Abstract EN:

The focus on this paper is to show the values of the tenses and the modality morphemes in the Balanta language. Balanta is a language spoken between Casamance, South of Senegal, and the Geba River, North of Guinea-Bissau. Balanta is an Atlantic language of the Niger-Congo branch, of which Fufulde, Wolof, Diola, Serer, Temme are among the most spoken. The Balanta is located in the north branch, in the group called Bak, together with Diola, Mandyak, Mankanya and Papel. The verbal paradigm of Balanta presents the following tenses and modality morphemes : {-Ø} 'present', {-yɔ} 'remote past', {be-} 'future', {gε} 'change of state', {-tε] 'deictic, {-U} 'conclusive', {-I} 'inconclusive', the last four morphemes are used to express the attitude of the speaker in relation to the propositional content or in relation to the truth of the statement, or with the regard to the listener's attitude. The morpheme {-Ø} 'present', depending on the verbal paradigm and the kind of verb it is used with, yields such values as present and past in the perfective, present or future in the imperfective ; the modality morphemes, depending on the verbal paradigm and the kind of verb, yields such values as change of stage and interruption of action, temporal or modal endpoint/accomplishment of action, no accomplishment and incertitude.