Experiencer Constructions

Abstract Cross-linguistically, experiencer constructions tend to show certain peculiarities which have been studied extensively for South Asian and some Indo-European languages. Due to the ambiguity of the experiencer role—semantically right between a prototypical agent and a patient—many languages make use of different kinds of constructions that encode experiential situations, highlighting or downplaying certain semantic aspects of the experiencer role, and thereby specifying the exertion of volition, initiation, causation, and control on the part of the experiencer, or of the stimulus. The aim of this chapter is to give an overview of some lexico-grammatical means which African languages use to codify experiential situations, especially with regard to modulation of certain semantic aspects of the experiencer role.