Adverbs"
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fop no boxole abalga balig |
fop no boxole abalga balig |
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‘All of the dogs are black.’ |
‘All of the dogs are black.’ |
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| + | The ability of adverbs to be used as verbs can be illustrated with these minimal pairs: |
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| + | retam ñofu ñofam o ret |
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| + | ‘I go quickly.’ ‘I hurry up and go.’ |
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| + | weji ñofu ñofi wej |
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| + | ‘Swim quickly!’ ‘Hurry up and swim!' |
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Go back to: [[Sereer Grammar]] |
Go back to: [[Sereer Grammar]] |
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Revision as of 17:53, 7 December 2012
The positioning of adverbs in the sentence is as flexible in Sereer as in English.
gimam apaax gimam tok apaax gimam tok gimam ‘I sing loudly.’
nangam weʄa legleg legleg nangam weʄa nangam legleg weʄa ‘I swim often.’
When adverbs modify adjectives, they cannot intervene between the stative verb and bare adjective with those adjectives that have a verb-adjective form, like balig 'black':
oboxole fop abalga balig oboxole abalga balig fop *oboxole abalga fop balig 'The dog is completely black.'
Adverbs have flexible noun-class membership, and sometimes can behave as tense-bearing verbs and as adjectives. For instance, fop can be the adverb 'completely', or the quantifier 'all' in a partitive construction:
fop no boxole abalga balig ‘All of the dogs are black.’
The ability of adverbs to be used as verbs can be illustrated with these minimal pairs:
retam ñofu ñofam o ret ‘I go quickly.’ ‘I hurry up and go.’
weji ñofu ñofi wej ‘Swim quickly!’ ‘Hurry up and swim!'
Go back to: Sereer Grammar
Oana 00:47, 8 December 2012 (UTC)
