Language in Africa Volume 6, Number 2 (2025)

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PHRASAL VERBS, PROGRESSIVES, AND SVO/SOV ORDER IN PERE (CÔTE D’IVOIRE) Abstract: The severely endangered and genetically semi-isolated language Pere (aka Bere, Mbre) in Côte d’Ivoire, with thirty active speakers as of fieldwork in 2018, shares with some other West African languages an aspectually governed alternation between S-V-O… and S Aux O V… clauses. In Pere the latter takes the approximate form S-‘be’-[[O-V]-Loc]… and functions as progressive, while S-V-O is regular for (habitual) imperfectives and all perfectives. Imperatives are likewise V-O. Progressive S-‘be’-[[O-V]-Loc]… reconstructs internally to S ‘be’ [[O VblN] Loc]… with a verbal noun, an incorporated object noun, and a locative postposition. However, the structure is now opaque since O is an open-ended NP, there is no overt VblN morphology, and even ‘be’ and the locative postposition are subject to reinterpretation as progressive morphemes: S Prog O V.Prog Prog… The progressive makes it possible to distinguish a clause with a true postpositional phrase S-V-[NP-P] from an English-like phrasal-verb construction with a pseudo-postposition P, namely S-V-O-P…. Because O in S-V-O-P… is a real direct object, it shifts to preverbal position in the progressive, leaving P encliticized to the verb: S Prog O V.Prog P… Three regular postpositions (locative, instrumental, ‘in front of’) have homophonous pseudo-postpositions. As in English, the meaning of a Pere phrasal verb combination is lexicalized and semantically unpredictable. ________________________________________ АКТАНТНАЯ ДЕРИВАЦИЯ В ЯЗЫКЕ ДАБИДА Аннотация: В статье рассматриваются три типа глагольной актантной деривации в языке дабида – каузатив, декаузатив и аппликатив. Предлагается описание формальных средств образования глагольных дериватов – аффиксальных показателей, помещаемых в составе глагольной словоформы непосредственно после корня, и их алломорфов. Помимо синтетического каузатива анализируется также аналитический каузатив. Первоочередная функция рассматриваемых показателей связана с перестройкой актантной структуры глагола, в связи с чем в статье подробно изложены семантико-синтаксические преобразования исходной глагольной конструкции, маркируемые в глагольной словоформе при помощи показателей актантной деривации. Рассмотренное в типологическом контексте распределение каузативных и декаузативных дериватов на множестве глагольной лексики дабида в целом отвечает отмеченным в литературе тенденциям. ________________________________________ FOLKTALE AS A TRADITIONAL MENTORSHIP GENRE AMONG THE IGBO OF SOUTH EAST NIGERIA: TRADITION AND INNOVATIONS IN THE MODE OF DELIVERY Abstract: Among the Igbo, South East of Nigeria, folktales serve as fixed or stock narratives/stories, rooted in the infinity of ancestry and used to teach children about their roots, tradition, culture, character and sense of responsibility. Folktales were strictly orally or verbally delivered and meant to be so transferred from generation to generation. Folktales that carried the moral lessons of virtue were meant to be emulated, while those that depicted immorality, wickedness and other vices were warnings against such vices and meant to be jettisoned. In this paper, the authors have traced how a traditional narrative genre, meant to be stable or fixed in its structure and mode of delivery, is undergoing rapid development, transformation or changes, which the authors consider to be largely positive and innovative. The findings from this study include flourishing interest in folktales as a research and scholarship area, electronic documentation of them into radio and television dramas, home video films, modern community entertainment dances/dramas, and full-length folktale-based story/narrative books. These developments indicate diversification and promotion of the method and mode of delivery of the Igbo folktale. It was also found that this diversification of the Igbo folktale beyond the primary (verbal/oral) communication mode to the secondary sources has popularized the Igbo folktale and, to a reasonable extent, the language, in other languages and cultures. However, the authors are of the view that the current practice of translating Igbo folktales into English mutes the outcome and violates the interlingual translatability criteria of such a language-specific genre, except where the source language footage is accommodated.

THE TAM SYSTEM OF SHUPAMEM Abstract: This paper examines the tense, aspect, and mood (TAM) system of Shupamem, a language spoken in Western Cameroon, highlighting its complexity and divergence from the familiar past, present, and future distinctions found in English. Drawing on empirical data collected from native speakers through questionnaires, supplemented by existing literature and language corpora, the study investigates the morphological encoding of TAM in Shupamem. The analysis reveals that, unlike English, where tense is typically marked within the verb (e.g., ‘walked’, ‘goes’), Shupamem encodes tense through preverbal prefixes. For instance, infinitives are marked by the prefix jiN- (e.g., jìn-tá ‘to kick’, jì-mbǎʔ ‘to open’, jì-ŋkʉ ‘to cry’). The present tense in Shupamem is obligatorily accompanied by aspectual markers, distinguishing between ongoing actions (progressive), witnessed events (evidential), and habitual occurrences. The past tense system is subdivided into four categories, each reflecting a different degree of temporal remoteness, with markers such as pé (recent past) and kàpí (remote past) encoding these distinctions. Similarly, the future tense is expressed through three sub-tenses, marked by morphemes like nántwǝ (immediate future), náloʔ (intermediate future), and nántwǝloʔ (remote future). Imperative constructions are formed by placing the verb stem directly after the pronoun, resulting in a streamlined structure. Overall, the study demonstrates that Shupamem’s TAM system, with its preverbal markers, aspectual distinctions in the present, and nuanced sub-tenses for the past and future, provides valuable insights into the diverse strategies languages employ to encode temporality.

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