Many scientific studies have been carried on wolof verbal system. The word Walaf is the ancestor of the word Wolof. Djolof Mbengue who is supposed to be originated from the Mandingue is the founder of the first Wolof village. He set, with many Wolof groups, in what was called the country of laf. In Wolof, the word wa means « the people of », so wa-laf would pinpoint those who come from the laf country. That country called laf is, with the kingdom of Waalo, one of the starting points of the Wolof ethnic. Later the word walaf became Wolof. Diop [1], one of the most famouns african scientists used to use the word walaf in his researches on the origin of wolofs. Wolof is spoken primarily in Senegal and the Gambia on the Atlantic coast of West Africa. Wolof serves as a lingua franca in Senegal where approximately 40 percent of the population speak it as a first language and 45 percent speak it as a second language.

Wolof has a rich grammatical system, which includes verbs, adverbs, adjectives etc…. With regard to verbs, Wolof has close to thirty derivational verbal extensions, a single tense marker (past) and a single aspectual marker (imperfective). According to Diagne [2] in Wolof, verbs are used for a number of purposes that require other grammatical devices in such Western European languages as English and French. For example, English and French have special grammatical devices for modifying nouns and verbs (i.e. adjectives and adverbs of manner). Wolof has no adjectives and phrasal verbs are used to modify nouns and verbs. There is also an extensive syntactically encoded focus system. Concerning nouns, Wolof has a noun class system, which is made up of eight singular and two plural classes. However, one in which nouns, unusually, exhibit no morphological marking for class, although certain nominal dependents such as determiners do. Like several other Atlantic languages, Wolof is not tonal, but carries a high pitch accent. According to Dialo [3,4], Wolof uses only two kinds of verb phrases. For the first two constructions (the dependent ones), Wolof uses a relative verb phrase (the grammatical form - though not the meaning - of English "a child who cries). For the third construction (the independent one), Wolof uses an independent verb phrase, for example, a boy cries" or "a boy has cried. 

According to Kihm [5], Wolof makes a clear distinction between identificational and predicational sentences that involve a copula or an auxiliary with a copula function. The Wolof copula proper, which also functions as an imperfective aspectual marker, namely /di/ is used only in identificational sentences in which the nominal arguments can be transposed without changing the informational content of the proposition

However, as English is specific language, the question is to show to learners how verbs are functioning in an utterance, their form and place in a sentence. It is necessary to demonstrate these items of the Wolof verbal system. Learning a language requires discovering the rules of that language. Thus, this present study gives us the tools to know whether a sentence is acceptable in foreign language or not, because without using verbs nothing can be conveyed. 

Active and Stative Verbs

The Wolof verb, including the sub-class of adjectives, consists of an invariable main verb that may be extended by derivation and a conjugated auxiliary that carries person, number and frequently aspect. These examples below illustrate the inflectional function of the perfective auxiliary for the verb dem 'go' and for the adjective rafet 'nice'. In their perfective form, non stative verbs have a past tense meaning, whereas stative verbs and adjectives present tense reading:

Dem naa Ndakaaru

v:go 1Sg:PERF Dakar

‹I went to Dakar›

Rafet nga

nice 2sg:PERF

‹you are nice›

In order to understand how Wolof verbs are able to carry out the functions of English or French verbs, adjectives and adverbs of manner, it will be helpful to consider Wolof verbs as being of two different types: active and stative verbs.

Active Verbs

Active verbs are those, which indicate an action or a process. Wolof active verbs always correspond to verbs in English such as wax (to speak), dem (to leave) lekk (to eat). By the method of derivation, Wolof verbal stems can be expanded. Some verbal extensions require a reduplicated verbal stem in conjunction with a verbal extension (joy) jooyjooy-lu 'behave as if one were wept. Depending on the specific suffix, extended verbs may form vowel harmony domains in which suffix vowels harmonize for the feature. Verbal extensions may also be combined with one another, for example, demantu. 

Active verbs may also be used with the marker na plus nga or ngéen to have the completive construction. Then, the completive construction indicates that the action or process referred to has already been completed by the time of speaking and is therefore more or less equivalent to the English present perfect, for instance, mbaa lekk na.

When a noun is used with a 3^rd person singular or plural subject, that noun often takes first place in the sentence, while the remainder of the sentence continues in the same way as for a pronoun subject, but ñu is used for the 3^rd person plural:

xale bi jël na xaalis bi. 

boy art v money art

‹The boy has taken the money›.

Therefore, the object of the verb for the form Verb + na follows the subject pronoun. In this case, both subject and object pronouns follow rather than precede the verb as they do with the forms angi + Verb and da(fa) + Verb:

Xale yaangi xeex

children Pro fight

‹childen fight›

The active verbs are essential in grammar especially in the present study, but they are different from the stative verbs, which are the next part of our analysis.

Stative Verbs 

Stative verbs are usually verbs which indicate being in a particular state of mind or static condition. Wolof stative verbs that indicate a state of mind correspond to the following verbs in English: 

man(to know), xalaat (think), gëm (to believe in)

Wolof appears to make the distinction between states of mind that are indicated by stative verbs and certain actions or processes, which, though of a mental nature, are indicated by active verbs. 

Then, the semantic criteria, which differentiate active and stative verbs, may be further confused by inaccurate but establish translation equivalents for Wolof and English. For example, like may be given as the translation of the verb bëgg, so that the verb would appear to be a stative verb. 

Wolof stative verbs correspond most closely to predicate adjectives in English:

baax "(to be) good, kind", rëy "(to be) big", feebar "(to be) sick", mun "(to be) able", 

xiif "(to be) hungry"

In addition, an English noun may be modified by a simple adjective or by a predicated adjective, for example, kër gu yaatu (a big house). Since Wolof verbs carry out the function of English adjectives, the difference between the two kinds of English noun modification must be shown by verbal constructions. 

Wolof also uses a subject and a stative verb of the appropriate meaning for the circumstances in which English has a clause with an adjective in the predicate. The pre-noun modifier construction in English is represented in Wolof by a relative-clause type of construction (kër gu yaatu gi (the house which is big).

In fact, when we want to know whether a verb is stative, one can ask a native speaker if the present state of things can be described by saying mungi + wax, where wax is the verb in question. The fact that stative verbs cannot be so used with angi means that reference to present time (which is indicated by means of angi with active verbs, mungi wax "he/she is speaking") must be indicated by some other means when a stative verb is involved.

For stative verbs, the fact that the state or condition exists at the time of speaking is usually indicated by the completive marker na, which always follows the verb it modifies. When used with stative verbs, this marker seems to indicate literally that the coming into being of the state or condition has been completed. 

In a looser sense, however, it can be considered as simply a present tense marker for stative verbs. However, when a completive marker na is used, it is immediately followed by the subject pronoun. The forms of the subject pronoun in combination with the completive marker na are:

Singular Plural

1^st Pers.                                   naa                                na ñu

2^nd Pers.                                  nga                                ngéen

3rd Pers.                                 naG                               na ñu

As the preceding table indicates, there is no 3^rd person singular pronominal form used after the completive marker na. Instead, na itself automatically expresses a 3^rd person singular subject if no other subject pronoun is used with it:

gaaw na 

v comp

He/she is fast

If the subject of the verb is 2^nd person, the following forms of the 2^nd person subject pronouns are used after the verb and the completive marker itself is omitted: nga, ngéen.

In a word, the study of active and stative verbs is complex and may be used in transitive, intransitive clauses.

The Auxiliary and other Characteristics of the Verbs

The Auxiliary Verbs with the Particle di

The word di (or its variant, -y) has no real meaning of its own in Wolof. Instead, it is placed before verbs to modify their grammatical meaning. The function of di is to indicate that the action referred to by the verb it modifies is incomplete. 

In some contexts, it denotes that the action is simply anticipated. Thus, when modified by di, Wolof verbs correspond to English verbs in the simple present tense (which indicates habitual action), or in a future expression (which states an anticipated action).

When di is used to modify a verb, it always precedes the verb. If the verbal construction in which di modifies a verb does not contain a predicator, then di has the status of an auxiliary verb. In such a case, the verbal markers go with and modify di, rather than the verb which di modifies:

di naa ñëw

Pred mar v

Di nga woor. 

Part 2PSG V

 ‹You will fast.› 

In this study, it is pointed out that Wolof stative verbs that show the static condition of a person, place, or thing are usually considered in English as predicate adjectives. When a stative verb of this type is modified by di, it means that the condition is recurrent or anticipated.

In verbal constructions which have a predicator (such as dafa or la), di becomes an unmodified verbal particle that immediately precedes the verb it modifies. When it is a particle, the initial consonant of di is usually dropped and the resulting form, -y, is linked to a preceding word ending in a vowel:

Da ñu-y waxtaan. 

Part 2pp V

 ‹We discuss.›

After consonants, the form di is retained but after i and especially after ii, di rather than -y may be used for greater clarity.

Da ngéen di jaay. 

You (pl.) are selling.

Lu tax xale yii di nelaw? 

Why are these children sleeping?

The particle di is always required in verbal constructions with angi when the modified verb has a direct object or locative pronoun, although di is not required when the verb in the angi construction has not a pronoun. If there is an object pronoun in such constructions, it precedes the verb and the particle di is placed between the two items. Therefore, the particle in this position usually has the form without the initial consonant. If the object pronoun is leen, however, the initial consonant of the following di is not dropped:

Màngi leen di gis. 

Pron V

‹I see you (pl.) /them.›

A verb may be modified by di twice, or even three times, in the same construction – the first time with di as a full auxiliary verb and then with di as a verbal particle. The use of di more than once in a verbal construction seems to emphasize the idea of habitual action or recurrent state or condition, as opposed to a simple futurity. The difference between the use of di twice or three times in the same construction, however, seems to be largely a matter of style, rather than of grammatical meaning. Here di can express the idea of future.

Di naa ñëw di

Part V Par 

‹I will come›

In Wolof, verbs may be auxiliaries and are used with other items of a sentence such as particles and predicators.

The Predicator la 

One of the functions of the grammatical word la is to predicate the noun, pronoun, or question word, which precedes it and to make the complement of the subject of la. This predicating function of la corresponds to a common one of the English verb "to be". 

However, an important difference between Wolof la and the English "to be" as complement predicators is that, while "to be" can have a noun or a pronoun as its subject, the subject of la can only be a pronoun. The forms of the subject pronouns in combination with la are as follows:

lañu, la lañu.

Most of the time pronouns are always placed immediately after la, this means that the Wolof word order for constructions in which a complement is predicated is just the opposite of its English counterpart. That is, the order is complement + la +-subject for Wolof and subject + "to be" + complement for English: 

Ay jigeen la ñu.

women pred pro

‹We/they are Women.›

Also, if there is a need to remove ambiguity as to the person reference of the subject pronoun form ñu in such a construction, this can be done by placing the appropriate independent pronoun before the entire construction.

Ñoom, xalela ñu. 

They are childen.

As the above example indicates, there is no 3^rd person singular subject pronoun used with the predicator la. Instead, la automatically expresses a 3^rd person singular subject if no other subject pronoun is used with it:

sereer la. 

N pred

‹He/she is a sereer›

If the subject of the construction containing the complement is a 2^nd person, the following forms of the 2^nd person subject pronouns are used and the complement predicator itself is omitted: nga, ngéen

A complement can be a noun, an independent pronoun, or an independent question word. When these are predicated with an indefinite 3^rd person subject, the closest translation of the subject of la may be the English impersonal "it".

As has been pointed out, the subject of la can only be a pronoun. To express the equivalent of English constructions in which the subject of a predicated complement is a noun, Wolof places the noun, which is equivalent to the English subject noun before the complement. Then, it has the pronominal subject of the construction agree in number with that first noun, rather than with the complement noun:

Ngaay, dëkk la. 

city city 

‹ Ngaay is a city›

The other function of la is to emphasize the object of a verb, or some modifiers of the verb. In English, this is possible by giving the object word a special kind of stress or tone. This catches the attention of the listener to the object of the sentence, even though the word order remains unchanged. 

Thus, in Wolof, the object of a verb is emphasized in similar cases, not by giving it a special stress as in English, but by predicating it by the means of la. When la is used as an object predicator for a completive verbal construction the verbal marker na is not used.

The fact that the verb has a completive meaning and such object-predicated construction is justified by the absence of di. Thus, while a colorless assertion might have the form Xale ibëggna ñu meew. (The children want milk). The Wolof verbal system is not limited to these cases above which are studied in the present study. Wolof tense is different from English one; it has the method like tense, aspect, mood that is the next part of our analysis.

Tense, Aspect and Mood

The Wolof verbal system is more concerned with aspect than time. Even if one can distinguish the past, present or future, the verbal structures work around completed or uncompleted actions. It reveals whether an action is habitual, accomplished or unaccomplished. 

Past Time Marker

The past tense marker, (w)oon/, is the only tense marker in Wolof. It behaves variously as a bound morpheme, exhibiting the vowel harmony with the verbal stem, as in this example below, where it is attached to an adjective. Sometimes, it is an independent word. It may be suffixed to a verb stem, but in some cases, it allows intervening clitics:

Dafa ñul -oon de 

3sg adj:black -past

‹He was black›

Verb stems may also be inflected for mood. From the morphological point of view, the past time marker is suffixed as “-oon” if the verb ends in a consonant and “-woon” if the verb ends in a vowel. The structure otherwise remains unchanged. It represents a simple past or past perfect with active verbs and the imperfect with stative verbs. In general, -oon is the last of the suffixes added to a word. In double verb structures -oon is attached to the first verb:

Dem -oon na Dakar 

V past Dakar

‹He went to Dakar› 

Ubbi woon naa bunt bi

V past comp door art

‹I opened the door›

Moreover, woon may be used in a sentence without a verb, for example, Jean sama xarit la woon (Jean was my friend). However, when the noun is modified by a verb, -oon may be attached to the verb (xale bu rafetoon la). 

In the negative form, woon as an independent form is added after the negation. In this context, any object pronouns are placed before woon. However, if there is more than one di, the past marker combines with the first one, the rest of the sentence remains unchanged. It is roughly equivalent to “was/were....ing” or “used to...” in English. The form with the negative construction will be presented as follows: di di + woon + -ul = doonul. In this case, Doonul is shortened to “doonu” before a subject or an object pronoun:

Doo-nul jangale bu baax

PAST neg teach well

‹He/she was not teaching well›

Otherwise, the Wolof past tense can have several functions, for instance: politeness, hypothesis etc. As a form of politeness for a request in the present, when the expression of a desire is too direct. In this case, it does not actually refer to past time but rather a lack of immediacy:

Damaa bëgg-oon gise ak yaw.

V like past see 2PSG

‹I would like to see you.›

Apart from this form, there is also the past conditional. We talk about the past conditional when the situation is not realized. That is to say, it exists a break between the intention and its realization. In some Wolof areas, the marker -oon can change and become –aan after a consonant, for example, su demaa Dakar, damay jëndël dall (if he went to Dakar he would buy shoes for me. In another way, -aan can be in a dependent noun phrase and is never used in nonverbal structures, for example, sama maam daa dem booba (my grandfather went at that time.)

To show the distant past, daan is often used once to situate the event, then, doon appears. It is rarely used in conversation but is not uncommon in recitation. Nevertheless, to show a habitual action, daan is used of an action repeated to the point of habit and not of a habitual state. It is not used with stative verbs, except to indicate a state that recurs frequently. 

Wolof often uses the marker -oon to point out a past action but it has also the perfect, imperfect, future and imperative. 

The Perfect Form

The perfect indicates that an action has been completed in the past or present; it is more or less equivalent to the English present perfect tense. Wolof has a special verbal construction to indicate the speaker's wish or desire that something be done.

This construction is formed by preceding the verb with the marker na (plus the appropriate subject pronouns). This optative marker is identical in form to the completive marker na. The essential difference between the two markers is that the optative na always precedes the verb it modifies, while the completive na always follows the verb.

Like the completive marker na, the optative marker na automatically quotes the 3^rd person singular subject when no other pronoun is used after it:

Na dem. 

‹Let him/her go.›

There is another difference between the optative and completive constructions. Then, the completive marker is not used with the second person subject pronouns whereas the optative marker na is always retained before second person pronouns.

The perfect construction is used less frequently with the second person than the imperative construction, which is the usual way of indicating requests to the person or persons addressed. The second person optative can be used instead of the imperative, however, to show special politeness or to show that the request is indirect.

The perfect form is most of the time used with the completive na, but Wolof has other forms like the imperative.

The Imperative Form

The Imperative

In Wolof, as usually in English, the imperative form of the verb refers to the second person. 

In English, one form of the verb is used for both singular and plural imperatives.

In Wolof, however, different constructions are used for the singular and the plural imperatives. This difference relates strictly to number. There is no reference to politeness (as in French, where the plural imperative is sometimes used toward a single person as a sign of greater politeness).

The singular imperative is formed by two ways: with an imperative marker and without an imperative marker, depending on the word following the imperative.

When the singular imperative is followed by a direct object pronoun, the base form of the verb is used without any further marker:

may ma ndox 

V water

‹give me some water›

In most other cases, before a noun object or in cases where no word follows the imperative, the verb takes on a singular imperative suffix, which is ...l if the verb has more than one syllable and ends in a vowel and ...al (or its variant ...ël) if the verb ends in a consonant. 

Single–syllable verbs ending in a vowel may have these forms of the suffix, or may have the suffix in the forms ...wal or ...wël (indil ndox mi).

There is an exceptional case that is the special marker kaay (normally used instead of the imperative of ñëw (to come), which never takes the imperative suffix:

Kaay xool 

‹Come and see›

The Wolof plural imperative always has the same form, regardless of whether or not the verb has a pronominal object. The imperative suffix is never used, but the subject leen immediately follows the imperative verb:

Dellu leen! 

‹You pl.) go back!›

According to some speakers, the use of bul is dropped before object pronouns, fi, fa and pronominal ci, just as the l is dropped from the negative suffix ... wul .

Generally, Wolof uses leen, kaay and linguistic items to form the imperative, which is different from the future.

This study has revealed that the wolof verbal system is compound of stative and active verbs. The Wolof verbal system is more focused on aspect than time. In this case, there are the presentative, the future, the imperative and the past form. The perfect indicates that an action has been completed, either in the past or present; it is more or less equivalent to the English present perfect tense. The presentative expresses an ongoing action and is equivalent to the present continuous of English. If it is used without a verb it has an existential meaning. The minimum verb construction lacks a Tense, Aspect, Mood (TAM) marker and is atemporal and neutral. The obligative expresses a wish or polite request. The second person is used to form the imperative. Through the findings of this research, i hope have given some insights to the learners especially the different methods of Wolof conjugason.

1. Anta, Cheikh Diop. Nations Nègres et Culture: De l'Antiquité Nègre Égyptienne aux Problèmes Culturels de l'Afrique Noire d'Aujourd'hui. 1954.

2. Diagne, P. Grammaire de Wolof Moderne. Paris: Présence Africaine, 1971.

3. Diallo, A. Une Phonologie du Wolof. Dakar: CLAD, 1981.

4. Diallo, A. Structures du Wolof Contemporain. Dakar: CLAD, 1981.

5. Kihm. Adjective Classes: A Cross-Linguistic Typology. 1999, p. 247.

6. Alexandre, P. Langues et Langage en Afrique Noire. Paris: Fayot, 1967.