[SynSem] Maksim Fedotov (LLACAN)

Gban, a South Mande language of Côte d’Ivoire, has an elaborate grammatical system that expresses (S)TAMP+ meanings through combinations of highly grammaticalized predicative markers (in a dedicated position closer to the beginning of the sentence) with inflectional verbal forms (situated closer to the end of the sentence).

Among the inflectional categories formed by these combinations is the category of temporal distance in the past. It contains three gram(meme)s: hodiernal, hesternal, and pre-hesternal. An illustration:

(1) Tȅnḭ̋ ɛ́ tɔ̏ dò gò / gȍ / gö.
 boy 3SG\PST cloth one buy[PFV.HOD] buy\PFV.HEST buy\PFV.PREH
‘The boy bought clothes [today / yesterday / the day before yesterday].’

Their default interpretations are based on days: ‘(earlier) today’ vs. ‘yesterday’ vs. and ‘the day before yesterday, earlier, or at an unknown time in the past’, respectively. In the presence of certain temporal adverbials, the interpretations of these grams can shift to different temporal units. In certain grammatical contexts, the category is reduced to binary: hodiernal+hesternal vs. pre-hesternal.

In the talk, I will elaborate on these and other formal, semantic, and diachronic aspects of the expression of temporal distance in Gban.