Why eight causative suffixes in Wolof?

Abstract

Like other Atlantic languages, Wolof has a large inventory of verbal derivation suffixes, but is exceptionally well endowed for causative derivation with no less than eight different causative suffixes. This article analyzes the different values of these suffixes and reveals firstly a double gradient of distinctions concerning the degrees of involvement of the causer and the causee. Among these causative suffixes, two show a typologically rare specialization, one being specialized in sociative (assistive) causation, the other in the expression of indirect causation with obligatory omission of the causee. Three causative suffixes, rarely analyzed, combine a direct causation value with indications of the modalities of realization of the process, namely, incomplete, completing and corrective causation. Several of these causative suffixes are clearly complex but cannot be described as multiple suffixation in synchrony. Various reconstruction hypotheses are nonetheless presented attesting to multiple derivation in the Atlantic family. Finally, this derivational abundance is compared with the general morphosyntactic strategies of Wolof.

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