The Apprehensional construction in Gban

This paper focuses on the dedicated Apprehensional construction in Gban (South Mande, Côte d'Ivoire), which expresses several meanings related to fear or undesirability. The Apprehensional construction is used in main clauses and in dependent clauses. In main clauses, three readings or functions can be identified: expressing pure apprehension, warning, and threat. Two different dependent uses have been attested: in `fear' predicate complements and in negative purpose clauses. The paper describes the formal make-up of the construction, its semantic and syntactic properties, its relation to negative polarity and to the grammatical system of Gban in general. Diachronic sources for the elements comprising the construction and possible scenarios of its grammaticalization are proposed.