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The Middle Voice in Fula

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  24 December 2009

D. W. Arnott
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Various writers on the language of the Fulani, or, have included in their accounts a description of the three Voices of the verbal system, and a brief statement of their role in the operation of the language. But no detailed analysis of Voice in Fula has yet been published. Such an analysis is attempted in this article, on the basis of the speech of two informants from Gombe Division in Northern Nigeria.

2. The term Voice is here applied to each of the three series of verbal affixes which are found in Fula. The tense affixes fall into three series, differing in distribution and behaviour, and to some extent in meaning. These series cut across the tenses, so that each tense (except for the Negative of Quality and the Imperative) has three different tense-signs associated with it, each belonging to a different series. Thus in the two sets of sentences.

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Articles
Information
Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies , Volume 18 , Issue 1 , February 1956 , pp. 130 - 144
Copyright
Copyright © School of Oriental and African Studies 1956

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References

page 130 note 1 Based on a paper read at the 23rd International Congress of Orientalists at Cambridge, August 1954.

page 130 note 2 Especially Gaden, H., Le Poular (1912–1914)Google Scholar and the introduction to his Proverbes et maximes peuls et toucouleurs (1931); Westennann, D., Handbuch der Fulspradie (1909);Google ScholarLabouret, H., La langue des Peuls ou Foulbe (1952);Google Scholar and Taylor, F.W., A Fulani grammar (2nd ed., 1953)Google Scholar, though the Adamawa dialect described by Taylor appears to use the Middle Voice with much less regularity than other dialects.

page 130 note 3 Various names for the people and their language include the following:

English writers have usually used the Hausa plural Fulaani for both people and language. German writers use the simple root Ful for both, the French Peul or Peulh, and it seems better, for the language at least, to use some such simple form based on the root, rather than Fulaani which properly refers to the people. The Mandinka and Susu name Fula, used also in the Gambia, seems appropriate as well as more euphonious in English than the plain root, and it has been adopted here.

page 130 note 4 The term Voice has been used in the past because of the general resemblance between the behaviour of the affix series of Fula and those of Greek. It is retained here, without any desire to emphasize the resemblance. A comparison of the Middle Voice in Fula with the Greek middle, and also with the French reflexive, does indeed show a striking number of similarities, even in detail, but there are equally conspicuous differences which must not be overlooked.

page 131 note 1 For simplicity some affixes have been omitted from the table—the variant forms which occur when the subject pronoun follows the verbal instead of preceding it; other variant forms occurring before the second singular object pronoun and the preterite particle no; the plural affixes of the imperative; and the tense element e occurring in place of the prefix for the Stative and Progressive tenses in subordinate clauses.

–ζrepresents zero suffix.

indicates that a glottal stop occurs when these suffixes are in pause, though not otherwise. The symbol is used in the table, but omitted in the examples in the text as being unnecessary for the present purpose. I have also followed here the practice adopted by other authors of omitting word-initial glottal stop. Where a word is written with an initial vowel, this vowel is in speech preceded by a glottal stop.

In the examples in the text hyphens are used in verbals only between radical and prefix and suffix.

page 131 note 2 The infixes occurring in verbo-nominals between the radical and the nominal suffix also fell into three series, as follows:

I. Infinitive

II. Participles:

A. (Past, Stative)

B. (Future, Habitual, Progressive)

e.g.one who has washed (something) one who has washed himself one who has been washed

These three series can be related to the three series of the verbal affixes and much that is said here about Voice applies equally to them; but it is with the verbal affix series that this article is specifically concerned.

page 131 note 3 The two sub-series Positive and Negative are differentiated formally by their intonation patterns; in the positive the intonation peak of the verbal coincides with the radical syllable, in the negative usually with the penultimate syllable of the suffix (as indicated by ´).

page 132 note 1 Restricting attention to the Positive sub-series only. In frames 1 and 3 forms with Negative affix would also be possible.

page 133 note 1 Some of these also occur with Middle affixes of three tenses only, viz. General Past, General Future/xHabitual, and Negative B. See para. 23 below.

page 133 note 2 Some extensions, as will be seen, involve the reduplication of the radical.

page 133 note 3 ə may be realized as zero vowel (but not when the radical ends in two consonants or in certain single consonants); as u (only in the syllable before an -u suffix); as i; or, with Middle affixes, as O, e.g.

he unwound it

open it

he opened it

it shut with a bang

page 135 note 1 The actual number of objects used varies in different syntactical frames. In some, like that given, holl-a would normally control two objects; in others (e.g. response) it could occur without an object; in others again (e.g. in the second or subsequent clause in a sentence) it could control one object only. And the same could be said, mutatis mutandis, of other radicals. What we are here concerned with is the maximum number of objects that can be used with a given radical.

page 137 note 1 Also lall-rinse, sulm-wash the face, wif-fan, fin-apply antimony to, faun-dress up, tie a cloth round, hufn-put a cap on,put shoes/trousers on, etc.

page 137 note 2 I select the vowel of the Subjunctive suffix as representative of the whole series, and the clearest and most concise for differentiating the three Voices. I would choose it for lexical entry (in preference to the infinitive used by most authors), and for this purpose would omit the features of length and glottal potentiality.

page 138 note 1 The Passive Stative tense would indicate specifically that he had been dressed (etc.) by someone else.

page 139 note 1 So also screw up one's eyes

lick one's lips

bend one's neck sinuously

page 140 note 1 In the first three cases the active-passive relationship of series A and C remains; in the next two the active-passive relationship is associated with series B and C, e.g.

O wull-ake mohe accused him O Wull-aamahe was accused and so with the verbo-nominals

(Fut./Hab. Middle) plaintiffs

(Past Passive) defendants

page 142 note 1 This was checked by suggesting to my informants (who are bilingual though Fula is their mother tongue) a number of Hausa radicals which they did not normally use in Fula. Without exception they constructed them with Middle or Middle and Passive, never with Active affixes.

page 143 note 1 But radicals referring to involuntary, reflex processes combine with Active affixes, e.g. yi'-asee, nan-ahear, sneeze, ma'y'y-a blink.

page 143 note 2 But radicals referring to simple motion combine with Active affixes, e.g. yah-awalk, go, run, war-acome, dill-ago.

page 143 note 3 But radicals referring to involuntary, reflex mental processes combine with Active affixes, e.g. yejjit-aforget, siftor-aremember, annd-aknow, and even faam-aunderstand.

page 144 note 1 On the analogy of rem-a cultivate, sett-asharpen, sanny-aweave, nam-agrind, etc.