Agents and artists in Central Africa

version modifiée International audience Zande and Chamba-Daka, peripheral members of the same classificatory branch (Niger-Congo, Adamawa-Ubangi) have differing ways of forming “agent nouns”, i.e., a regular nominal derivate of verbs referring to the animate subject of the source verb in predicative use. In Zande, where the verb in predicative use must be in either completive or incompletive in form, the agent noun is identical with the simple completive form. The agent noun nevertheless has no intrinsic aspectomodal features; its meaning is established solely by reference to the lexical meaning of the source verb and discourse context. Chamba-Daka, on the other hand, has an “absolute” verb form (without inflection) which is used predicatively. The agent noun is a compound obtained by postposing the inflected verbal noun (“infinitive”) to the term for ‘person’. Both Zande and Chamba-Daka have a semantically related construction which has been called the “artist” noun. When the “artist” lexeme is construed with another non-verbal noun designating a material object, it often has the sense ‘owner, controller, skillful user of’ but it is also used with abstract nominals to refer to an individual having certain intrinsic attributes. The semantic range of the artist constructions in both languages is remarkably similar. This is apparently an areal phenomenon. Both languages also agree in allowing the artist lexeme to be construed with a verbonominal derivate. In such case, the artist noun enters into contrast with the agent noun, apparently on the basis of real vs. potential modal features. These features are very broadly defined and can only by captured precisely by reference to the cultural setting. These data show that 1) in Zande, agent nouns may be semantically displaced from the subject argument of the source verb, particularly in the direction of reference to the instrument for accomplishing the process or the process itself. That this is not the case in Chamba-Daka may be set down to the inclusion of a term designating an animate agent in the agent-noun compound. 2) The definition of the expression “agent noun” may need some latitude to allow inclusion of semantically related constructions.