Preliminary description of Ngen pronominal elements

Abstract

The paper provides a preliminary description of the pronominal elements of Ngen, a South Mande language spoken in Côte d’Ivoire. Pronominal elements are divided into three groups by morpho-syntactic characteristics: subject pronouns, personal pronouns in non-subject positions, and pronominal predicative markers (PPM). Subject pronouns and PPMs express not only person and number but also tense, aspect, modality, and polarity. PPMs differ from pronouns in their syntactic features: they are obligatory in the sentences with a full-fledged subject NP, while personal pronouns are not. The PPM are used to express the past tense, perfect, and habitual, while the basic subject pronouns are used to express the progressive and future tense.

Keywords

• Ngen
• South Mande
• agreement markers
• personal pronoun
• subject pronoun
• pronominal predicative marker