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).

Pronouns

I	pas	we (includes "you")	yuas	me	pa	us	yua
		we	wias			us	wia
you	gis	you (plural)	jes	you	gi	you (plural)	je
he, she	nos	they	nus	him, her	no	them	nu
it	as	they	as	it	a	them	a

As seen above ... LIMBAWA has 2 cases : the ergative (-S) and the absolutive (- ). For citation, after a preposition or in copula clauses it is always the unmarked case that is used

Common prepositions

da ... at ne ... for

kaunu ... a coat

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

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 PAni pa doesn't occur but we get pan

pan ... mine yuan ... ours wian ... ours gin ... yours jen ... yours non ... his/hers don ... theirs

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

dade ... there dai ... here

the copula's

For existence use gasa For identity use sau For attribute use sau or bia For location use bia

Notice that an attribute can be introduced by either sau or bia Basically sau introduced a characteristic feature and bia introduces a temporary state. (page 175) House dirty He sick

If no T.A.M. information or emphasis on the copula, the copula sau is always dropped.

In fact, while transitive and intransitive sentences have free word order, sau and bia (plus belia and selau) sentences have a fixed ordering of components.

sau ...

sau and gasa are irregular. If aspect and evidentuality are unmarked, then the person is not expressed in the verb either. That is, there are 3 depleted forms of sau : ro, ri, ru and and 3 depleted forms of gasa : @a, @ai , @au . These six words are extremely common.

am, are, is	ro	was, were	ri	will be	ru
there is, there are	@a	there was, there were	@ai	there will be	@au

selbo di ro jeu = this drink/beverage is cold

ro is usually dropped.

For example you would say ... pa moltai = I am a doctor and not normally pa ro moltai

When ro is used, it is often used to refute a claim.

For example

1) gi mo ro moltai 2) pa ro moltai

ro also tends to be used if the subject or the copula complement are long trains of words for example ????????

KAUNIGA MO RO BOI ... your coat is no good KAUNAPA RO BOI ... my coat is good KAUNAPA BOI YA .... YA being an emphatic particle

2+3 = 5 .... Obviously we can not use the copula for "="

Simplest (Present Tense) of course the pronoun can not be dropped.

PA RO JUTU ... I am big ... PA JUTU GI RO JUTU ... you are big ... GI JUTU NO RO JUTU ... he/she/it is big ... NO JUTU

Tenses included Aspects included

PA RU JUTU ... I will be big SARUA JUTU ... I will have been good PA RI JUTU ... I was big SARIA JUTU ... I had been big PA RO JUTU ... I am big SARA JUTU ... I have been big

Apart from the 3 constructions (above right), aspect does not combine with the copula.

Evidentials included

SORIS JUTU ... He was big (I saw myself) (only occurs with the past tense)

SORON JUTU ... They say she is big SORUJA JUTU ... I guess she will be big

SORU JUTU ... SORUJA Quite often added as an afterthought

The above two even dental markers introduce some doubt. When the verity of the sentence is not in question, the unmarked form is used i.e.

Other words that define the VP (verb phrase) included

MO SORON JUTU ... They say she is not big LOI MO RO JUTU ... probably she is not big LOI MO SORON JUTU ... They say she is probably not big MAS MO RO JUTU ... maybe she isn't big MAS MO SORON JUTU ... They say maybe she isn't big

SIYA BOI ... be good (when speaking to one person) SEYA BOI ... ... be good (when speaking to one person)

... SAU

GASA ...

There is a word with the meaning "have", but it is used rarely. The usual way to say "I have a coat" ... !A KAUNU PAN (there is a coat mine) ... or why not simply !A KAUNAPU  ?

A slightly idiomatic usage, is to say !A JEU PAN ... This means "I feel cold" with emphasis on the uniqueness/unexpectedness of "I"

For existence use GASA !A ... there is !AU ... there will be !AI ... there was GASA always appears with a noun ... JEUNE !A (coldness there is) ... it is cold However if GASA occurs immediately before an adjective, then that adjective is considered to be converted to a noun. For example !A JEU (there is cold) ... it is cold

The word order preferred when using !A/!AI/!AU, is !A/!AI/!AU first.

The forms !A/!AI/!AU can not be used when evidential information, perfect aspect or person other than the third must be included.

GASAR ... I exist GASORI ... He/she/it existed (this form can be used as well as the forms NO !AI /A !AI) LOI GASORIN ... They say, he probably existed

MO !A god ... god does not exist

... GASA

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