Обзор систем письменностей для языков манде: оригинальные письменности ваи, лоома, кпелле, менде, манинка (нко); арабографичное письмо (аджами)
There are three constructions in Guinean Maninka with basic meanings belonging to the future-prospective area: the First Future, the Second Future, and the Prospective. This paper, based on elicitation and natural text data, analyzes the... more
There are three constructions in Guinean Maninka with basic meanings belonging to the future-prospective area: the First Future, the Second Future, and the Prospective. This paper, based on elicitation and natural text data, analyzes the semantics and distribution of these constructions. Specifically, it demonstrates the following: the First Future construction (marked by dí) has a broad range of future meanings and can be regarded as the default future construction, it also has a habitual meaning; the less frequent Second Future (marked by dínà) expresses the distant future; the Prospective construction (marked by the verbal suffix ‑tɔ), apart from prospective meaning, can also have future-tense or modal semantics. Additionally, it establishes that the First Future and Prospective constructions are sensitive to the presence of an argument focus in the clause. Finally, it advances hypotheses on the etymology and the evolution paths of each construction and its marker: the Prospective construction may originate from the simultaneity converb (marked by suffix ‑tɔ); the First Future marker, from the qualitative verb dí ‘be pleasant; be easy’; the Second Future marker results from combination of the First Future marker with the verb nà ‘to come’.
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In Eastern Dan (< Southern Mande < Mande < Niger-Congo), the common Mande strategies of marking genitival relations are available, namely head-marking by means of tone, and dependent-marking (by a specialized postposition) in the... more
In Eastern Dan (< Southern Mande < Mande < Niger-Congo), the common Mande strategies of marking genitival relations are available, namely head-marking by means of tone, and dependent-marking (by a specialized postposition) in the alienable possession construction. However, against this common background, some important modifications have evolved. The opposition between the head-marked and the head-unmarked constructions, although retained, has become semantically blurred: in the proto-language, the head-marked genitival construction had the semantics of "modification-by-noun", while in the Eastern Dan, this meaning has undergone erosion. In the dependent-marked constructions, a case-like opposition has emerged in the alienable possession constructions: different possessive markers (postpositions) are used depending on whether the head noun of an NP containing the possessive construction stands in the locative case or not. Other postpositions can also serve as markers of genitival relations. In addition, morphological case can sometimes serve to mark genitival relations.
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Kakabe, an understudied language in Guinea (Mokole < Western Mande < < Mande < Niger-Congo), is spoken by several ethnic groups, mainly of inferior social status, most of which are bilingual in Pular. There are four dialects of Kakabe:... more
Kakabe, an understudied language in Guinea (Mokole < Western Mande < < Mande < Niger-Congo), is spoken by several ethnic groups, mainly of inferior social status, most of which are bilingual in Pular. There are four dialects of Kakabe: Northern (the Kankalabe area), Central (villages to the northwest , east and southeast of Timbo), Kuru-Maninka and Wure-Kaba Maninka. The Northern and Central dialects are close to each other linguistically, their speakers refer to themselves as "Kakabe", and these dialects can be regarded as comprising "nuclear Kakabe"; meanwhile, the speakers of Kuru-Maninka and Wure-Kaba Maninka reject being identified as "Kakabe", and their varieties have far fewer loans from Pular. A lexicostatistical study based on the Swadesh 100-item wordlist has been carried out. It confirmed the preliminary hypothesis of a particular affinity between the "core dialects" and showed that the other two dialects are further removed from them, but not as distant as the Mogofin (Mixifore) language spoken to the south of Boke (extreme NW part of the Republic of Guinea). Therefore, from a linguistic viewpoint, the Wure-Kaba Maninka and Kuru-Maninka varieties can be regarded Kakabe dialects despite the fact that their speakers do not consider themselves Kakabe.
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Какабе - малоизученный язык Гвинеи (моколе < зап. манде < манде < нигер-конго) нескольких небольших этнических групп на Фута-Джаллоне, в большинстве своём двуязычных на пулар. Могут быть выделены четыре диалекта какабе:... more
Какабе - малоизученный язык Гвинеи (моколе < зап. манде < манде < нигер-конго) нескольких небольших этнических групп на Фута-Джаллоне, в большинстве своём двуязычных на пулар. Могут быть выделены четыре диалекта какабе: северозападный (зона Канкалабе), центральный (деревни к востоку и югу от Тимбо), куру-манинка (западный), вурекаба-манинка (южный). Два первых близки друг к другу, их носители называют себя "какабе"; они могут рассматриваться как "ядерный какабе". Носители куру-манинка и вурекаба-манинка отвергают этноним "какабе", их диалекты гораздо менее подвержены заимствованиям из пулар. Бало проведено лексикостатистическое исследование на основе 100-словного списка Сводеша. Оно подтвердило предварительную гипотезу об особой близости между собой диалектов "ядерного какабе" и дистанцированности от них двух других диалектов - которые при этом оказываются всё же ближе к "ядерному какабе", чем язык могофин (микифоре), на кот...
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В гвинейском манинка дважды нарушается "принцип прилагательного", сформулированный Леоном Стасеном, с соответствии с которым предикативное прилагательное не может иметь собственной стратегии кодирования, а должно следовать или... more
В гвинейском манинка дважды нарушается "принцип прилагательного", сформулированный Леоном Стасеном, с соответствии с которым предикативное прилагательное не может иметь собственной стратегии кодирования, а должно следовать или именной, или глагольной стратегии. Исследование осуществлено на основе Справочного корпуса манинка.
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Излагаются базовые сведения о тональной системе языка бамана: два уровневых тона; деление слогов на тонально-доминантные (которым приписывается лексический тон) и рецессивные (не имеющие своего лексического тона). Выделяются три типа... more
Излагаются базовые сведения о тональной системе языка бамана: два уровневых тона; деление слогов на тонально-доминантные (которым приписывается лексический тон) и рецессивные (не имеющие своего лексического тона). Выделяются три типа двусложных стоп: нейтральные (оба слога равноправны), хореические (первый слог имеет долгий гласный, второй - краткий), ямбические (гласный первого слога обычно редуцируется, второго - реализуется без редукции). В ямбических стопах можно говорить об ударности второго слога и безударности первого, при этом такое противопоставление нельзя свести к долготному контрасту. Такое стопное ударение не проявляет никакой корреляции с делением слогов на тонально-доминантные и рецессивные.
This paper describes a group of kin terms in Landuma (a Mel language spoken in northwestern Guinea) which have a non-standard phonological structure: they begin with the consonant cluster NC. It is shown that the anomalous properties of... more
This paper describes a group of kin terms in Landuma (a Mel language spoken in northwestern Guinea) which have a non-standard phonological structure: they begin with the consonant cluster NC. It is shown that the anomalous properties of these nouns can be explained via their origin: all of them are borrowed from Mande. In Western Mande languages, nouns for elder kin are also anomalous in that they are often unable to adjoin a definite or referential article. It has been suggested previously that this anomaly could be explained by the presence of an archaic nasal prefix, a grammatical marker of elder kin. At the same time, such a nasal prefix is not attested in any modern Mande language. Two hypotheses can be advanced on the origin of the initial nasal element in the anomalous Landuma nouns. According to the first, this element goes back to a nasal prefix reconstructed for nouns referring to elder kin in Mande. If so, the Landuma data can be regarded as an argument for the relatively recent disappearance of this prefix in Mande (i.e., subsequent to the start of close contact between speakers of Proto-Landuma and speakers of Proto-Manding and Proto-Susu). Alternatively, the nasal element can be regarded as a reinterpreted Mande 1SG pronoun ń which, in its possessive function, appears frequently with kin terms. It cannot be excluded that both sources may have been relevant.
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The paper (Baker & Gondo 2020) studies several issues in Dan morphosyntax: the formal differences between verbs, nouns and adjectives; two types of possessive constructions (with alienable and inalienable head nouns) and their syntactic... more
The paper (Baker & Gondo 2020) studies several issues in Dan morphosyntax: the formal differences between verbs, nouns and adjectives; two types of possessive constructions (with alienable and inalienable head nouns) and their syntactic structures; the derivation of nouns from verbs and adjectives; low and high nominalization; and possessive constructions with deverbal and deadjectival nouns. As it turns out, Baker & Gondo's analyses are incorrect in some major points: the key formal differences between verbs, adjectives and nouns have been left unnoticed due to disregard for Dan tonal morphology, and for the same reason, the tonal marking of the high nominalization has also been ignored. Baker & Gondo's syntactic analysis of the possessive construction with alienable nouns as analogous to the Saxon genitive (king's house) cannot be accepted; in fact, it can be compared with the genitive construction seen in English the house of the king. Possessive constructions with deverbal and deadjectival nouns are not as radically opposed as one may think after reading Baker & Gondo's paper; in fact, a noun derived from an intransitive verb can sometimes appear as an alienable noun with respect to its theme, and, conversely, a deadjectival noun can appear as a relational noun with respect to the modified noun.
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L'esquisse de grammaire comporte les informations de base sur la phonologie et le morphosyntaxe du dan de l'Est. Dans la partie phonologique, les systèmes cosonantiques et vocaliques sont analysés, de même que le système tonal et les... more
L'esquisse de grammaire comporte les informations de base sur la phonologie et le morphosyntaxe du dan de l'Est. Dans la partie phonologique, les systèmes cosonantiques et vocaliques sont analysés, de même que le système tonal et les pieds caractéristiques. Les parties de discours du dan sont inventoriées, et chaque classe de lexèmes est analysé du point de vue de ses particularités morphosyntaxiques : les noms, les noms locatifs (avec leur système de déclinaison), les pronoms personnels, les marques prédicatives, les adjectifs, les verbes, les adverbes, les numéros, les déterminants, les pospositions. Les constructions nominales et les types d'énoncés non-verbaux sont traités dans la section syntaxique (la syntaxe de la proposition complexe n'est pas abordée)
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Bambara (Manding < West Mande < Mande < Niger-Congo) has a specialized clause chaining (cosubordinative) construction where the fi rst clause has a verb full-fl edged for TAM and polarity, and verbs of subsequent clauses are in infi... more
Bambara (Manding < West Mande < Mande < Niger-Congo) has a specialized clause chaining (cosubordinative) construction where the fi rst clause has a verb full-fl edged for TAM and polarity, and verbs of subsequent clauses are in infi nitive; non-initial clauses are not embedded into the initial one and cannot be therefore regarded as subordinate. Characteristics of the Bambara clause chaining are analyzed: scope of operators (illocutionary force, negation), TAM characteristics, same-and different -subjectness. From the evidence of peripheral Manding varieties, a hypothesis concerning the origin of infi nitive from an archaic preposition is advanced.
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The Bambara foot is represented as a rhythmic category which can be disyllabic or monosyllabic. Foot-parsing is both segmentally and morphologically conditioned. A foot can coincide with a morpheme or be smaller than a morpheme, but it... more
The Bambara foot is represented as a rhythmic category which can be disyllabic or monosyllabic. Foot-parsing is both segmentally and morphologically conditioned. A foot can coincide with a morpheme or be smaller than a morpheme, but it cannot include more than one morpheme. The main factors for foot-parsing are: types of initial consonants, types of internal consonants and vocalic combinations; directionality (left to right) is a secondary factor. Segmentation into feet is relevant for the realization of tone. Disyllabic feet are subdivided into two types, heavy and light; heavy feet have a long vowel in the initial syllable, while light feet have a short vowel in this position which is susceptible to elision (depending on phonotactics). It seems unnecessary to postulate stress in Bambara. The views of previous researchers on the Bambara foot are critically analyzed.
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A model for the development of a corpus-driven spelling dictionary for the Bambara language is described. First, a list of about 4000 lexemes characterized by spelling variability is extracted from an electronic Bambara-French dictionary.... more
A model for the development of a corpus-driven spelling dictionary for the Bambara language is described. First, a list of about 4000 lexemes characterized by spelling variability is extracted from an electronic Bambara-French dictionary. At the next stage, a script is applied to determine the number of occurrences of each spelling variant in the Bambara Reference Corpus, separately for the entire Corpus (more than 11 million words) and for its disambiguated subcorpus (about 1.5 million words). Statistics on the diversity of sources and authors are also obtained automatically. The statistical data are then sorted manually into two lists of lexemes: those whose standard spelling can be established statistically, and those requiring evaluation by expert linguists. Some difficult cases are discussed in the paper. At the final stage, a representative expert commission will discuss all those lexemes for which statistical data alone do not suffice to define a standard spelling variant, before taking a final decision on each. The resulting Bambara spelling dictionary will be published electronically and on paper.
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The goal of this study is to test instrumentally the hypothesis that Bambara disyllabic feet are distributed into three types. The results of the study can be summarised as follows:-reduction and elision of a short V1 in disyllabic feet... more
The goal of this study is to test instrumentally the hypothesis that Bambara disyllabic feet are distributed into three types. The results of the study can be summarised as follows:-reduction and elision of a short V1 in disyllabic feet is phonetic, rather than phonological, and can be explained by phonotactics. Therefore, disyllabic feet with a short first vowel form just one type;-V1 length, although phonologically relevant, displays some instability between speakers;-in a disyllabic foot (at least when its boundaries coincide with word boundaries), length characteristics are in complementary distribution: if the first vowel is short, the second is long, and if the first vowel is long, the second is short. This phenomenon can be defined as 'foot isochrony';-if the first vowel of a disyllabic foot is short, the duration of the second vowel depends on the position of the foot within the word: word-finally it is long, otherwise it is short;-the difference between disyllabic feet types in Bambara can be exhaustively described by means of the length of the first vowel; there seems to be no need to postulate the existence of stress.
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Non-verbal predication and copula types are analysed in three Mande languages: Bambara, Guinean Maninka, and Eastern Dan. These languages display considerable divergences. In Bambara, there are three affirmative non-verbal copulas used in... more
Non-verbal predication and copula types are analysed in three Mande languages: Bambara, Guinean Maninka, and Eastern Dan. These languages display considerable divergences. In Bambara, there are three affirmative non-verbal copulas used in different construction types, comprising one formal class. In Guinean Maninka, there is only one non-verbal affirmative copula, and it can be omitted; there is a tendency toward its substitution with a focalization particle. The affirmative non-verbal qualitative construction is copulaless. In both these languages, there is also a verbal copula used in non-default context, and an ostentative copula going back to a verb whose lexical meaning is 'to look'. In Eastern Dan, copulas are diverse in nature: some are of verbal origin, while others go back to demonstrative adverbs. There are three series of inflectional auxiliary lexemes which are used both in verbal constructions and in constructions with non-verbal predicates, i.e. as copulas.
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La disponibilité des corpus électroniques annotés comptant des millions de mots pour les langues maninka et bambara permet de penser des dictionnaires de nouvelle génération. Dans un tel dictionnaire, l'élaboration de la polysémie,... more
La disponibilité des corpus électroniques annotés comptant des millions de mots pour les langues maninka et bambara permet de penser des dictionnaires de nouvelle génération. Dans un tel dictionnaire, l'élaboration de la polysémie, combinabilité, valences syntaxiques, caractéristiques stylistiques, régionales et dialectales pour chaque lexème (et pour chaque sens du lexème) sera basée sur l'analyse du concordancier dérivé du corpus. Désormais, il devient possible d'évaluer statistiquement chaque trait caractéristique du lexème. Une analyse lexicographique, sur la base des concordanciers, est présenté sur l'exemple des lexèmes bambara bánban et jàhadi.
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The Mande language Dan, which is spoken in the West African countries of Guinea, the Ivory Coast, and Liberia, is among the few African languages that distinguish between five tone registers. Metrical feet in this language play a role... more
The Mande language Dan, which is spoken in the West African countries of Guinea, the Ivory Coast, and Liberia, is among the few African languages that distinguish between five tone registers. Metrical feet in this language play a role with respect to nasal harmo ny as well as tonal and vocalic combinations. This chapter also presents a general overview of simple and complex sentences, with a special focus on locative marking, which constitutes a prominent morphosyntactic feature of Dan nouns, as well as on labili ty, which is a typologically interesting feature of the other major category in the lan guage, the verb.
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Eastern Dan has five level tones, six contours and many monosyllabic words, resulting in an extraordinarily heavy functional load of tone. This led those first involved in orthography development to create a novel system for marking tone... more
Eastern Dan has five level tones, six contours and many monosyllabic words, resulting in an extraordinarily heavy functional load of tone. This led those first involved in orthography development to create a novel system for marking tone that uses punctuation symbols in wordinitial and wordfinal posi tion. This orthography also has considerable segmental overrepresentation and makes extensive use of umlauts to symbolize vowels. In a quantitative classroom experiment, we tested it against Valentin Vydrin's recent proposal for radical reform that advocates superscript diacritics for marking tone, biunique corre spondence for consonants and vowels, and special characters in place of umlauts. Sixtyeight participants with no previous exposure to written Eastern Dan were taught various combinations of tones and segments in parallel groups and their acquired skills were tested in dictation and oral reading tasks. The results point to an advantage for the experimental orthography that combines the punctua tion tone marking strategy with biunique segmental correspondence and spe
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The paper deals with a default aspectual construction in Eastern Dan (< Southern Mande < Mande < Niger-Congo). This construction may express different aspectual meanings, depending on the lexical semantics of a verb, on the presence or... more
The paper deals with a default aspectual construction in Eastern Dan (< Southern Mande < Mande < Niger-Congo). This construction may express different aspectual meanings, depending on the lexical semantics of a verb, on the presence or absence of a direct object or an adverbial, and on the pragmatic status of the argument: habitual, stative, counter-factual, progressive, imperfect, resultative or perfect, and completive meanings are all attested. At the same time, Eastern Dan has specialized verbal constructions for most of these aspectual meanings. In the paper, conditions for the realization of different aspectual meanings are discussed. A hypothesis on the origin of this construction is suggested.
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Ethnonyms for Manding ethnic groups are analyzed, cases of homonymy or resembling names for different groups are noted.
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Whether tone should be represented in writing, and if so how much, is one of the most formidable challenges facing those developing orthographies for tone languages. Various researchers have attempted to quantify the level of written... more
Whether tone should be represented in writing, and if so how much, is one of the most formidable challenges facing those developing orthographies for tone languages. Various researchers have attempted to quantify the level of written ambiguity in a language if tone is not marked, but these contributions are not easily comparable because they use different measurement criteria. This article presents a first attempt to develop a standardized instrument and evaluate its potential. The method is exemplified using four narrative texts translated into Elip, Mbelime, and Eastern Dan. It lists all distinct written word forms that are homographs if tone is not marked, discarding repeated words, homophony, and polysemy, as well as pairs that never share the same syntactic slot. It treats lexical and grammatical tone separately, while acknowledging that these two functions often coincide. The results show that the level of written ambiguity in Elip is weighted towards the grammar, while in Mbelime many ambiguities occur at the point where lexical and grammatical tone coincide. As for Eastern Dan, with its profusion of nominal and verbal minimal pairs, not to mention pronouns, case markers, predicative markers, and other parts of speech, the level of written ambiguity if tone is not marked is by far the highest of the three languages. The article ends with some suggestions of how the methodology might be refined, by reporting some experimental data that provide only limited proof of the need to mark tone fully, and by describing how full tone marking has survived recent spelling reforms in all three languages.
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We study the rank-frequency distribution of syllables in texts from written press in Bamana and Guinean Maninka, two closely related languages from the Manding group of the Mande family in West Africa. Five issues of widely circulating... more
We study the rank-frequency distribution of syllables in texts from written press in Bamana and Guinean Maninka, two closely related languages from the Manding group of the Mande family in West Africa. Five issues of widely circulating newspapers are analyzed in each language. The Bamana texts are written in a Roman-based alphabet without marking of tones, while Maninka texts are published in the N'ko alphabet comprising a superficial notation of tones. For the sake of comparisons , the Maninka data are also compiled for syllables with tonal distinctions neglected. The obtained rank-frequency distributions of syllables are fitted using two discrete distributions, Jain-Poisson and positive negative binomial, as well as the continuous Yule distribution. In most cases, a satisfactory fit was achieved, with the determination coefficient R 2 > 0.95 and discrepancy coefficient C < 0.02. The relation of the Yule distribution and Zipf's law with respect to the number of syllable types is discussed.
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РОССИЙСКАЯ ЛИНГВИСТИчЕСКАЯ ЭКСПЕДИЦИЯ В КОТ-Д'ИВУАР И ОРФОГРАФИчЕСКИЕ РЕФОРМы В ЮЖНыХ ЯЗыКАХ МАНДЕ а н н о т а ц и я. российская лингвистическая экспедиция в кот-д'ивуар по изучению южных языков манде, которая организуется ежегодно... more
РОССИЙСКАЯ ЛИНГВИСТИчЕСКАЯ ЭКСПЕДИЦИЯ В КОТ-Д'ИВУАР И ОРФОГРАФИчЕСКИЕ РЕФОРМы В ЮЖНыХ ЯЗыКАХ МАНДЕ а н н о т а ц и я. российская лингвистическая экспедиция в кот-д'ивуар по изучению южных языков манде, которая организуется ежегодно начиная с 2001 г., имела в качестве косвенного результата орфогра-фические реформы в большинстве языков этой группы. В предшествующий период почти для всех этих языков были разработаны «пунктуационные» орфографии, в которых тоны обозначались при помощи дефисов, апострофов, кавычек, знака равенства. В ходе взаимодействия с российскими лингвистами, ис-пользовавшими запись на основе Мфа, носители южных языков манде убедились в преимуществе такой записи и предложили применить ее в практической орфографии. описывается процесс и особенности орфографических реформ для семи языков-бен, гуро, муан, восточный дан, западный дан, гбан, гоо (последний ранее письменности не имел, так что для него речь идет скорее о создании орфографии).
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Eastern Dan has five level tones, six contours and many monosyllabic words, resulting in an extraordinarily heavy functional load of tone. This led those first involved in orthography development to create a novel system for marking tone... more
Eastern Dan has five level tones, six contours and many monosyllabic words, resulting in an extraordinarily heavy functional load of tone. This led those first involved in orthography development to create a novel system for marking tone that uses punctuation symbols in wordinitial and wordfinal posi tion. This orthography also has considerable segmental overrepresentation and makes extensive use of umlauts to symbolize vowels. In a quantitative classroom experiment, we tested it against Valentin Vydrin's recent proposal for radical reform that advocates superscript diacritics for marking tone, biunique corre spondence for consonants and vowels, and special characters in place of umlauts. Sixtyeight participants with no previous exposure to written Eastern Dan were taught various combinations of tones and segments in parallel groups and their acquired skills were tested in dictation and oral reading tasks. The results point to an advantage for the experimental orthography that combines the punctua tion tone marking strategy with biunique segmental correspondence and special characters for marking vowels. Nevertheless, the language community has
recently adopted Vydrin’s reform in its entirety.
recently adopted Vydrin’s reform in its entirety.
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In the paper, eight Mande counting systems (Modern and Old Bamana, Boko, Dzuungoo, Mwan, Dan-Gwɛɛtaa, San-Maka, Soninke) are analyzed in detail, followed by the presentation of a summary table for 30 languages representing all the groups... more
In the paper, eight Mande counting systems (Modern and Old Bamana, Boko, Dzuungoo, Mwan, Dan-Gwɛɛtaa, San-Maka, Soninke) are analyzed in detail, followed by the presentation of a summary table for 30 languages representing all the groups of the Mande family. In Mande languages, elements of different models are present: decimal, vigesimal, octogesimal; some elements of a quinary and quindecimal systems are also attested. Certain languages of the family possess subtractive numerals; the subtrahend may be as high as 25. In the old Bamana system, Jogo-Ton and Jogo-Ligbi, division is applied. In money counting, many Mande languages apply the principle of multiplying by five.
It is suggested that the quinary and decimal models should be considered original for Mande languages, while the vigesimal model (as well as rare pentadecimal and octogesimal ones) as a result of recent evolution, quite probably under the influence of Senufo, Gur, and probably also Kru languages.
It is suggested that the quinary and decimal models should be considered original for Mande languages, while the vigesimal model (as well as rare pentadecimal and octogesimal ones) as a result of recent evolution, quite probably under the influence of Senufo, Gur, and probably also Kru languages.
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В гвинейском манинка имеются три глагольные конструкции с базовыми значениями из футурально-проспективной зоны: первое будущее, второе будущее и проспектив. В статье рассматривается семантика и распределение этих конструкций, на основе... more
В гвинейском манинка имеются три глагольные конструкции с базовыми значениями из футурально-проспективной зоны: первое будущее, второе будущее и проспектив. В статье рассматривается семантика и распределение этих конструкций, на основе данных элицитации и, с другой стороны, материалов из естественного текста. Показано, что сравнительно малочастотная конструкция второго будущего (с показателем dínà) употребляется в значении отдаленного будущего; проспективная (маркируемая глагольным суффиксом tɔ), помимо проспективного значения, может также выражать футуральные и модальные значения; конструкция первого будущего (показатель dí) выражает широкий спектр футуральных значений (и может считаться, таким образом, дефолтной конструкцией будущего), но также и хабитуалис. Отмечается чувствительность конструкций первого будущего и проспективной к наличию в клаузе аргументного фокуса. Высказываются предположения об этимологии и путях эволюции каждой из этих конструкций и их показателей: проспективной — из конверба со значением таксиса одновременности; первого будущего — из качественного глагола dí ‘быть приятным; быть легким, нетрудным’; второго будущего — из конструкции первого будущего с глаголом nà ‘приходить’.
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This article assesses tonal oral reading errors in the 1982 orthography of Eastern Dan, a South Mande language of Côte d'Ivoire. Fifty-seven adult participants orally read four narrative texts presented with and without tone marks.... more
This article assesses tonal oral reading errors in the 1982 orthography of Eastern Dan, a South Mande language of Côte d'Ivoire. Fifty-seven adult participants orally read four narrative texts presented with and without tone marks. Subsequent linguistic analysis of tonal errors identified six possible causes: dialect diversity, homophony, tonal minimal pairs, alternating visually similar words, under-representation of longer words, and misspelled words. Extending the analysis to errors on individual tones reveals that the orthographic strategies for marking mid, low, extra-low and contour tones do not attract more tonal errors than any other tone. The paper concludes by acknowledging that many tonal errors are apparently not linguistically motivated at all and are probably due to lack of regular reading practice given the current stagnation in the literacy program.
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Roots for "fonio" in Mande and Atlantic languages are analyzed in comparative perspectives
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Main features of the Guro (South Mande < Mande) are analyzed: 3-level tonal system; ATR vowel harmony.
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Separable adjectives represent a morphosyntactic subcategory of the part of speech of adjectives in Bambara (< Manding < Mande < Niger-Congo, Mali, West Africa). A separable adjective is a compound lexeme consisting of a noun root... more
Separable adjectives represent a morphosyntactic subcategory of the part of speech of adjectives in Bambara (< Manding < Mande < Niger-Congo, Mali, West Africa). A separable adjective is a compound lexeme consisting of a noun root designating most often a body part, a qualitative verb root and a connector -la- ~ -lan- or -ma- ~ -man-. When used predicatively, the final component of a separable adjective (the qualitative verb root) is split from the rest of the form by the auxiliary word ka or man. Separable adjectives express mainly human qualities (moral or physical), and their semantics are very often idiomatic. The productivity of this subclass is limited.
In order to establish an inventory of the separable adjectives, two approaches have been followed: elicitation and a search in the Bambara Reference Corpus (which included roughly 4,110,000 words at the time of this study). The potentially imaginable number of lexemes of this type equals 570 (15 noun roots x 19 qualitative verb roots x 2 connectors). Elicitation provided 75 separable adjectives, and the corpus study, 25, 3 of which are absent from the elicitated list.
This experiment proves that in studies of derivative morphology, when a linguist needs to fill out a matrix, elicitation cannot simply be replaced by a corpus study. On the other hand, the corpus data provides invaluable supplementary data that cannot be obtained through elicitation.
In order to establish an inventory of the separable adjectives, two approaches have been followed: elicitation and a search in the Bambara Reference Corpus (which included roughly 4,110,000 words at the time of this study). The potentially imaginable number of lexemes of this type equals 570 (15 noun roots x 19 qualitative verb roots x 2 connectors). Elicitation provided 75 separable adjectives, and the corpus study, 25, 3 of which are absent from the elicitated list.
This experiment proves that in studies of derivative morphology, when a linguist needs to fill out a matrix, elicitation cannot simply be replaced by a corpus study. On the other hand, the corpus data provides invaluable supplementary data that cannot be obtained through elicitation.
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An openly accessible online dictionary of Guinean Maninka (Malinke), with French, English, Russian indexes.
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A survey of tonal systems of Mande languages (Niger-Congo).
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Обзор тональных систем языков семьи манде.
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An analysis of two writings by Solomana Kante, creator of the N'ko writing system for Manding languages and founder of Maninka literature.
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Translation of the "Little Prince" in Eastern Dan language (Côte d'Ivoire, South Mande language group).
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Présentation de la nouvelle orthographe du dan de l'est (en comparaison avec l'ancienne orthographe).
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The Sumanguru Kante epic song narrated by Abdulaye Sako in Bamana, enregistred by Staphan Bulman. The original Bamana text is provided by discoursive marking and translated into English.
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Collection of papers (3 are in English, and 14 are in Russian), mainly on African languages, but also some other languages of the world, and on cultural anthropology.
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"From Bikin to Banbaluma, from the Varangians to the Greeks. Field-inspired essays in honour of Elena V. Perekhvalskaya / Ed. by Valentin F. Vydrin and Natalia V. Kuznetsova. St. Petersburg: Nestor-Istoria, 2014, 486 p." A volume in... more
"From Bikin to Banbaluma, from the Varangians to the Greeks. Field-inspired essays in honour of Elena V. Perekhvalskaya / Ed. by Valentin F. Vydrin and Natalia V. Kuznetsova. St. Petersburg: Nestor-Istoria, 2014, 486 p." A volume in Russian with English abstracts is dedicated to E. Perekhvalskaya’s 60th anniversary and contains papers on Altaic, Greek, Balkan, African, Finnic languages, as well as on language contacts and general theoretical problems.
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В сборнике представлены результаты системного лексико-типологического исследования, выполненного на широком языковом материале: на основе единой анкеты описана семантическая зона движения и нахождения в воде (зона плавания, или... more
В сборнике представлены результаты системного лексико-типологического исследования, выполненного на широком языковом материале: на основе единой анкеты описана семантическая зона движения и нахождения в воде (зона плавания, или aquamotion) для более чем сорока языков, представляющих самые разные языковые семьи и ареалы — славянские, балтийские, романские, германские, уральские, тюркские, семитские, кавказские, африканские и др. Статьи написаны специалистами по соответствующим языкам на материале полевых и корпусных исследований. Выделены семантические параметры, типологически значимые для зоны плавания, установлены основные типы метафорических переходов в данной области.
Описаны общие принципы построения семантической типологии, которые могут быть применены к любому лексическому материалу. Книга адресована широкому кругу лингвистов, в первую очередь специалистам по семантике и типологии.
Описаны общие принципы построения семантической типологии, которые могут быть применены к любому лексическому материалу. Книга адресована широкому кругу лингвистов, в первую очередь специалистам по семантике и типологии.
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Eastern Dan has five tones, six contours and is largely monosyllabic, so the functional load of tone is exceptionally heavy. The orthography responds to this by employing the distinctive Ivoirian tradition of marking tone fully by means... more
Eastern Dan has five tones, six contours and is largely monosyllabic, so the functional load of tone is exceptionally heavy. The orthography responds to this by employing the distinctive Ivoirian tradition of marking tone fully by means of punctuation in word-initial and -final position. In addition, the segmental orthography has considerable over-representation and makes extensive use of umlauts to symbolize vowels. In a quantitative classroom experiment, we tested a recent proposal for radical orthography reform that advocates superscript diacritics for marking tone, biunique correspondence for consonants and vowels, and special characters in place of umlauts. Sixty-eight participants with no previous exposure to written Eastern Dan were taught various combinations of tones and segments in parallel groups and their acquired skills were tested in dictation and oral reading tasks. The results of writing, reading speed (list and text), and reading errors (list) all point to an advantage for the experimental orthography that maintains the existing tone marking strategy, but ensures biunique segmental correspondence and uses special characters for marking vowels. This experiment provides some initial evidence that marking tone with punctuation can be effective, especially for writers, in a language with an exceptionally heavy functional load of tone.