Les catégories de spatialité dynamique associées au verbe en nuasúɛ

This paper deals with the associated motion (AM) system in Nuasúɛ (A62A), a Bantu language spoken in Cameroon. It aims at determining the coding means and the grammatical properties of AM categories (motion and direction), their grammatical characteristics and their interactions with non-spatial verbal categories. Nuasúɛ has a complex AM system where prior motion and (mono-/bi-)directional motion are marked in a single verb word by two distinct satellites, of which the first is a high tone melody and the second is one of four polysemous directionals: the ventive àsɪ= and three itives kà-, à‑, ɲa=. The distribution and reading of these directionals correlate with the grammatical categories of (im)perfectivity, (non-)finiteness and the (ir)realis, when associated with the events described by the various verb words. Furthermore, in the case of a combination of spatial and non-spatial categories, there are two possible. When both are marked by tonal morphemes in a single verb word a tonal redistribution occurs. However, when both are marked by segmental morphemes, four types of motion echo constructions can be distinguished, each reflecting a different degree of separability/integration between the motion and the non-motion events.