Work Description

README FILE FOR JENAAMA/SOROGAAMA (DJENNÉ) LEXICAL SPREADSHEETS

Bozo languages are a division of the Mande family. J. Heath has worked on four Bozo languages: Kelenga, Cliffs Jenaama, Jenaama/Sorogaama of Djenné, and Tigemaxo. Reference grammars for these languages are published online at Zenodo with backup copies at Deep Blue Documents. As of 08/2024 only Tigemaxo remains to be published. Details on the first three grammars are these: Funding was from the National Science Foundation.
Kelenga: https://zenodo.org/records/7699838
Jenaama/Sorogaama (Djenné): https://zenodo.org/records/7312207
Cliffs Jenaama: https://zenodo.org/records/7127001

The spreadsheet format divides lexicon into five categories: nouns, adjectives, numerals, other, and verbs. “Other” includes adverbs, adpositions, and other grammatical elements. In the xlsx version, these are distinct worksheets belonging to a single spreadsheet. In the csv version, each sheet is its own document. The division into multiple sheets allows each category to be formatted in a customized manner with whatever columns of information are appropriate. Users can sort each sheet by any combination of columns. The details are given for each sheet below. In the xlsx version, some cells are greyed out to indicate that the inflectional category in question is not applicable, because of properties (e.g. plural only, intransitive only) of the stem.

NOUNS
“melody” tone pattern for the stem, e.g. H[igh], L[ow], HL, LHL, …
“tones” syllable by syllable, e.g. LLHL
“shape” in C[onsonant] and v[owel] formulae if simple, otherwise cpd (compound), phrase, deriv[ative], rdp (reduplicative), dimi[utive]
“noun stems” (singular)
“plurals”
“category” (semantic): kin, bo[dy], and various fl[ora] and fa[una] categories
“English”
“French”
“comments”
(and for natural species terms:)
“biological order/family”
“species”

ADJECTIVES
“tones” tonal melody of stem, L[ow], H[igh], or combinations like HL
“suffix” -na or -gu if present
“pred type” type of predicate: refl[exive], BE+ppl (participle), inch[oative] (with -ma or -ga suffix)
“Adj2” singular form as second of two postnominal adjectives (shows lexical tone melody)
“Adj2 Pl” plural
“participle” if relevant
“Ppl Pl” plural participle
“English”
“French”
“comments”

NUMERALS
“_ stones” shows tonal form of numeral after the noun meaning ‘stone’
“_ women’ shows tonal form of numeral after the noun meaning ‘woman’
“modifying” postnominal modifying form of numeral
“counting” form of numeral in counting recitation (“one, two, three, …”)

“counting” form used in counting recitation (“one, two, three, …”) if different from modifying form
“English”
“French”
“comment”

OTHER
“category” adv[erb], aspect, case, compar[ative], compl[ementizer], conj[unction], dem[onstrative], disc[ourse marker], emph[atic], interrog[ative], like, modal, neg[ative], postp[osition], pred[icate], prepos[ition], pron[oun], quant[ifier], recip[rocal], refl[exive], simil[arity]
“form”
“English”
“French”
“comment”

VERBS
“valency” intr[ansitive], tr[annsitive], ditr[ansitive], intr+pp (plus postpositional phrase), caus[ative], ppl (participle), refl[exive], stat[ive]
“shape” in CV (consonant-vowel) formulae
“tones” shows Pfv/Ipfv stem tones, bá/bá-rá coded as H/H-H
“Pfv” perfective stem (combination with particle gà shown in parentheses)
“Ipfv” imperfective stem
“Ipfv suffix” for suffixing verbs
“English”
“French”
“comments”

LICENSE

These documents are made available under a Creative Commons Public Domain Dedication (CC-0). Please see: https://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/ for more information.