Skype talk on “Directionals and associated motion in Chadic languages”

Joseph Lovestrand has sent us the following message:

The Chadic Languages & Cultures group, run by Cameroonian linguists, is meeting online again on March 13th, 9 AM, Cameroon time (GMT+1). All are welcome to join the discussion!

Chadic Languages & Cultures
Saturday, March 13, 2021
9-10 am (Cameroon time, GMT+1)
Join via Skype: https://join.skype.com/YTdz8ale1BIF

Directionals and associated motion in Chadic languages
Joseph Lovestrand | SOAS University of London

[This presentation will be in French and English / Cette présentation sera en français et anglais]

In ongoing work (to be presented at WOCAL 10) I am looking at the grammaticalized expression of directional meaning (e.g. ventive extensions) and associated motion (e.g. ‘go and then V’ or ‘V and then come’) in Chadic languages, currently including data from 14 West Chadic, 20 Central Chadic and 4 East Chadic languages. All of the Central Chadic languages have a morphosyntactic means of expressing directional meaning, typically a suffix or post-verbal particle, and 9 of the Central Chadic languages have a set of three or more directionals including meanings such as UP, DOWN, IN, OUT, ON TOP, etc. These more complex directional semantics are not found in the descriptions of West and East Chadic languages, and 4 of the 18 West and East languages do not seem to have any grammaticalized way of expressing directional meaning. As noted by Belkadi (2015), directional markers in Chadic languages can also have a subsequent associated motion meaning (‘V and then come/go’) when combined with certain verbs. Of those languages that have directionals, this is reported for 6/20 Central Chadic languages, 2/11 West Chadic and 1/3 East Chadic languages. More common, but frequently overlooked, is the expression of prior associated motion (‘go and then V’) which is expressed in various kinds of multiverb constructions (e.g. auxiliary, conjunctive, serial verbs). It is found in 3/6 West Chadic, 10/14 Central Chadic, and 4/4 East Chadic languages. (Fewer sources are available for this function.)

A few issues raised include: the possible grammaticalization of prior AM into a translocative meaning, a possible prior AM interpretation of an allative suffix in Mbuko, the overlapping functions of morphology and multiverb constructions in some languages, the lexical-semantic contexts for subsequent AM interpretations, the asymmetrical distributions of ventive and allative meanings, and the need for more descriptive data, especially of East Chadic languages.

Belkadi, Aicha. 2015. Associated motion with deictic directionals: A comparative overview. SOAS Working Papers in Linguistics 17. 49–76.