Analyse typologique et syntaxique du génitif wolof

Abstract

Genitive is a widely studied construction of languages, Wolof included. But, for Wolof, the proposed analyses have no typological reach. Reading these analyses, we could have the feeling that the genitive construction in Wolof is, from a typological point of view, unusual. The author demonstrates, from a typological approach, that the genitive construction in Wolof is similar to what we can observe in diverse languages belonging to linguistic families different from that of the Wolof. The current genitive construction in Wolof is in a transitional phase between a state where the genitive was marked by the redoubling of the indefinite determiner, and a state where it is marked by a suffix on the head noun.

Keywords

• syntax
• typology
• genitive
• possessive
• wolof
• noun phrase