Property concepts and non-mereological semantics in Wolof

Property concepts across categories Adjectival meanings—known in the typological literature as property concepts (PCs)—are lexicalized in two ways in the Senegambian language Wolof: i) via stative verbs (PCVs) denoting relations between individuals and properties (1); ii) via mass nouns, denoting the abstract properties themselves (PCNs) (2). (1) PCVs: xonq/njool/bees/baax/rafet red/tall/new/good/pretty (2) PCNs: doole/sago/wërsëk/xel/rafetaay strength/calm/luck/wit/prettiness The latter strategy is widespread in languages which lack an open class of adjectives (Dixon, 1982). It has recently been argued that PCNS cross-linguistically have mass-like substance denotations, establishing a modeltheoretic link between mereological structure and gradable PC meanings (Francez and Koontz-Garboden, 2013) (henceforth F&KG). This paper argues against such a link, and claims that data from Wolof suggest a contrary position: that PC lexemes, regardless of category, are characterized by denoting in nonmereologically ordered domains. Empirical landscape Unlike a predicate nominal like pokal ‘strong person’ (3), a PCN is not predicated of individuals with a copula (4); nor does it predicate directly like a PCV (6). (N.B. the na element, glossed FIN, indicates present temporal orientation with PCVs.) Instead the possessive verb am ‘have’ is semantically required to achieve truth conditions when predicated of an entity. Thus a compositional PCN predicate like in am doole (5) looks indistinguishable from a possessed mass substance noun like am ceeb ‘have rice’ (7) (3) Ali Ali pokal strong.pers. la-∅ COP-3SG ‘Ali is a strong person.’ (4) *Ali Ali doole strength la-∅ COP-3SG Intended: ‘Ali is strong.’ (5) Ali Ali am have na-∅ FN-3S doole strength ‘Ali is strong.’