LIMBAWA ... Chapter 2

R-form of the verb

Above we have discussed the R-form of the verb.

However there are other verb forms.

S-form of the verb

This is the subjunctive form. You change the "r" to an "s" basically. Nothing comes after the "s". So there is no tense/aspect or evidentiality expressed on this verb form.

doikais = Let's walk

ME-form of the verb

This form is used when one action is dependant on another action having taken place.

As with the s-form, there is no gwomai or evidentiality expressed on the verb.

MI-form of the verb

The same as the me-form but irrealis. With the me-form there is doubt as to when (and indeed if) the thunder/lightning will happen.

With the mi-form it is accepted that there is no chance of thunder/lightning ... the storm has passed.

YA-form of the verb

This form is used for giving orders. When the s-form is used in a main clause, it is gently urging some action. With the ya-form you definitely want some action to happen (and you don't expect a discussion about it).

Up until now, 7 protagonists have been expressed in every verb. With the ya-form however only two protagonists can be expressed.

doikiya = walk (when talking to one person)

doikeya = walk (when talking to more than one person)

An alternative way to analyse this is to say that there is an iya-form and an eya-form. How you choose to analyse it doesn't make any difference to the reality of the situation.

AI-form of the verb

The ai-form comprises three functions. In the LIMBAWA linguistic tradition, these are called "noun-ai", "verb-ai" and "small-verb-ai".

Noun-"ai"

nagu = strong obligation

glopu = weak obligation

olda = ability

henti = permission

nagai dara an = I must do something

nagai dari an = I had to do something

glopai dirti an = You ought to have done sometime

glopai doru an = He ought to do something

glopai dora an = She ought to be doing something ???

Verb-"ai"

singai laughai loʔura namboʔe => They go home singing and laughing

loʔura namboʔe singai laughai => They go home singing and laughing

This is used when things happen at the same time and the subject of all the verbs is the same. Notice that the ai-forms can come before or after the r-form verb.

This form can not be used when consecutive actions are being described.

Small-verb-"ai"

The small verbs constitute a subset of verbs. They always follow the r-form verbs.

It is very common to have the following verbs in their ai-form.

= to be at (bia) ... this can be interpreted in English as "still" ... or as "not yet" in negative sentences.

= to come

= to go

= to rise

= to descend

= to enter

= to go out

= to follow

= to cross

= to go through

= to pass

= to return

= to do something in a haphazard manner, to do something in an unsatisfactory manner

= to scatter about

= to hurry

The above are often stuck on the end of an utterance ... like a sort of afterthought. They give the utterance a bit more clarity ... a bit more resolution.

See what Dixon has in Dyirbal.

ai-form only with r-form or can also go with s-form, etc. etc.

You can add as many verbs as you want. The added verbs are understood to have the same protagonists, gwomai and evidentiality as the r-form verb.

passorla singai kite flyai = He is passing by singing and flying a kite

WHAT ABOUT SEPERATE OBJECTS ON THE TWO VERBS ?

WHEN WE INTRODUCE "ALONG" (FOR EXAMPLE) WE ARE INTRODUCING A NEW OBJECT IN THE CLAUSE ???

BIA ......... a copula of location

bià means "to be at"

For example polo bori london = Paul was in London

polo borta london = Paul has been to London

auto bora lence = The car is in the street.

pele boru nambo = Paula will be at home

bià is the rarest of the copulas and has no irregular forms.

It is often supplanted by sàu ... but if this happens a locative particle must be suffixed to the noun (the noun after the copula). For example ;-

polo rì london.pi = Paul was in London

auto (rà) lence.la = The car was in the street (literally "on the street")

pele mò rù namboʔe = Paula will not be at home

The three verbs sàu, gaza and bià are special verbs. (LINGUISTIC JARGON ... They are called copulas... in Latin "copulare" meant "to tie", so a copula is a verb that ties. The appropriateness of this is obvious for sau and bia) In Limbawa they differ from normal verbs, in that they require a specific word order. Also s (the ergative case) is never suffixed to a noun, as normally happens when a verb is associated with two nouns.

GAZA .... a copula of existence

gaza takes only one noun. It is how you say "there is ... "

gaza is similar to sàu 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 ;-

*gazora => ʕá meaning "there is"

*gazori => ʕái meaning "there was"

*gazoru => ʔáu meaning "there will be"

Actually while theoretically gaza can have the full range of modifiers enjoyed by a normal verb, in reality all forms other than ʕá, ʕái, ʔáu are extremely rare. Occasionally you come across the "infinitive" gaza (which is actually used 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" = ʕá kaunu pan

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

As I said above, gaza 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)

pona = cold (an adjective), ponama = coldness (a noun)

pona = "it is cold" ... not *ʔá ponama

ʔá pona pan meaning "I feel cold" (word for word ... "there is coldness mine")

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

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

ʔá mò pona = "it is not cold"

The particles lói (probably) and màs (maybe) come as normal, before the verb.

lói ʔáu pona = It will probably be cold

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

lói ʔáun mò pona = They say it will probably not be cold

loi.foi ʔáun mò pona = Do they say it will probably not be cold ?

SAU ....... the main copula

sàu is the LIMBAWA copula. That is it is the equivalent of "to be" in English, whish has such forms as "be", "is", "was", "were" and "are".

This verb is slightly irregular in LIMBAWA as well. The three forms *sari, *saru and *sara which you would expect to see, are replaced with rì, rù and rà

Notice that person and number is not included in these three irregular forms, so it is sometimes necessary to have a pronoun in situations where it would normally be dropped.

Actually rà is usually missed out completely.

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

Person A) ... gì mò rà moltai = You aren't a doctor

Person b) ... pà rà moltai = I am a doctor

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

Another situation where rà 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 ràn, ràs, rìn, rià, rìs, rùn, rùs,

..... How to ask a YES/NO question

pás timparta jene = I have hit Jane

To turn a normal statement into a polar question (i.e. a question that requires a YES/NO answer), you insert the enclitic foi to the first word in the sentence. This enclitic is unusual in that when attached to a word ending in a vowel (most words) the "f" doesn't change to a "v". So in the above example, we would get ;-

pas.foi timparta jene = have I hit Jane

Now as LIMBAWA has free word order we can move any word to the front of the sentence. And if we want to query a certain element in the clause instead of just the entire clause, then that element is fronted.

timparta.foi pás jene = have I hit Jane (I thought that I had kicked her)

jene.foi pás timparta = have I hit Jane (I thought that I had hit Mary)

Notice that often English relies on stress, to bring attention to the item being queried.

..... YES and NO

So now that we have asked the question. It must be answered.

aiwa => yes

aiya => no

When they are said in isolation, aiwa usually has quickly rising intonation on the final syllable, aiya usually has a falling intonation on the final syllable.

..... more about the negative

Usually the negative particle goes directly before the verb.

pás mó timparta jene = I have not hit Jane

This negates the complete clause. But what do you do if you want to negate one element in the clause. Well again the free word order of LIMBAWA is again used. The word that you want to negate is moved between mó and the verb. So for example ;-

mó pás timparta jene = It wasn't me that hit Jane (it was that big guy over there)

pás mó jene timparta = It wasn't Jane that I hit (it was Mary)

..... Negative questions

pas.foi mó timparta jene = I haven't hit Jane, have I ?

If this question is answered aiwa it means "you haven't hit Jane"

If this question is answered aiya it means "you have hit Jane"

Just a little thing to keep in mind. This is the opposite of normal English usage, but in accordance with most languages in the world.

AIYA

This word is used instead of mó for negating the copula gaza and also for negating the 4 modalities/modals ??? nagai, glopai, oldai and hentai.

jene oldai mò humpora cokolate => Jane can not eat chocolates ... meaning she has the willpower to resist them.

jene aiya oldai humpora cokolate => Jane can't eat chocolates ... she is a diabetic and can not eat anything sweet.

jene aiya oldai mò humpora cokolate => Jane can not eat chocolates ... meaning she can't resist them.

Actually in the above example, aiya is an emphatic negative. It is more normal just to criticise ya to the end of the modal to negate it. ;-

jene oldaiya mò humpora cokolate => Jane can not resist chocolates.

..... Three infixes for Verb => Verb

Limbawa has a three process for generating new verbs from existing verbs. These three processes can be done to any verb.

.... -el-

If you split a verb and insert el between the final vowel (of the gamba) and the rest of the word, you give the added meaning of "to begin", "inception" or "to start off". For example ;-

sàu = to be

selau = to become

bìa = to be at

belia = to arrive at

doika = to walk

doikela = to start to walk

logo doikorwi = Roger used to walk ...

logo doikelorwi = Roger used to start walking ...

gazelari = I was born

à rì kiʔo = it was yellow ... remember that rì is an irregular form. The regular form would be *sori.

à lori kiʔo = it became yellow ... selau is irregular. If it were regular we would have the form *à selori ki@o

So there are thee irregular verbs in Limbawa (well if you count selau as a different word from sau) ... sàu, bìa and selau.

.... -ow-

If you split a verb and insert ow between the final vowel of and the rest of the word, you get the meaning that you are making somebody else do the verb. For example ;-

ò timpiri = you hit him

(pás) gís ò timpowari = I made you hit him ???

A gamba form exists for this construction also. For example;-

doikowo = to make (somebody) walk

gasowa has the special meaning "to give birth" and doesn't mean "to create".

.... -ay-

If you split a verb and insert ay between the final vowel of and the rest of the word, you get the meaning that the verb is being attempted. For example ;-

selbaru à = I will drink it

selbayaru à = I will try and drink it

..... Two affixes for Verb => Adjective

LINGUISTIC JARGON ... these two transformations are called "participles". Limbawa has two participles (as has English). The Limbawa and the English participles share the exact same function. In English these 2 participles are usually called "the present participle" and "the past participle" although "active participle" and "passive participle" would be far more appropriate. In Limbawa there is no special name for these 2 transformations.

solbe = to drink

heŋgo = to live (or it could mean "a life")

soŋkau = to die (or it could mean "death")

glabu = person

moʃi = water

moʃi solbi = the drunk water, the water that has been drunk ... an example of the so-called "past participle".

glabu solbana = the drinking person, the person that is drinking, the person that drinks ... an example of the so-called "present participle".

heŋgana = alive, living

soŋki = dead

..... Eight infixes for Noun => Noun

In the above section we learnt how to say "mine", "yours", etc. etc.. But how do we say "my", "your", etc. etc.

Well these words (which would be considered adjectives in the Limbawa linguistic tradition) are represented by infixes. The table below shows how it works.

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
xxxx own coat	kaunitu

It can be seen that the infixes are the same as the plain pronouns, but the order of the consonant and vowel are swapped over.

There could also be another entry in the table above. That is the infix -it- (this is the possessive equivalent of the reflexive pronoun tí (see above). It is probably easiest to explain -it- by way of example;-

polo hendoru kaunitu = Paul will wear his coat (To be absolutely specific "Paul will wear his own coat")

polo hendoru kaunonu = Paul will wear his coat (To be absolutely specific "Paul will wear someone else's coat")

..... Getting the opposite by adding "u"

.... A prefix for adjectives

taitau = many

utaitau = few

mutu = important

umutu = unimportant

.... and a prefix for adverb

toke = exactly

utoke = approximately

nan = for a long time

unan = not for a long time

unanu => momentarily ... (maybe derived from unan unan originally)

.... and a prefix for nouns

mezna = to fight

meznana = combatant

umeznana = non-combatant

As in English, not found that often. Sometimes found in rule books.

.... but an infix for verbs

There is a reason why we do not simply prefix u to the verbs also.

kanja = to fold

kunjana = "folding" (an adjective) or "one that folds" (a noun)

ukunjana = "one that doesn't fold"

Suppose we did simply prefix u to the verb. Then "to unfold" would be ukanja, and hence ukanjana would be a noun meaning "one that unfolds". But if you look up a bit, you can see that this form (ukanjana) already has the meaning "one that doesn't fold". This would cause confusion.

kunja	to fold	kunjua	to unfold
laiba	to cover	laibua	to uncover
fuŋga	to fasten, to lock	fuŋgua	to unfasten, to unlock
benda	to assemble, to put together	bendua	to take apart, to disassemble
pauca	to stop up, to block	paucua	to unstop
sensa	to weave	sensua	to unravel
fiŋka	to put on clothes, to dress	fiŋkua	to undress
tasta	to tangle	tastua	to untangle

Note that in any other form but the gamba, the u changes to a w. For example ;-

fiŋkwori = he undressed