The paper presents the results of diachronic analysis of independent grammatical morphemes which function in the grammatical systems of Chadic languages. The following markers are being considered: genitive-linking morpheme, subject and object markers, copula, focus marker. Etymologically, the markers are traced back to Chadic (and Afroasiatic) system of determiners identified by the three phonological elements, namely *n, *t, and *k which have their vestiges in contemporary systems. It is claimed that what is a retention on phonological ground, contributes to innovation processes on the grammatical level.

Apart from verbs, languages possess morphemes which are related to time without this connection being obvious to the speakers or felt by them. Such is the case of the articles, certain prepositions, conjunctions and particles. In the present article, I analyse particularly the indefinite and definite articles. These create a sequence that actualises a noun and then reactualises it, giving it thereby a past. Thus, I describe actualisation with the help of articles, but I also take up to discussion sequential and contextual actualisation. The examples I quote come mainly from French but, since actualisation is a general linguistic phenomenon, some of them represent languages which are structurally different from each other. The temporality rendered by the grammatical morphemes can express either past time or future time.