Discussion of "Manding Non-Verbal Copula Correspondences"

The use fele for the presentative isn’t right, I don’t think. Fele is a cognate of filɛ (B/J) and fɛlɛ (M) which is a verb meaning “to look (at something)”.

Based off my research (Creissel, p. 23), I think that the closer equivalent in Mandinka is a structure like this:

Saa le mu

“It is a snake”

Creissels also mentions that le mu can fuse into loŋ. (This is the etymology behind lo and don in Jula and Bambara :slightly_smiling_face:).

Interesting, thanks! I didn’t understand the presentative, so you’re right. To say something like 'there is a snake" or “It is a snake” it would definitely be “Saa le mu" / “Saa le” / "A mu saa le ti” - I never heard __ loŋ but maybe I did and just didn’t catch it / understand!

Yeah, “____ fele” is definitey more like “Look, here is ____” or “voici” in French.

I ni ke, @Iterimaa !

Right now in the table for “Manding Non-Verbal Copula Correspondences”, you added this for equatives in Mandinka:

When you listed the grammatical form you listed with with le in parentheses:

This same thing applies in Maninka:

The word le is a topicalization marker that puts emphasis on the item that it follows (at least in Jula and Maninka [in Bambara, the form is de because of the L/D sound change). So it’s optional in Maninka, but it’s so ingrained in speaking that this point that it’s almost marked to not use it when using equatives.

Is this similar in Mandinka?

Yes, that is the same in Mandinka!

I also remembered one instance of loŋ in Mandinka, sometimes people would casually greet one another with " ñaadi loŋ which I always perceived to be the verb “ka loŋ” (to know), like “How-know”, which doesn’t really make sense. Now I see it’s actually a fusion/contraction of ñaadi le mu, right? Like, ‘how is [it]?’

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That’s a great example of it! :slight_smile: Indeed, the same thing could be said in Maninka like this:

Ɲa di le?

Lit. “Manner how it.is?”