Les préverbes en kla-dan

Abstract

Among the most productive models of the verbal derivation in Kla-Dan is an attachment of a prepositive element of nominal origin, i.e. a preverb, to the verbal base. The preverbs can be detached easily from the verbal base, and then they behave as a true word. For this reason, it is important to detect formal criteria that would allow to distinguish between verbs with preverbs and sequences “noun + verb”. Two morphological criteria can be suggested: - The criterion of reduplicationIf a sequence of nominal and a verbal roots can undergo together a reduplication (with the meaning of distribution), then the nominal constituent is a preverb. Otherwise, it is a noun which is a part of the direct object NP. - The criterion of the causative markerIf the causative marker appears before the nominal element, the latter is a preverb. otherwise, it is a part of the direct object NP. If at least one of these morphological criteria is applicable, the nominal element can be regarded as a preverb.

Keywords

• Preverb
• Compound Verbs
• Cline of Morphological Cohesion
• Kla-Dan
• Mande Languages