Dictionary Entries explained

How to use this dictionary?

Each entry is presented in bold. Roughly speaking, it is followed by its grammatical category (noun, verb, adverb, adjective, etc.) and then by the translation or definition in French. In many cases, there are examples which should help clarify the meaning of the entry and show it in its morphosyntactic environment. When it is a loanword, the language of origin is indicated immediately after the entry under the label Etymology (abbreviated as Etym:). For example under the example below Ar for Arabic. To find the meaning of the abbreviations, click on the Overview main menu and then Abbreviations. When an entry has more than one meaning (polysemic entry), the different meanings are numbered: 1, 2, 3 etc.

Two homonymous entries (having the same spelling but completely different meanings) are recorded separately and numbered using small numbers placed at the bottom of each of the words.

Phonological, morpho-phonological or spelling variants are indicated after each main entry under the label Var. in red. Compound words, idiomatic expressions, proverbs or in general multiword expressions are recorded as subentries of a main entry and formatted in bold like the latter. The relationships between different entries are indicated with the labels See and Synonyme (abbreviated as Syn). These relationships are cross-references, i.e. each entry refers to the other. Thus under anndugol the synonym gelagol used in the language of deference is indicated and under gelagol, one will find a reference to anndugol. Usage marks indicating the style or register (literary, vulgar, deferential etc.) are shown in curly brackets. For example, we have {défér} for deference or the language of respect for gelagol.

How to search?

It is very important to write the words correctly in the search window, respecting the spelling otherwise they will be no matching. If you are unsure of the spelling, type the first few letters, click on Advanced search and choose one of the options, for example uncheck the option Search whole words. You can also define the search language(s): Pular, French or all languages. The noun It usually comes in the singular form, followed by the abbreviation Pl. (plural) and the plural form in most cases. Complex plurals (those with a substantial modification of the stem and consonant mutation at the stem-initial) such as worɓe or cuuɗi are indicated first in the singular form and then as minor entries referring to the main entries, thus allowing the user to always spot them easily.

The verb

The verb in Pular can have three forms called voices: the active voice, the middle voice and the passive voice, for example "lootugol "to wash", lootagol "to wash onself", lootegol "to be washed". Of course, not every verb has all three forms, some only exist in one or two voices, e.g. maayugol (active voice only) 'to die' or lanndagol (active and passive voice) 'to ask', faalegol (passive voice only) "to want". The citation form of verbs (the form of their addressing in the dictionary) is usually, if applicable, the active voice and the middle voice is indicated as a sub-entry under the main entry, with the label vm for middle voice (voix moyenne in French).

The adjective

The adjective often appears as a stem with a hyphen indicating that it is a base form to which a suffix must be added for it to make sense.

For more details please take a look at the grammar part on this website: click on Language and then Grammar.