Pluractionals in Bole-Tangale languages (West-Chadic)

Abstract The paper provides an overview of verbal plural marking and its function in several Bole-Tangale-languages (West-Chadic A). Verbal plurals – or pluractionals – may express repeated action and/or distributivity in most of these languages. In some of the languages under consideration two verbal plural marking strategies can be identified: partial reduplication and infixation/gemination. While partial reduplication seems to be the most generally applicable device to express repeated action and/or plurality of action, the function of infixation/gemination seems to be more specialized towards distributivity.