Abstract

Berber languages use the directionals =d and =nn to specify the deictic path of motion verbs. These clitics occur with a range of verbs from other semantic classes (e.g. change of state verbs, verbs of vision and perception), with which they can be attributed different meanings. The first goal of this paper is to provide a cross-dialectal description of these meanings. The second goal is to show the role of verbal semantics in their constructions and the overall distribution of the clitics. Adopting Talmy’s framework (2000) of lexicalisation of semantic concepts, linked to the domain of space and motion, I propose that the particular meaning components lexicalised by the modified verb govern the occurrence of the clitics and their particular meaning.