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International audience As many other languages, Wolof (Niger-Congo, Senegal) has a specific verb form (the Null tense or Aorist) indicating that the process is anchored (located) in an unspecified situation. This indeterminacy (which goes along with a reduced morphology) contrastes with the other tensed conjugations and can explain the various temporal references the Null tense clause may acquire in context (future, past, present cf. 1,2,3), as well as its uses in sentences devoid of situational anchoring, such as proverbs (1) or stage directions. What is then the functional role of this apparently ‘neutral’ form ? A broader overview of its contextual uses (Robert 1991) reveals that this conjugation provides a problematic array of uses with both syntactic and pragmatic constraints, and specific semantic effects. On the one hand, this conjugation is common in proverbs (1) and obligatory in tales and historical narrations (2), in which the Null tense is apparently used in independent clauses; on the other hand, it is typically a subordinating mood (obligatory with most subordinating conjunctions); it is also the only conjugation used to mark clause subordination (complement clauses, consecutive or purpose clauses as in (3)) without any subordinating morpheme; furthermore, the Null tense can also be used in injunctive clauses or in echo-questions. (1) Kumuñ,muuñ. whoNULL.3SGbe.patient,NULL.3SGsmile‘The one who is patient will smile.’ (Patience is rewarded) (2) As soxna dafa amoon doom ju jigéen. Bi doom ji matee sëy mu maye ko. ‘Once upon the time there lived (Verb focus) an old woman with her daughter. When the daughter became (Null tense) nubile, her mother married (Null tense) her off. (3)Joxmako,maseet. Give(:IMP) meit,NULL.1SGlook ‘Give it to me (so I can) have a look.’ [SP] In this paper, I will first characterize the different uses of this temporally indeterminate form and show that it is crosslinguistically widespread (e.g. François, Galand, Kiparski, Reintges, Robert, Taine-Cheikh); then I will present a unitary analysis of this conjugation accounting for its various uses. This analysis in terms of ‘situational dependency’ states that when the locator-slot of an utterance (defined by the speaker’s time and his commitment to the utterance) is vacant, it has to be filled in by an extra-clausal locator. So, depending on the syntactic status of the locator and its integration in the Null tense clause, the complex sentence displays various degrees of dependency which range from pragmatic to syntactic dependency, and extend from discourse coherence to embedding (Robert 1996, 2010). Eventually, this remarkable use made by Wolof of temporal vagueness in the verb system will be paralleled with the spatial indeterminacy attested in the spatial deixis of this language (-u suffix), and its correlated effects of syntactic and pragmatic dependency (interrogation, relative and conditional clauses).The crucial point revealed by this study is that, at the level of assertion, temporal and modal indeterminacy produces syntactic or pragmatic dependency.References :François, Alexandre. 2003. La sémantique du prédicat en mwotlap (Vanuatu). Collection Linguistique de la Société de Linguistique de Paris, 84. Paris, Louvain: Peeters.François, Alexandre. 2009. Verbal aspect and personal pronouns: The history of aorist markers in north Vanuatu. In Austronesian historical linguistics and culture history: A festschrift for Bob Blust, edited by A. Pawley & A. Adelaar: 179-195. Pacific Linguistics, 601. Canberra: Australian National University.Galand, Lionel. 2003. L'aoriste berbère, l'aspect et les valeurs modales. In Mélanges David Cohen, edited by J. Lentin & A. Lonnet : : 235-246. Paris: Maisonneuve & Larose. Givón T. Syntax : A Functional Typological Introduction. Vol. II. AmsterdamPhiladelphia : John Benjamins.Kiparski Paul, 1968, Tense and mood in Indo-European syntax, Foundations of Language 4, 30-57.Reintges, Chris. 2010. Coordination, converbs and clause chaining in Coptic Egyptian typology and structural analysis, In Clause hierarchy and Clause linking: the Syntax and pragmatics interface, edited by I. Bril. Studies in Language Companion Series 121. Amsterdam, New York: Benjamins. Pp.203–266. Robert S. 1991. Une approche énonciative du système verbal: le cas du wolof. Paris: Editions du CNRS [collection Sciences du langage].Robert S. 1996. Aspect zéro et dépendance situationnelle: l’exemple du wolof. In Claude Müller (éd), Dépendance et intégration syntaxique (subordination, coordination, connexion) : 153-161. Tübingen: Niemeyer. Robert S.. 2010. Clause chaining and conjugations in Wolof: a typology of parataxis and its semantics. In I.Bril (ed), Clause hierarchy and clause linking: syntax and pragmatics. Amsterdam Philadelphia: John Benjamins: 469-498.Taine-Cheikh, Catherine. 2010. The role of the Berber deictic and TAM markers in dependent clauses in Zenaga. In Clause hierarchy and Clause linking: the Syntax and pragmatics interface, edited by I. Bril. Studies in Language Companion Series 121: 355–398. Amsterdam, New York: Benjamins.