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3.8.5. Causative
verbs
There are a handful of transitive verbs in Tokana, called
causatives,
which require an ergative subject (or an instrumental subject,
in the case
of inanimates; section 2.1.1)
and an embedded
clause complement containing a verb in the resultative
order (section 3.3.2). Such verbs denote a
complex event
whereby one participant acts upon another to bring about a
particular action
or situation. For example:
Na Sakial lohke siespeuna Mafe te
kihun
the:Erg Sakial make-Pst write-Res-the:NA Mafe the:Abs
letter
"Sakial made Mafe write the letter"
or "Sakial got
Mafe to write the letter"
This is literally
"Sakial made that Mafe writes the letter".
Here the resultative
clause siespeuna Mafe te kihun
"that Han
(would) write the letter" denotes the event resulting
from Sakial's
actions. Verbs of the causative class include:
lohka "make, cause"
panlohka "force, compel"
suka "do, make, use"
nana "let"
mela "help"
telania "keep, hold"
tema "have, bring
about"
I give examples of each of these verbs
below. In the accompanying descriptions,
the term causer refers to the
subject of the causative verb, while causee
refers to the subject of the
resultative verb (e.g., in the sentence above,
Sakial is the causer and
Mafe is the causee).
(1) Lohka is a
semantically neutral causative
verb, equivalent to make or
cause in English, while panlohka
indicates a certain amount of coercion,
and is thus closer to force.
Panlohka
is used when the causer is exerting
pressure on the causee, and/or the causee
is acting against his/her will.
Both verbs require that the causee be animate.
With panlohka the causer must also be animate,
although
lohka may take an inanimate subject
(marked
with instrumental case):
Na
mikal lohke hesuleuna kimi
the:Erg boy make-Pst
cry-Res-the:NA baby
"The boy made the baby cry"
Itan lhonkone lohke hesuleuna
kimi
the:Inst loud:noise-Inst make-Pst cry-Res-the:NA baby
"The
loud noise made the baby cry"
Kima panlohke
klohteuneuna Han te katia ie eupat
we:Erg
force-Pst put:in:order-Res-the:NA Han the:Abs house with
be:alone-Dep
"We forced Han to straighten up the house by
himself"
The verb lohka can also take a clausal subject
denoting an
event. Here again the subject is in the instrumental case. Compare
the
following example with the sentences above:
Itan lakanna ikei lohke hesuleuna
kimi
the:Inst bark-Dep-the:NA dog make-Pst cry-Res-the:NA
baby
"The barking of the dog made the baby
cry"
(2) The verb suka normally means "to
do", "to
make", or "to work". When used as a causative
verb, it
indicates an event whereby the causer physically manipulates the
causee so
as to bring about the action or state denoted by the embedded
verb. The
causee is generally inanimate, often a tool:
Ami suke tasiheu uslaute te
halma
I:Erg make-Pst stand-Res edge-Dat the:Abs book
"I made
the book stand on end"
Ami suke limeui
iosokne te hitol
I:Erg make-Pst open-Res-the:NA key-Inst
the:Abs door
"I used the key to open the door"
or "I got the
key to open the door"
The second sentence
above describes a situation whereby my manipulating
the key caused it to
open the door.
(3) Nana corresponds
closely to English
let or leave, while mela corresponds
to help and telania corresponds to
keep:
Kima nane
muelheusa
we:Erg let-Pst sleep-Res-they:NA
"We let them
sleep"
Ami nane limeue
huiloi
I:Erg leave-Pst open-Res-the:Abs window
"I left the
window open"
Kima mele sikespeuna
Sakial te yli
we:Erg help-Pst harvest-Res-the:NA Sakial the:Abs
grain
"We helped Sakial harvest the grain"
Kima telanie sukeuna Sakial immiote
lohe
we:Erg keep-Pst work-Res-the:NA Sakial whole:time
day-Dat
"We kept Sakial working all day"
Itan iasapine ohui telania hulieu
the:Inst
eating-Inst fruit keep healthy-Res
"Eating fruiting keeps one
healthy"
(4) Tema
has a 'weak' causative meaning.
It denotes an event whereby the causer acts
(usually indirectly, perhaps
also unintentionally) to bring about an action
or state. This verb corresponds
quite closely to causative have in
English:
Ami teme
uhkuoleun Han elh ne Elim
I:Erg have-Pst
Refl-meet-Res-the:Abs Han and the:Abs Elim
"I had Han and Elim
meet"
Note the use of tema with the modal suffix
-uh- in the following examples:
Imai temuha klohteuneuko te
katia
I:Dat have-want put:in:order-Res-you:NA the:Abs house
"I
want you to straighten up the house"
lit. "I want to have (that)
you straighten up the house"
Mà'n
itule temuhanko nieuma?
what-Qu Foc-would
have-want-Dep-you:NA do-Res-I:NA
"What would you have me
do?"
3.8.6. Ditransitive verbs
Ditransitive (or three
argument) verbs are verbs which take a subject,
object, and indirect
object. Ditransitives in Tokana generally take an ergative
subject, an
absolutive (or clausal) direct object, and an oblique indirect
object
(usually a dative or ablative phrase). Verbs of this class include
uthma "give", lasta
"send", teuna "put, place, take",
itsa "say, tell":
Na Han uthme talak inai
ahtè
the:Erg Han give-Pst coins the:Dat father-Dat
"Han
gave money to (his) father"
Na Han laste
kihun inai ahtè
the:Erg Han send-Pst letter the:Dat
father-Dat
"Han sent a letter to (his) father"
Na Mafe teunete talak itai hime
akot
the:Erg Mafe put/take-Pst-the:Pl:Abs coins the:Dat inside-Dat
box
"Mafe put the money in the box"
Na
Mafe teunete talak itaul himu akot
the:Erg Mafe
put/take-Pst-the:Abs coins the:Abl inside-Abl box
"Mafe took the money
out of the box"
lit. "Mafe took the money from inside the
box"
Na Elim itsema siespinna
Sakial te kihun
the:Erg Elim say-Pst-me:NA write-Dep:Pst-the:NA
Sakial the:Abs letter
"Elim told me that Sakial wrote the
letter"
or "Elim said to me that Sakial wrote the
letter"
3.8.7. Transitivity alternations
and the prefix
iok-
Tokana is a language in which arguments of verbs may be
freely dropped,
if their referents are unknown, arbitrary, recoverable from
context, or
irrelevant to the situation in which the sentence is uttered.
For instance,
the following pairs of sentences show that objects can be
dropped if their
denotation is very general, or can be inferred from
context:
Na Mothe
iasiha homa
the:Erg Mothe eat-Prog bread
"Mothe is eating
bread"
Na Mothe iasiha
the:Erg
Mothe eat-Prog
"Mothe is eating"
Na
ikei kilhtem
the:Erg dog bite-Pst-me:Abs
"That dog bit
me"
Na ikei kilhta
the:Erg dog
bite
"That dog bites
(people)"
Alternations of the following sort -
where a given verb may or may not
take an overt ergative- or
instrumental-marked agent - are particularly
common:
Na mikal tsitspè
kopo
the:Erg boy smash-Pst-the:Abs pot
"The boy smashed the
pot"
Te kopo tsitspe
the:Abs pot
smash-Pst
"The pot (was) smashed"
Na
mikal limè hitol
the:Erg boy open-Pst-the:Abs
door
"The boy opened the door"
Te
hitol lime
the:Abs door open-Pst
"The door (was)
opened"
Itan kahpisuhne muohfi
piakunupunte talpe
the:Inst rainfall-Inst heavy:one
flood-Cpl-the:Pl:Abs field
"The heavy rainfall flooded the
fields"
Ten talpe
piakunupun
the:Pl:Abs field flood-Cpl
"The fields (were)
flooded"
Na kal suehkiospè
katia
the:Erg man burn:down-Pst-the:Abs house
"The man burned
the house down"
Te katia
suehkiospe
the:Abs house burn:down-Pst
"The house (was) burned
down"
Sentences such as Te katia suehkiospe are
ambiguous between a
'passive'-type reading ("The house was burned down"),
where the
action has an implied agent, and an 'inchoative'-type reading
("The
house burned down"), where there is no implied agent and
the action is
viewed as having happened spontaneously.
Notice that the form of
the verb does not change when the agent argument
is dropped: Tokana does
not have a passive construction like English, where
the patient is
'promoted' to subject position and the agent is 'demoted'
to the status of
an optional by-phrase (e.g. The house was burned down
by the man).
The discourse effect of passivisation - namely, to foreground
a non-subject
argument - can be achieved in Tokana simply by moving the
object or some
other argument to a position in front of the verb called
the topic position
(section 5.1.4). This
is shown in the
following example. Notice that the case form of the determiner
makes it
clear which noun phrase is the subject and which is the
object:
Te katia
suehkiospena kal
the:Abs house burn:down-Pst-the:Erg
man
"The house, the man burned (it) down"
or "The house was
burned down by the man"
The closest thing to a
passive morpheme in Tokana is the prefix iok-
(section 3.6.2),
which may be attached to
a verb stem to indicate an indeterminate or
arbitrary
agent:
Ioklime
hitol
Arb-open-Pst door
"Someone opened a door"
Te hitol ioklime
the:Abs door
Arb-open-Pst
"The door was opened"
or "The door, someone
opened (it)"
The iok- form of the verb is not exactly
analogous to
the English passive, however: First of all, when iok-
is attached to the verb, it is not possible to
express the agent by means
of a by phrase. Secondly, only agentive verbs -
that is, verbs which take
ergative subjects and express a conscious,
volitional action - may take
the iok- prefix.
And finally, iok-
may be attached to
intransitive as well as transitive verbs, as shown below.
Intransitive
verbs cannot by passivised in English.
Iokmuelhiha itai katiai
Arb-sleep-Prog the:Dat
house-Dat
"Someone is sleeping in the house"
Ihutka anteumi iohkostane
last:night
a:great:deal Arb-dance-Pst
"There was much dancing last
night"
3.9.
Derivational morphology
In this section I discuss affixes which
serve to change the lexical class
(part of speech) of the word or stem to
which they attach. In 3.9.1
and 3.9.2 I consider different ways of deriving nouns
from
verbs. And in 3.9.3 I discuss the formation of
stative
verbs from nouns.
3.9.1.
Gerunds
There are various suffixes which may be attached to verbs
to form nouns.
These suffixes are completely productive (i.e. they may
attach to any verb),
and the resulting forms are extensively used. Below I
discuss gerunds, while
in 3.9.2 I discuss
participles.
Gerunds (that is, noun phrases which denote generic
actions or states)
are derived by attaching the suffix -pi to
the unmarked form of the
verb:
uhna
"sing"
uhnapi
"singing"
fiha "be
young"
fihapi "being young,
youth"
Negative gerunds, formed by suffixing
-otipi
to the verb stem, are also occasionally
attested:
kesta
"be happy"
kestapi "being
happy, happiness"
kestotipi "not
being happy, unhappiness"
Gerunds formed with
-pi/-otipi
normally take an overt singular determiner
(just like generic noun phrases;
cf. 2.2.2). The examples below show how
gerunds
are used in sentences:
Te
sihanapi henkakma
the:Abs swimming enjoy-we:NA
"We enjoy
swimming"
Te tsaka hostanapi teusu
koluma
the:Abs kind dancing very difficult
"That kind of
dancing is very difficult"
Gerunds derived
using this suffix may take direct objects, usually non-referential
noun
phrases. This is shown in the example below, where tieliapi
"taking care of" takes ohte "soil/land"
as its object. (Gerunds
may not take subjects, however.)
Itai okai Tokana, te tieliapi ohte teusu
aulina
the:Dat people-Dat Tokana the:Abs taking:care soil very
important
"To the Tokana, taking care of the land (i.e. farming) is
very important"
Gerunds are prohibited from
taking clitic determiners (section 2.1.2). Thus when a gerund takes a
referential
object, the independent form of the determiner must be used
(section 2.1.1):
Te tieliapi te ohte lhai ialai
kameima
the:Abs taking:care the:Abs land here have-the:NA
clan-Dat-my:NA
"Taking care of this land is the responsibility of
(lit. belongs to) my clan"
(Notice that in the
expression te tieliapi te ohte
lhai
"taking care of this land" does not include an element
equivalent
to of in English.)
Note that gerunds (e.g. te
tieliapi ohte
"farming, taking care of land") do not refer
to particular events
or situations occurring at particular times, but
rather types of events
or situations. Noun phrases denoting specific
events/situations, rather
than generic ones, have a very different
structure: These consist of a singular
inanimate determiner followed by an
embedded clause (with dependent order
marking on the verb; 3.1.1):
te muntanne Sakial
the:Abs
drunk-Dep-the:Abs Sakial
"Sakial's being drunk"
or "the
(fact) that Sakial is drunk"
te puniunana
Sakial itai Kemothasie
the:Abs travel-Dep:Cpl-the:NA Sakial
the:Dat Kemothasi-Dat
"Sakial's having travelled to
Kemothasi"
These are literally "the that
Sakial is drunk" and "the
that Sakial has travelled to
Kemothasi", respectively. Such constructions
have the distribution of
regular noun phrases (i.e. they may be subjects,
objects, topics, etc.).
For example:
Te
muntanne Sakial oukutama
the:Abs drunk-Dep-the:Abs Sakial
trouble-me:NA
"Sakial's being drunk troubles
me"
3.9.2.
Participles (nominalisations)
There are three sets of suffixes -
the non-absolutive, the absolutive
completive, and the absolutive
incompletive - which may be attached to verb
stems to form participles (or
nominalisations). I list these suffixes below,
together with examples
formed from the verb iasa
"eat":
Positive
Non-absolutive -aka iasaka
"eater, one who eats"
Absolutive compl. -oi iasoi "thing which has been
eaten"
Absolutive incompl. -i
iasi "thing which is/would be
eaten"
Negative
Non-absolutive -otika
iasotika "one who does not eat"
Absolutive compl.
-otoi iasotoi "thing which has not
been eaten"
Absolutive incompl. -otè
iasotè "thing which would not be
eaten"
A participle in Tokana is a noun which
refers to one of the participants
of the action denoted by the verb from
which it is derived (see below).
Like all nouns, participles require
determiners when used to refer to specific
individuals. For
example:
ne iasaka
"the eater, the one who eats"
te
iasoi "that which has been eaten"
or
"the thing which has been eaten"
Participles inflect for case like regular nouns. Example paradigms are
given below
(cf. section 2.2.4; notice
that -otè becomes -otei-
when it occurs non-finally):
| |
positive |
negative |
| absolutive / ergative |
iasaka |
iasotika |
| dative |
iasakai |
iasotikai |
| instrumental |
iasakane |
iasotikane |
| ablative |
iasakau |
iasotikau |
| |
positive |
negative |
| absolutive / ergative |
iasoi |
iasotoi |
| dative |
iasoie |
iasotoie |
| instrumental |
iasoine |
iasotoine |
| ablative |
iasoiu |
iasotoiu |
| |
positive |
negative |
| absolutive / ergative |
iasi |
iasotè |
| dative |
iasie |
iasoteie |
| instrumental |
iasine |
iasoteine |
| ablative |
iaseu |
iasoteiu |
For verb stems
ending in an i glide, the
absolutive
incompletive -i becomes -è
(or -ei-
non-finally). For example, from the
verb mitia
"light, weak" (with the
stem miti-),
we can form the absolutive incompletive
participle mitiè "light one, weak
one", with
the following paradigm:
| |
positive |
negative |
| absolutive / ergative |
mitiè |
mitiotè |
| &
nbsp;dative |
mitieie |
mitioteie |
| instrumental |
mitieine |
mitioteine |
| ablative |
mitieiu |
mitioteiu |
The meanings
of the different participles are discussed below:
(1)
Non-absolutive participles denote the agent/experiencer of an action.
They
may be formed from any verb, transitive or intransitive, which takes
an
ergative, instrumental, or dative subject:
uhna "sing" uhnaka "singer, one who sings"
kesta "be happy" kestaka "one who is happy"
uima "love" uimaka "lover, one who loves"
kaiha "kill" kaihaka "killer, one who kills"
kypesa "search for" kypesaka "searcher, one who
searches"
(2) Absolutive participles denote
the patient/theme (i.e. the absolutive
argument) of an action or state. The
absolutive completive is used with
eventive verbs, transitive or
intransitive, to indicate the patient or theme
of a completed
action:
lima
"open" limoi
"that which is open / has been opened"
kaiha "kill" kaihoi "one who has been killed"
lhalhta "roast" lhalhtoi "that which has been
roasted"
itskana "arrive"
itskanoi "one who has
arrived"
tioka "die"
tiokoi "one who has
died"
The absolutive incompletive is used with
eventive verbs to indicate the
patient/theme of a potential or hypothetical
action, and is also used with
stative verbs:
pata "be tall" pati "one who is tall, tall
one"
klota "be fast"
kloti "one who is fast, fast
one"
tolha "stand"
tolhi "one who stands / who would
stand"
sepa "drink"
sepi "that which can be
drunk"
For example:
Lhimoti iakme sepi
be here-Neg any
drink-Incpl:Part
"There is nothing to drink here"
lit. "Here
(there) isn't any
thing-which-can-be-drunk"
Participles may be
used as referring expressions by themselves (e.g.
ne
uastaka "the one that flies, the flying
one", te tsitspoi "the thing which
has been broken,
the broken one"). More often, however, they modify
another noun as
part of a compound:
ne
peilan uastaka "the flying bird, the bird which
flies"
te kopo tsitspoi "the
broken pot, the pot which has been broken"
ne
eithe tiokoi "the dead horse, the horse which has
died"
maka lhalhtoi "roasted
meat, meat which has been roasted"
When the
participle is formed from a stative verb (e.g. elifa
"be beautiful", muelhoksa "be
tired"), the result is
functionally equivalent to a modifying adjective
in
English:
katia elifi
"a beautiful house, a house which is beautiful"
ne pyi muelhoksi "the tired child, the
child who is tired"
Normally the participle
follows the noun it modifies (as in noun compounds
generally; see section
2.3). However, if
the modified noun is being
focused, then the participle may precede it.
Compare the following noun
phrases:
te katia
elifi "the beautiful house"
te
elifi katia "the beautiful house"
(as opposed to some other beautiful object)
Here,
the first noun phrase refers to some house which happens to be
beautiful,
while the second noun phrase refers to a beautiful object, taken
from a set
of beautiful objects under discussion, which is distinguished
from the
others by being a house.
As in all noun compounds, it is the first
noun of the compound (the head
noun) which receives case marking in oblique
noun phrases, while the other
nouns remain in their unmarked form. This is
shown below (note that lisa "beautiful,
handsome" is used with
animates, while elifa "beautiful",
in the examples above,
is used with inanimates):
Ani uthmè halma inai kale
lisi
he:Erg give-Pst-the:Abs book the:Dat man-Dat
handsome:one
"He gave the book to the handsome man"
Ani uthmè halma inai lisie
kal
he:Erg give-Pst-the:Abs book the:Dat handsome:one-Dat
man
"He gave the book to the handsome man" (e.g. as opposed to
the handsome boy)
In the first sentence, it is the
underived noun kal
"man" which
carries the suffix -e
(in 'agreement' with the
dative case determiner inai; cf. section 2.2.4), while the participle lisi
remains unmarked. In the second sentence, it is
the fronted participle that
receives dative case marking, while kal remains
unmarked.
As the following
examples illustrate, participles may be formed not only
from bare verb
stems, but also from verb stems which carry modal/aspectual
suffixes, the
reflexive prefix, or relative marking (sections 3.6.1-3.6.3):
muelha "sleep"
muelhoina "begin to sleep"
ne muelhoinaka "the one who is beginning to
sleep"
paua "bathe,
wash"
ukpaua "bathe
oneself"
se ukpaui "the ones
who bathe themselves"
liuna
"be old"
anliunehta "be
older/oldest"
ne anliunehti "the
older/oldest one"
Ne Sakial ne kal
anliunehti itai pule
the:Abs Sakial the:Abs man oldest:one
the:Dat village-Dat
"Sakial (is) the oldest man in the
village"
Note finally that a handful of
stative verbs have irregular absolutive
participles. For instance, the
participial form of kila
"be small"
is not kili, but kiho "small one". The following list
gives
the most common irregular forms:
Verb
Participle
fiha fihu "young
one"
iena ian "good
one"
kila kiho "small
one"
kuema kuehmi "bad
one"
liuna luhme "old
one"
toma tohmi "big
one"
Examples:
te katia tohmi "the big house"
ne iha luhme "the old woman"
ne pyi fihu "the young
child"
These irregular forms are not used when
the verb stem is in the relative
form, or has a modal or aspectual suffix
attached to it. Instead, the regular
form (e.g. kili) is used:
te kiho "the small one"
te kiloini "the one which is becoming
small"
te ankilehti "the
smaller/smallest one"
3.9.3. Nominal predicates
As I mentioned in section 3.7.3, predicate
nominal constructions in
Tokana may be formed with the copula he
"be":
Ne Han he ne suhpama
the:Abs Han is
the:Abs brother-my:NA
"Han is my brother"
Ne suhpama he ne Han
the:Abs
brother-my:NA is the:Abs Han
"My brother is
Han"
In these examples, the copula he 'links'
two specific noun phrases, ne Han and ne suhpama,
and indicates that they have the same
referent (i.e. "Han" and
"my brother" are the same
person).
However, if one wishes to express the idea than an
individual has the
property of belonging to a certain class of objects, a
different strategy
is normally used for forming nominal predicates. This
strategy involves
attaching the verbal suffix -a to the noun
stem, thereby creating a derived
stative verb. For instance, from the noun
stem mikoin "child" we can form the
verb mikoina "be a child", as in
the following
sentence (observe that mikoina,
like most
stative verbs, takes an absolutive case subject):
Ne napehna Mothe eima
mikoina
the:Abs daughter-the:NA Mothe still child-Pred
"Mothe's
daughter is still a child"
When -a is attached to a noun stem, the
stem may undergo
certain phonological changes. There are six patterns
to
consider:
(1) If the noun stem ends in a consonant or a glide,
then -a
is added without any
changes:
koin
koina "be a person"
aihnot
aihnota "be gold, be made of gold"
pyi pyia "be a
child"
(2) If the stem ends in a stressed
vowel, then the underlying final h surfaces
before -a:
là laha "be a
plant"
napè napeha
"be (someone's) daughter"
(3) If the noun
stem ends in a, then an
h is inserted before -a:
halma halmaha "be a book"
malka malkaha "be a
wolf"
(4) Stem-final i and e
become an i glide before -a:
pami pamia "be food"
tene tenia "be a steep
hill"
(5) Stem-final o and u
become a u glide before -a:
kilu kilua "be (someone's)
grandson"
talo talua "be
king, be the king"
(6) For nouns which end in
a non-low vowel preceded by a glide, an i
glide is inserted before -a:
inie inieia "be
eyes"
Derived nominal predicates take the full
array of tense/aspect, negation,
and order morphology, and can also host
clitic determiners. In other words,
they behave exactly like underived
stative verbs. This is illustrated by
the paradigm for pyia, given below:
| |
positive |
negative |
| simple |
non-past |
pyia |
pyioti |
| completive |
pyiun |
pyiotun |
|
dependent indic. |
non-past |
pyiat, pyian- |
pyiotia |
| completive |
pyiuna |
pyiotuna |
|
dependent subjunc. |
non-past |
pyiano |
pyiotio |
| completive |
pyiuno |
pyiotuno |
|
resultative |
pyieu |
pyioteu |
|
imperative |
pyio |
pyiefe |
Examples:
Nai pyioti
iakeima
she:Abs child-Pred-Neg any:longer
"She is not a child
any longer"
Imai iona pyiotian
iakeima
I:Dat know child-Pred-Neg-Dep-she:Abs any:longer
"I
know that she is not a child any longer"
Also,
compare the following pair of examples, where the second sentence
contains
a nominal predicate in the resultative order serving as the complement
of
the causative verb lohka "make,
cause"
(cf. section 3.8.5):
Ne Sakial talua
the:Abs Sakial
king-Pred
"Sakial is (the) king"
Kima
lohke talueun Sakial
we:Erg make-Pst
king-Pred-Res-the:Abs Sakial
"We made Sakial (be)
king"
Some nominal predicates - e.g. those
denoting personal and familial relationships
- may take (dative case)
arguments:
Ne iha
lhon ammiana Elime
the:Abs woman there
mother-Pred-the:NA Elim-Dat
"That woman is mother to Elim"
or
"That woman is Elim's mother"
Sai
kunahunma kete antè ume
they:Abs
friend-Pred-Cpl-me:NA for many-Dat year
"They were friends of mine
for many years"
Imai ne lhon
isokala
I:Dat he:Abs there Foc-husband-Pred
"That person is my
husband"
lit. "To me, that one is a
husband"
(Notice that in the last example
above, the focus marker i-
has been prefixed
to sokala "be a husband",
due to the
fact that ne lhon is being focused;
see 3.6.4 and 5.1.2.)
Nominal predicates sometimes
occur as adverbial modifiers to other verbs
(section 4.1.3), as in the following idiom.
Here,
ie pokotat "(with) being a
turtle"
is an adverbial expression which describes, in metaphorical
terms, the manner
of sleeping:
Ani muelha ie pokotat
he:Erg sleep with
turtle-Pred-Dep
"He sleeps like/as a turtle" (i.e. He sleeps
soundly)
3.10.
Degree words
As their name suggests, degree words indicate the
degree to which a particular
property holds, the frequency or intensity
with which a particular activity
is carried out, or the extent to which a
particular situation has been achieved.
A list of degree words is given
below (notice that several of these words
are derived from quantifiers by
adding the suffix -umi;
cf. section 2.5.2):
anehteumi "more, more so"
anteumi "much, very, very much so, a
lot, a great deal"
lhomioteumi
"all, all the way, thoroughly, completely"
lhoteumi "partly, partially; part
way"
miomi "how much; to
some degree"
mioteumi "all,
all the way, thoroughly, completely"
mulh
"enough, sufficiently"
nemmioteumi
"almost completely, very nearly"
omi
"so, so much, this/that much; how"
sepeumi "somewhat, more or
less"
teteumi "rather,
quite"
teusu "very, much, a
lot"
tsamaumi "mostly, for the
most part, largely"
tsema
"a little, a little bit, slightly"
tsuò "too"
tsuohanteumi "too much, too much
so"
tsyi "not
enough"
tsyianteumi "not
enough"
tuiaketsuò "not
too, not too much"
uteumi
"almost, nearly, just about"
Degree words
occur in a fixed position, immediately preceding the verb.
Many degree
words may be used with either stative or eventive verbs:
anteumi kesta "be very
happy"
anteumi hostana "dance a
lot"
tsema ohyina "be a
little sad"
tsema hostana
"dance a little"
Others are used
primarily with one or the other. For instance, the major
difference between
tsuò and tsuohanteumi
(or between tsyi and tsyianteumi)
is that the former is used with stative
verbs while the latter is used with
eventive verbs:
Nai tsuò ampata
he:Abs too
Rel-tall
"He is too tall"
Nai
tsuohanteumi utiana
he:Abs too:much come:close
"He is
coming too close"
Recall from section 3.6.3 that mulh,
tsuò (and
tuiaketsuò), and tsyi require the following verb
to occur in the
relative form (prefixed with an-):
Nai mulh anliuna "He is old
enough"
Nai tsuò anliuna
"He is too old"
Nai tuiaketsuò
anliunoti "He is not too old"
Nai
tsyi anliuna "He is not old
enough"
Recall also from section 3.6.4 that
when a focussed element or
interrogative word occurs in the preverbal focus
position (5.1.2) or the operator position
(5.1.3), and a degree word is also
present,
the focus marker i- attaches to the
degree
word rather than the verb. Compare the following:
Ne lihpana tsuò
amfiha
the:Abs sister-his:NA too Rel-young
"His sister is too
young"
Ne lihpana itsuò
amfiha
the:Abs sister-his:NA Foc-too Rel-young
"It's his
sister who is too young"
In the second
sentence, ne lihpana "his
sister" is
being focused. Here, i- is
prefixed to the
degree word tsuò "too
much"
rather than to the verb amfiha
"be
young".
Additional examples of degree words are given
below:
Nai omi
lisa!
he:Abs so/how handsome
"He's so handsome!"
or
"How handsome he is!"
Te kopo
mioteumi tsatsun
the:Abs pot completely full-Cpl
"The pot
was completely full"
Mai nula liunat, temai
anehteumi henkà hostanapi
I:Abs grow old-Dep then
more:so enjoy-the:Abs dancing
"The older I get, the more I enjoy
dancing"
lit. "I grow older, then (I) enjoy dancing more
so"
Suehten ie nanat lhoteumi
iaseue homa
go:away-Pst-he:Abs with leave-Dep partially
eat-Res-the:Abs bread
"He went away, leaving the bread partially
eaten"
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