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- Language Family: Chadic
- Topic #1: Locatives
Static Location and Motion Marking in Hausa and Zarma
Abstract
Creissels (2006) proposes a typology of locative marking that sets up three main patterns (besides two minor logical ones). In one pattern, languages have three distinctive marking for their static locatives, source of motion locatives and destination of motion locatives. In a second pattern, languages use the same marking for static and destination locatives and use a distinctive marker for source locatives. Finally, in a third pattern, languages make no formal distinction between the types of locatives and rely on verb semantics for the appropriate interpretation. This paper contrasts the marking patterns in Hausa (Chadic) and Zarma (Songhay), two West-African languages that have been in contact for many centuries. Hausa generally uses the second pattern, merging the expression of static and destination locatives, but in some cases it also uses the first pattern with distinctive adpositions for the three types of locatives. Zarma, on the other hand, marks all three types of locatives with the same static location adpositions, but a few verbs partake in specialized constructions marking destination and source locatives.