Editing Wolof language (section)

===Notable characteristics===

====Pronoun conjugation instead of verbal conjugation====

In Wolof, verbs are unchangeable stems that cannot be conjugated. To express different tenses or aspects of an action, personal pronouns are conjugated&nbsp;– not the verbs. Therefore, the term ''temporal pronoun'' has become established for this part of speech. It is also referred to as a focus form.<ref>{{Cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=UFQbAQAAIAAJ|title=Wolof|last=Ngom|first=Fallou|date=2003-01-01|publisher=Lincom|isbn=9783895868450|language=en}}</ref>

Example: The verb '''dem''' means "''to go''" and cannot be changed; the temporal pronoun '''maa ngi''' means "''I/me, here and now''"; the temporal pronoun '''dinaa''' means "''I am soon / I will soon / I will be soon''". With that, the following sentences can be built now: '''Maa ngi dem.''' "''I am going (here and now).''" – '''Dinaa dem.''' "''I will go (soon).''"

====Conjugation with respect to aspect instead of tense====
In Wolof, tenses like present tense, past tense, and future tense are just of secondary importance and play almost no role. Of crucial importance is the aspect of action from the speaker's point of view. The most vital distinction is whether an action is perfective (finished) or imperfective (still going on from the speaker's point of view), regardless of whether the action itself takes place in the past, present, or future. Other aspects indicate whether an action takes place regularly, whether an action will surely take place and whether an actor wants to emphasize the role of the subject, predicate, or object.{{clarify|date=March 2017|reason=The meanings sound like something other than aspect: evidentiality or focus perhaps.}} As a result, conjugation is done by not tense but aspect. Nevertheless, the term ''temporal pronoun'' is usual for such conjugated pronouns although ''aspect pronoun'' might be a better term.

For example, the verb '''dem''' means "''to go''"; the temporal pronoun '''naa''' means "''I already/definitely''", the temporal pronoun '''dinaa''' means "''I am soon / I will soon / I will be soon''"; the temporal pronoun '''damay''' means "''I (am) regularly/usually''". The following sentences can be constructed: '''Dem naa.''' "''I go already / I have already gone.''" – '''Dinaa dem.''' "''I will go soon / I am just going to go.''" – '''Damay dem.''' "''I usually/regularly/normally/am about to go.''"

A speaker may express that an action absolutely took place in the past by adding the suffix '''-(w)oon''' to the verb (in a sentence, the temporal pronoun is still used in a conjugated form along with the past marker):

'''Demoon naa Ndakaaru.''' "''I already went to Dakar.''"

====Action verbs versus static verbs and adjectives====
Wolof has two main verb classes: [[dynamic verbs|dynamic]] and [[stative verbs|stative]]. Verbs are not inflected; instead pronouns are used to mark person, aspect, tense, and focus.<ref>{{cite book|first1=George|last1=Campbell|first2=Gareth|last2=King|year=2011|title=The Concise Compendium of the World's Languages|edition=2}}</ref>{{rp|779}}

====Consonant harmony====
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====Gender====
Wolof does not mark natural gender as [[grammatical gender]]: there is one pronoun encompassing the English 'he', 'she', and 'it'. The descriptors '''bu góor''' (male / masculine) or '''bu jigéen''' (female / feminine) are often added to words like ''xarit'', 'friend', and ''rakk'', 'younger sibling' to indicate the person's sex.

Markers of noun definiteness (usually called "definite articles") agree with the noun they modify. There are at least ten articles in Wolof, some of them indicating a singular noun, others a plural noun. In Urban Wolof, spoken in large cities like Dakar, the article '''-bi''' is often used as a generic article when the actual article is not known.

Any loan noun from French or English uses '''-bi: butik-bi, xarit-bi''' "the boutique, the friend."

Most Arabic or religious terms use '''-Ji: Jumma-Ji, jigéen-ji''', "the mosque, the girl."

Four nouns referring to persons use ''-ki/-ñi: nit-ki, nit-ñi'', "the person, the people"

Plural nouns use ''-yi: jigéen-yi, butik-yi'', "the girls, the boutiques"

Miscellaneous articles: "si, gi, wi, mi, li."