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Inclusory pronouns in Mande: The emergence of a typological rarum

  • Maria Khachaturyan EMAIL logo
Published/Copyright: March 30, 2019
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Abstract

This paper reviews inclusory constructions and pronouns in the Mande language family and proposes a diachronic account of their development. Inclusory constructions, which are found in several Mande languages, are a type of conjunction strategy where the whole set of participants – the superset – and a subset of participants are expressed, as in Dan-Gwetaa yāā Gbȁtȍ ‘Gbato and I’, lit. ‘we Gbato’. In a number of Southern and Southwestern Mande languages, inclusory constructions are typologically unique, as they feature a separate series of inclusory pronouns, which are used exclusively in this construction. The paper argues that these inclusory pronouns are a Southwestern Mande innovation, which spread to other Mande languages through contact.

Acknowledgements

I am grateful to the two reviewers of the present paper, as well as two other reviewers of a previous version of the paper, for their helpful criticism, as well as for pointing me to missing pieces of data. Two of the reviewers are anonymous, and the other two are Dmitry Idiatov and Michael Cysouw. I would like to thank my colleagues for giving their most valuable feedback on Mande languages: Maxim Fedotov, Maria Konoshenko, Nadezhda Makeeva, Daria Mischenko and Valentin Vydrin. I am thankful to Bridget Drinka, Ivan Kapitonov, Mihail Kopotev, Tatiana Nikitina, Konrad Rybka, Ivonne Treis, and Martine Vanhove for having read and commented the manuscript at different stages of its preparation. I gratefully acknowledge Tanya Panova’s help in creating the language map and Jack Rueter’s help in language revision. I am indebted to the Fyssen Foundation and William F. Hanks at the University of California, Berkeley, as well as to the University of Helsinki for supporting my research. Last but not least, I would like to extend my gratitude to Pe Mamy and his family, as well as other speakers of Mano for teaching me their language.

Abbreviations

af

actor focus

aor

aorist

assoc

associative

aut

autonomous

bas

basic

com

comitative

conj

conjunctive

el.

elicited example

emph

emphatic

exi

existential

h

high tone

IC

inclusory construction

IP

inclusory pronoun

jnt

joint

l

low tone

nat.

natural example

NP

noun phrase

p.n.

proper noun

pos

positive

PP

post-/prepositional phrase

qual

qualitative

tm

terminal marker

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Appendix

A
Table 10:

Tonal marking in Mande examples.

Name of the tone2-level systems3-level systems4-level systems5-level systems
(Maninka)(Mano, Guro)(Kla-Dan)(Dan-Gweetaa)
Ultrahigh
Higháááá
Midāā
Lowàààà
Ultralowȁȁȁ
B
Table 11:

Personal pronouns, affixes and auxiliaries in Kpelle.

1sg2sg3sg1pl.excl1pl.incl2pl3pl
Personal pronouns
Autonomousyɛ́yǎ~yàǎkúógùókáádìé
Topic-1ŋ́wɛ́íéwɛ̌íŋ̀wɛ̌íkúwɛ̌ígǔwɛ̌íkáwɛ̌ídǐwɛ̌í
Topic-2ɲááŋ́yɛ́ŋ́yàáŋ́kúóŋ́gùóŋ́kááŋ́dìéŋ́
Possessiveŋɔ́~ŋá~ŋééwɔ́ŋɔ̀~ŋàkúwɔ́gùwɔ́káwɔ́dìwɔ́
Inclusorykwàgwà
Citationalgɛ̂yɛ̂yɛ̀kúôgùòkáàdìè
Auxiliaries
Affirmative
Basicŋééè
Resultativeŋàǎyàǎàǎkwàǎgwàǎkàǎdàǎ
Habitualŋǎǎkwǎgwǎ
Imperative∅~ɓèěkà gwě ~ kàgú ~ gwě
Conjunctiveŋééě
Neutralgɛ́yɛ́yɛ̌kúógùókáádìé
Negative
Basic negativehwéhwěkùhwégǔhwékáhwédǐhwé
Habitual negativehwáhwǎkúhwǎgǔhwǎkáhwǎdǐhwǎ
Neutral polarity
Conditionalŋààkwàgwà
Pronominal indexes
(ŋ́-)é-(ŋ̀-)kú-gǔ-ká-dǐ-
Forms of the postposition ɓà ‘on’
ḿáà~ḿíìyɛ̂m̀àkúôgùôkáàdìê
Accepted: 2018-06-25
Published Online: 2019-03-30
Published in Print: 2019-04-26

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