ISSN: 2306-5737E-ISSN: 2658-4069
Acta Linguistica Petropolitana
Transactions of the Institute for Linguistic Studies
ISSN: 2306-5737E-ISSN: 2658-4069
Acta Linguistica Petropolitana
Transactions of the Institute for Linguistic Studies 

Preposition à in Natioro: From comitatives to clausal conjunction

DOI:10.30842/alp23065737171384405
PDF, 482.87 kb
Dyachkov V. V. Preposition à in Natioro: From comitatives to clausal conjunction. Acta Linguistica Petropolitana. 2021. 17(1): 384–405.

The paper deals with the syntax and semantics of the preposition à in Natioro, an underdescribed Gur language. This preposition is used as a comitative marker and expresses typical comitative meanings such as an instrument, companion, means of transportation etc. It can also conjoin NPs as well as finite clauses, with these two functions rarely combined in the languages of Sub-Saharan Africa. The aim of the paper is twofold. First, it describes the basic properties of comitative constructions and the positional restrictions imposed on comitative constructions of various semantic types. In particular, constructions with inanimate participants share some properties with clause-level adjuncts, and their position within the clause is fixed. In contrast, other comitative constructions have different syntactic properties and can be used in postposition to verbs as well as to nouns. This results in two possible configurations, namely the one where the comitative adjunct follows the noun it modifies, and the other where the comitative adjunct is inserted after the SOV or SVO sequence. It is also shown that all Natioro comitatives can be regarded as subordinate structures, and Natioro is a typical ‘with’-language where the comitative strategy is the basic medium used to express NP conjunction. Thus, both constituents expressing NP conjunction and comitative constructions expressing other meanings can be treated in a uniform way, although the semantic relations between the head nouns in such constructions and the comitative marked NPs may differ significantly. Second, the paper gives a typologically-based overview of the phenomenon and discusses the Natioro data in comparison with other languages of the African area. Namely, it establishes some parallels with the Mande languages where comitative constructions have similar syntactic properties.

Keywords
Natioro, Gur languages, comitative constructions, comitative coordination
References
Arkhipov 2009a
A. V. Arkhipov. Comitative as a cross-linguistically valid category. W. Bisang (ed.).New Challenges in Typology 2: Transcending the Borders and Rening the Distinctions. (Trends in Linguistics. Studies and Monographs 217). Berlin; New York: Mouton de Gruyter, 2009. P. 223–246.
Arkhipov 2009b
A. V. Arkhipov.Tipologiya komitativnykh konstruktsiy [Typology of Comitative Constructions]. Moscow: Znak, 2009.
Belyaev 2015
O. I. Belyaev. Systematic mismatches: Coordination and subordination at three levels of grammar.Journal of Linguistics. 2015. Vol. 51. Iss. 2. P. 267–326.
Creissels 2016
D. Creissels. Additive coordination, comitative adjunction, and associative plural in Tswana.Linguistique et langues africaines. 2016. Vol. 2. P. 11–42.
Creissels 2018
D.Creissels. Current issues in the morphosyntactic typology of Sub-Saharan languages. T. Güldemann (ed.). The languages and Linguistics of Africa. (The World of Linguistics 11). Berlin; Boston: Mouton de Gruyter, 2018. P. 712–821.
Haspelmath 2004
M. Haspelmath. Coordinating constructions: An overview. M. Haspelmath (ed.).Coordinating Constructions. (Typological Studies in Language 58). Amsterdam; Philadelphia: Benjamins, 2004. P. 3–39.
Idiatov, Aplonova 2017
D. I. Idiatov, E. S. Aplonova. Tura yazyk [Tura language]. V. F. Vydrin, Yu. V. Mazurova, A. A. Kibrik, E. B. Markus (eds.).Yazyki mira: Yazyki mande [Languages of the World: Mande Languages]. St. Petersburg: Nestor-Istoriya, 2017. P. 583–616.
Konoshenko 2017
M. B. Konoshenko. Kpelle yazyk [Kpelle language].V. F. Vydrin, Yu. V. Mazurova, A. A. Kibrik, E. B. Markus (eds.). Yazyki mira: Yazyki mande [Languages of the World: Mande Languages]. St. Petersburg: Nestor-Istoriya, 2017. P. 284–343.
Miehe, Winkelmann (eds.) 2007
G. Miehe, K. Winkelmann (eds.).Noun Class Systems in Gur Languages. Vol. 1: Southwestern Gur Languages (without Gurunsi). (Gur Monographs 9). Köln: Rüdiger Köppe Verlag, 2007.
Perekhvalskaya 2017
E. V. Perekhvalskaya.Boko yazyk [Boko language]. V. F. Vydrin, Yu. V. Mazurova, A. A. Kibrik, E. B. Markus (eds.). Yazyki mira: Yazyki mande [Languages of the World: Mande Languages]. St. Petersburg: Nestor-Istoriya, 2017. P. 1051–1093.
Prost 1968
A. Prost.Deux langues voltaïques en voie de disparition: le wara et le natioro. (Documents linguistiques 14). Dakar: Publications de Département de linguistique générale et linguistique africaine de la Faculté des lettres et sciences humaines de l’Université de Dakar, 1968.
Ross 1967
J. R. Ross. Constraints on Variables in Syntax. PhD thesis. Cambridge: MIT, 1967.
Stassen 2000
L. Stassen. AND-languages and WITH-languages.Linguistic Typology. 2000. Vol. 4. Iss. 1. P. 1–54.
Stolz et al. 2006
T. Stolz, C. Stroh, A. Urdze.On Comitatives and Related Categories: A Typological Study with Special Focus on the Languages of Europe. (Empirical Approaches to Language Typology 33). Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter, 2006.
Welmers 1973
W. E. Welmers.African Language Structures. Berkeley; Los Angeles; London: University of California Press, 1973.
Keywords
Natioro, Gur languages, comitative constructions, comitative coordination
ScopusSCImago Journal & Country RankE-Library.ruCrossRefCyberLeninkaVAKERIH Plus