A cognitive-grammaticalization model of the BE NAA... LA construction i Basse Mandinka

The present paper provides a detailed description and analysis of the meaning of the BE NAA…LA form in Basse Mandinka within the cognitive and grammaticalization framework. On the one hand, the author designs the exact range of the semantic potential of the BE NAA…LA form by enumerating all possible senses which this construction can convey. On the other hand, he demonstrates that the considerable polysemy offered by the BE NAA…LA form may be networked, holistically grasped and dynamically explained by making use of two chaining templates based upon two distinct evolutionary paths, viz. the future perfect path and the venitive path. As a result, the meaning of the BE NAA…LA form is viewed as an amalgamation of two semantic spaces organized along two different paths. This amalgamation has its roots in a formal merger of the two underlying input expressions, which constitute the conceptual and diachronic sources of the two paths, and in a partial semantic overlap of the semantic domains available along these two evolutionary templates.