Possessive voice in Wolof : A rara type of valency operator

The purpose of this paper is to describe an uncommon valency operator in Wolof, the verbal morpheme –le which encodes a possessive relation between the subject and the object of a derived verb. After a brief presentation of background information to facilitate the discussion, internal possessive constructions in Wolof will be presented. First, the particularities of the “leconstruction” will be compared to different strategies of external possession construction observed in different languages following the typology proposed by Payne & Barshi (1999). Second, the “leconstruction” will be compared to the Japanese possessive passive, as well as to double derivation constructions, such applicative-passives in other languages. Finally, even if the possessive construction –le in Wolof, and external possession constructions or derivations including passive share some characteristics, I will concluded that this valency operator in Wolof is specific and will propose a hypothesis of its emergence.