Renaudier Marie. Dérivation et valence en sereer variété de Mar Lodj (Sénégal): Valency changing derivations in Sereer Dialect of Mar Lodj (Senegal)

Université Lumière – Lyon II, 2012. — 387 p.This dissertation deals with the phenomenon of verbal derivation and valency changing in Sereer, an Atlantic language of Senegal. Analyses are based on spontaneous data and elicitations collected during fieldwork. The study is organized in three parts. The first part focuses on some points of Sereer grammar, like the complex verbal flexional morphology including aspect, person or focalization, which is strongly grammaticalized in this language. The second part provides the background required by the study of valency changing operations. Thus, it deals with the many derivational verbal suffixes of Sereer and distinguishes those which affect valency from those which do not affect valency. Moreover, this second part focuses on theoretical issues and provides definitions for the notions of grammatical relations, valency or voice. In Sereer, half of the 30 derivational suffixes imply a valency changing operation on the verb. These 15 morphemes encode 7 operations (causative, applicative, possession, passive, middle, reciprocal and antipassive) described in specific chapters beginning with a theoretical and typological frame. Syntactic and semantic consequences of verbal derivation but also functional motivations and non canonical structures constitute essential points of my description.