246 Fiona Me Laughlin
2.1. VERBAL EXTENSIONS
Verbal stems in Wolof may be expanded by derivational extensions of which there
are close to thirty in Wolof (Dialo 1981). Derivational suffixes encode diverse con-
cepts such as privative (xam (v) 'know' xam-adi 'be ignorant'), reflexive (raxas (v)
'wash' raxas-u 'wash oneself), iterative (foot (v) 'wash'/dof-aaf 'wash again), re-
versive (suul (v) 'bury' sull-i 'dig up'), depreciative, without a goal (dox (v) 'walk',
dox-antu 'stroll'), directional (wut (v) 'look for' wut-si 'come and look for'; baax
(ADJ) good' baax-si 'become good'), and detransitive (mey (v) give' mey-e give, de-
transitive'). Some verbal extensions, such as the comportative, require a redupli-
cated verb stem in conjunction with a verbal extension (wopp (V/ADJ) 'ill' wopp-
wopp-lu 'behave as if one were i\Y;gan (N) 'guest' gangan-lu 'behave as if one were a
guest'). Depending on the specific suffix, extended verbs may form vowel harmo-
ny domains in which suffix vowels harmonize for the feature [+/- ATR] (advanced
tongue root) with the stem (Ka 1994). Verbal extensions may also be productive-
ly combined with one another (jeem (v) 'try' jeem-entu-waale-eti 'try also without
conviction once more'; Ka 1994: 48).
2.2. TENSE, ASPECT, AND MOOD
The past tense marker, l(-)(w)oonl, is the sole tense marker in Wolof. It behaves
variously as a bound morpheme, exhibiting ATR vowel harmony with the verbal
stem, as in (10), where it attaches to an adjective, or as an independent word, as in
(11). It maybe suffixed to a verb stem, but in some cases allows intervening clitics,
as in (12) and (13).
(10) Dafa xonq-oon
3Sg:VFOC ADj:red-PAST
'It was red'
(11) Maangi woon Ndakaaru
isg PAST Dakar
'I was in Dakar'
(12) Nekk-uma-fa-woon
V:be-lSg:NEG-LOC-PAST
'I was not there'
(13) Lekk-ulo-ko-woon
v:eat-2Sg:NEG-3Sgo-PAST
'You did not eat it'
Wolof distinguishes broadly between perfective and imperfective aspect. The
former is morphologically marked by the aspect marker, Idil (which is also the
Wolof copula), or its allomorph, [-y. Stative verbs and adjectives are inherently
imperfective and occur infrequently in conjunction with the imperfective mark-
er, unless the meaning is a habitual one, such as being habitually tired (sonn),