LIMBAWA ... Chapter 1

Tense and Aspect

dono = to walk, the act of walking

JARGON ... In English the form of a verb which we use when we are talking about that verb, is called the "infinitive". The English infinitive seems to function pretty much like a noun, though it retains some verb-like characteristics. In Limbawa the form used (the recitation form) when we talk about a verb, is called gamba (meaning source or origin). It is fully a noun. For example kalme would be translated as "demolition" rather than "to demolish".

Past time

donari = I walked

donarli = I was walking

donarwi = I used to walk

donarti = I had walked

JARGON ... Above we can see the four past tense forms of dono.

donari is the plain past tense. This is most often used when somebody is telling a story (or in a narrative as they say). For example "Yesterday I got up, ate my breakfast and went to school". All three verbs in this narrative are in the simple past tense.

donarli has stretched the act of walking out time wise. The most common use for this is when you want to fit another action, inside the act of walking. For example "I was walking to school when it started to rain". Occasionally this form is used when you simply want to emphasis that the action took a long time (well in Limbawa anyway, not so much in English). For example "This morning I was walking to school 5 miles (because the bridge over the river was washed away)".

donarwi is what is called the habitual aspect. donarwi shows that you had many instances of walking in the past. For example "When I was a young girl, I used to walk 5 miles to school (because that bridge was only built in 1997)"

donarti is what is called the "perfect" aspect. Logically it doesn't differ that much from the plain past tense. But it emphasises a state rather than describes an action. For example "I had walked 5 miles ..." would be used when he were telling a story and you wanted to reveal why you were feeling tired. This is in contrast to a straight narrative when you would simple say "I walked 5 miles ...".

Future time

donaru = I will walk

donarlu = I will be walking

donarwu = I will walk

donartu = I will have walked

Above we can see the four future tense forms of dono.

Note ... The form donaru is used if the act of walking is just a one off ... for example in answer to the question "how are you going to the supermarket". But suppose that you had just moved house and the question "how will you get to the supermarket" is envisioning many instances of "walking" ... in that case the answer should use the form donarwu.

Present time

donarla = I am walking

donarwa = I walk

donara = I have walked

JARGON ... Because the present, represents only a time instant, instead of a stretch of time, the symmetry we saw in the past two sections breaks down.

You would expect the form donarta, but this has been "eroded" down to donara thru' much use.

donarla can only be used if walking is actually happening at the time of speaking.

The form donarwa is not actually restricted to the present (well it would not be worth mentioning if it was restricted in this way). Maybe I should have classified it under the "Timelesss" tense. However it has the form corresponding to "present time" so I have put it in this section. Instead of being restricted to the present, the usage of this form has been expanded to encompass the past and the future as well. That is it is used if you habitually walk in the past, the present and there is no reason to suppose that you will not do so in the future. Also note that this form doesn't imply that you are actually walking at the time of speaking.

Timeless

donar = I walk

As with donarwa the form donar (I walk) is not restricted to the past, present or future.

Note that in translating "I walk" from English you have a choice of donarwa or donar. Generally the "-RWA" form should be used if your possible walking time is interspersed with periods of non-walking. donarwa could be translated as "sometimes I walk, and sometimes I choose not to walk" or even "I usually walk".

Note ... if you say "I walk to church every Sunday" you have a choice of...

1) using donarwa and dropping the Limbawa equivalent to "every".

2) using donar and using the Limbawa equivalent to "every".

1) implies that you ONLY go on Sunday

2) leaves open the possibility that you go to church on other days of the week also.

The "-R" form is used to present general truths. For example, in says "birds fly", you would use the "-R" form.

So we have 12 different forms for tense and aspect.

LINGUISTIC JARGON ... tense basically means time and in my system we have past tense "I", present "A" and future "U" tenses.

... aspect in more difficult to explain ... but you can see from the examples, how the different aspects change how the verb relates to the rest of the text/sentence. In Limbawa, three aspects are included in the verb word. These are continuous "L" , habitual "W" and perfect "T".

English has a combination aspect which is missing from Limbawa. Suppose two old school friend meet up again. One is a lot more muscular than he was at school. He could explain his new muscles by saying "I have been working out". The "have" is appropriate because we are focusing on "state" rather than "action". The "am working out" is appropriate because it takes many instances of "working out" to build up muscles. However this lack doesn't mean that Limbawa has big gaps in the nuances it can give an action. Every language has a limited range of ways to give nuances to an action, and language "A" might have to resort to a phrase to get a subtle idea across while language "B" has an obligatory little affix on the verb to economically express the exact same idea. (In Limbawa the muscle-bound schoolmate would probable use the "-rwa" form of the verb ; along with an adverb meaning "now")

Person and Number

donari = I walked

doniri = You walked

donori = He/She/It walked

donuri = They walked

doneri = You walked (this form is used when talking to more than one person)

donauri = We walked (this form is used when the person spoken to, is not included in the "we")

donairi = We walked (this form is used when the person spoken to, is included in the "we")

Note that the last form is used where in English you would use "you" or "one" (if you were a bit posh) ... as in "YOU do it like this", "ONE must do ONE'S best, mustn't one".

LINGUISTIC JARGON ... This pronoun is often called the "impersonal pronoun" or the "indefinite pronoun".

So we have 7 different forms for person and number.

Evidentiality

About a quarter of the words languages have, what is called "evidentiality" expressed in the verb. That is you can say (or you must say) on what evidence you are saying what you are saying. In Limbawa there are 3 evidentials which can optionally be added to the verb.

donori = He walked

donorin = They say he walked

donoria = I saw him walk

donoris = I guess he walked

The a form is only used with the plain past tense.

LINGUISTIC JARGON ...These 3 evidential forms would usually be called the "reported", "seen" and "inferred" forms.

So there we have the R-forms of the verb. We must have a "protagonist" part (part ... refers to one dimension, one geographic age ?) (7 choices). We must have a "modifier" part (12 choices) and then we have a proof part which is optional (3 choices).

the sau copula

The sau copula has the same 12 modifier as a regular verb. However 3 modifiers are wildly irregular.

The w-modifiers(habitual aspect) can interpreted as "to be usually". The l-modifiers(progressive aspect) can interpreted as "is in this state but must continually strive to keep in this state" or even "to try and be".

So let's go over all the forms.

Past time

sarwi boi = I usually was good

sarli boi = I was being good (but it took effort on my part)

*sari boi = I was good

sarti boi = I had been good (so the teacher gave me a gold star) ... for a regular verb, this form emphasises "state". For this copula, this form emphasises "reason".

Future time

sarwu boi = I will be good (mostly)

*saru boi = I will be good

sarlu boi = I will try and be good

sartu boi = I will have been good

Present time

sarla boi = "I am good but it is difficult" or "I try and be good"

sarwa boi = I am generally good

sara boi = I have been good

Timeless

*sar boi = I am good

the wild forms

In the above, you will see 3 forms that are marked by an asterix. The asterix means that these forms don't exist.

These 3 forms that don't exist are *sari, *saru and *sar

Instead they are realised as ri, ru and ro.

Notice that the protagonist part ??? is not included in these forms. Hence it is necessary to have a pronoun when using these forms.

For example ;-

sorlu boi = He will try and be good ... The subject is indicated by the o in the verb.

no ru boi = He will be good ... The subject is not expressed in the verb, so it must be expressed by a pronoun (no = he or she)

In fact ro is usually dropped completely.

no boi = He is good

It is mostly used for emphasis; like when you are refuting a claim

Person A) ... gi mo ro moltai = You aren't a doctor

Person b) ... pa ro moltai = I am a doctor

Notice that ro is always used when you have the negative particle mo. This particle must always be directly in front of a verb, so ro must be expressed.

Another situation where ro tends to be used is when the subject or the copula complement are long trains of words. For example ????????

The evidentials are appended to the wild forms as normal. So we have ron, ros, rin, ris, ria, run, rus,

gasa

The sau copula takes two nouns (or a noun and an adjective).

The gasa copula takes only one noun. It is how you say "there is ... "

gasa is similar to sau in that it takes the 12 verb modifiers but 3 of them are wildly irregular. It is the same 3 tense/aspect forms that are irregular. Namely ;-

*gasor => @a meaning "there is"

*gasori => @ai meaning "there was"

*gasoru => @au meaning "there will be"

Actually while theoretically gasa can have the full range of modifiers enjoyed by a normal verb, in reality all forms other than @a, @ai and @au are extremely rare. Occasionally you come across the "infinitive" gasa. (which is defined as a noun).

There is no word that corresponds to "have". The usual way to say "I have a coat" is "there exists a coat mine" = @a kaunu pan

For some reason the internal possessives are not allowed with gasa. That is you can not say @a kaunapu, but must say @a kaunu pan

As I said above, gasa always comes with one noun. If it comes with an adjective, then that adjective can be considered a noun (well this is one way to look at it)

jeu = cold (an adjective), jeune = coldness (a noun)

@a jeu = "it is cold"

@a jeu pan meaning "I feel cold" (word for word ... "there is coldness mine")

There is fixed word order : it is always gasa followed by the noun.

A little quirk of this verb, is that the negation particle mo comes immediately after instead of immediately before.

@a mo jeu = "it is not cold"

The particles loi (probably) and mas (maybe) come as normal, before the verb.

loi @au jeu = It will probably be cold

Also the evidentials are affixed to the wild forms. Just as with sau.

loi @aun mo jeu = They say it will probably not be cold

bia

bia means "to be at"

For example polo bor london = Paul is in London

auto bor greta = The car is in the street.

The three verbs sau, gasa and bia are special verbs.

LINGUISTIC JARGON ... They are called copulas (that is "plural of copula" ... copula was a Latin word meaning "that which binds")

In Limbawa they are apart from normal verbs, in that they require a specific word order.

bia is the rarest of the copulas. It has no irregular forms.

Also it is often supplanted by sau ... but in this case the location must be suffixed by a locative case. For example ;-

polo (ro) london.pi = Paul is in London

auto ri greta.ma = The car is in the street (literally "on the street")

the bia copula

BELIA ... to arrive SELAU ... to become. this is the infinitive ... the common form is ( LAR)

Pronouns

LINGUISTIC JARGON ... Limbawa is what is called an ergative language. About a quarter of the world languages are ergative or partly ergative. So let us explain what ergative means. Well in English we have 2 forms of the first person singular pronoun ... namely "I" and "me". Also we have 2 forms of the third person singular male pronoun ... namely "he" and "him". These two forms help determine who does what to whom. For example "I hit him" and "He hit me" have obviously different meanings (in English there is a fixed word order, which also helps. In Limbawa, normally the word order is free).

timpa = to hit ... timpa is a verb that takes two nouns (a transitive verb to give it its technical term).

pas no timpari = I hit him pa nos timpori = He hit me ... OK in this case the protagonist marking in the verb also helps to make things disambiguous. But this will not always help, for example when both protagonists are third person singular.

So far so good. And we see that English and Limbawa behave in the same way so far. But what happens when we take a verb that takes only one noun (an intransitive verb to give it its technical term). For example dono = "to walk". In English we have "he walked". In Limbawa we have no donori (*him walked). So this in a nutshell is what an ergative language is.

If you like you can say ;-

In English "him" is the "done to" : "he" is the "doer" and the "doer to".

In Limbawa no is the "done to" and the "doer" : nos is the "doer to".

Below are two tables showing the two forms of the Limbawa pronouns.

I	pas	we (includes "you")	yuas
		we	wias
you	gis	you (plural)	jes
he, she	nos	they	nus
it	as	they	as

me	pa	us	yua
		us	wia
you	gi	you (plural)	je
him, her	no	them	nu
it	a	them	a

The particle na before a noun makes a genitive construction and the whole thing can be considered an adjective. For example kolo na kaunu di = "the collar of this coat".

The particle ni before a noun also makes a genitive construction. However in this case the meaning is strictly "possession" and the noun must be human.

When the noun is a single word (that is when it is a noun instead of a noun phrase) n can be directly affixed to the noun.

So instead of saying kolo na kaunu we would normally say kolo kaunun

Also when the noun is a pronoun the same thing happens.

*kaunu ni pa => kaunu pan ... in fact *ni pa is not allowed and the form pan must be used.

Below is stable showing the Limbawa possessor pronouns ;-

mine	pan	ours	yuan
		ours	wian
yours	gin	yours (plural)	jen
his, hers	non	theirs	nun

In fact instead of saying kaunu pan (if you came across kaunu pan in isolation you would normally take it as meaning kaunu ro pan = "the coat is mine") it is usual to bury the possessor inside the noun as an infix. So kaunu pan is usually expressed as kaunapu.

Below is a table showing the possessor infix paradigm.

my coat	kaunapu
our coat ("our" includes "you")	kaunayu
our coat ("our excludes "you")	kaunawu
your coat	kaunigu
your coat (with "you" being plural)	kauneju
his/her coat	kaunonu
their coat	kaununu

Common prepositions

da ... at ne ... for

kaunu ... a coat

na before a noun makes a genitive construction and the whole thing can be considered an adjective. For example kolo na kaunu ... the collar of the coat/the coat's collar. ni before a noun makes a genitive construction and the whole thing can be considered an adjective. However in this case the meaning is strictly "possession" and the noun must be human. When the noun is a pronoun we get a a special possessive form. For example ni pa doesn't occur but we get pan

Use the same pattern for demonstratives ? i.e. kaunu de ... that coat den ... that

dade ... there dai ... here