Loading...
The Morphosyntax of (anti) causatives in Wolof
Tamba, Khady
Tamba, Khady
Citations
Altmetric:
Abstract
The causative/anticausative alternation in Wolof follows four distinct patterns. I show that a derivation approach to Wolof verbs cannot work as a unified approach because of the presence of directed, labile and equipollent alternations. I argue that the (anti) causative alternation can be accounted for within the framework of Distributed Morphology. Within this framework verbs are created in the syntax when a root selected in the lexicon merges with a "verbifiying" head. In Wolof that head can be either silent or overt with both the causative and anticausative verbs. I also show that the suffix -u found in certain types of anticausatives have different properties depending on the type of verb it is attached to. Indeed with some verbs it has a pure anticausative property (no implicit agent) whereas in other contexts it does have an implicit agent.
Description
Date
2010-06-14
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
Volume Title
Publisher
University of Kansas
Collections
Archive Status
This item contains archived web content.
Files
Research Projects
Organizational Units
Journal Issue
Keywords
Language, linguistics, Anticausative, Causative, Distributed, Middle, Morphology, Root, Wolof language-- syntax