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Béu : Chapter 2 : The Noun: Difference between revisions

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[[Image:TW_415.png]]
[[Image:TW_415.png]]


== ..... The 7 types of word==
== ..... The 5 basic word types==


..
..


All words belong to one of the following 7 categories ...
All words are derived from these 5 basic types. Actually the '''fengi''' "particle" have so many subtypes (often single particles are a subtype to themselves) that it is a bit of a fudge to say that '''béu''' has 5 basic types. Maybe more honest to say that '''béu''' has 4 groups of words and the behaviour (syntactically) of any word in these 4 groups depends on which group it is in.


..
..


1) '''feŋgi''' = particle ... this is a sort of "hold-all" category for all words (and affixes) that don't neatly fit into the other categories. Interjections, numbers,  pronouns, conjunctions, determiners and certain words that would be classed as adverbs in English, are all classed as '''feŋgi'''.
1) '''fengi''' = particle ... this is a sort of "hold-all" category for all words (and affixes) that don't neatly fit into the other categories. Interjections, numbers,  pronouns, conjunctions, determiners and certain words that would be classed as adverbs in English, are all classed as '''fengi'''.


An example is '''Í''' .. the preposition indicating the dative.
By the way ... all affixes are counted as a type of '''fengi'''.


..
An example is '''wò''' .. the preposition indicating the oblique case.
 
[[Image:TW_517.png]]


..
..


2) '''seŋko''' = object
2) '''kenʒi''' = an object


An example is '''bàu''' ... "a man"
An example is '''bàu''' ... "a man"
Line 37: Line 35:
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5) '''maŋga''' ...  It is the basic form of the verb. Not considered or a noun or a verb (however the verbs built up from it by adding suffixes ARE considered full verbs.  
5) '''manga''' = a verb in its base form (citation form). When used "actively" it will take its '''r'''-form, '''u'''-form or '''i'''-form.


An example is '''twá''' ... "to meet" or "meeting" (That is the concept of "meet" disassociated from arguments, tense, aspect or whatever).  
An example is '''twá''' meaning  "to meet" or "a meeting" (the concept of "meet" disassociated from any arguments, tense, aspect or whatever).  


..
..


6) '''maŋgas''' = Not considered or a noun or a verb (although more of a noun than a '''maŋga'''). Derived from a  '''maŋga''' by suffixing -'''s'''. The  '''maŋgas''' means one instance of the activity denoted by the  '''maŋga'''.  For example ...
[[Image:SW_062.png]]


'''twá''' = "to meet"  ...................  '''twás''' = "a\the meeting"
..
 
== ..... Kenʒi==


..
..


7) '''saidaus''' = a noun derived from an adjective. A  '''saidaus''' is derived from a  '''saidau''' just by suffixing an -'''s'''. The  '''saidaus''' means one object possessing the property denoted by the  '''saidau'''.
'''kenʒi''' can mean "noun". It can also mean "noun phrase" (NP).


An example is  '''nelaus''' = a/the dark blue one .......  '''nò nelaus''' = a/the dark blue ones
.


..
Probably the most "basic" of the basic 5 ... tangible and discrete.


[[Image:TW_516.png]]
The noun can take six types of modifiers. These six types must come in a certain order ...


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..


=== ... Seŋko===
[[Image:SW_070.png]]


..
..


'''seŋko''' =>  noun OR noun phrase
In the above diagram, an descending arrow followed by a bar indicates a closed set. A descending arrow by itself indicates an open set. Branching arrows indicate multiple possibilities.


'''seŋko baga''' => noun
The head of the NP can be referred to as '''kenʒita'''. Usually it is called this by lay people and by linguists when the concept is first brought up. However, thereafter it is usually referred to as '''húa''' meaning "head".


'''seŋko kaza''' => noun phrase
'''kenʒita''' is  '''kenʒi''' plus the diminutive suffix.  '''kenʒi''' can also take the augmentative suffix -'''uma'''. '''kenzuma''' "extended noun phrase" is a normal  '''kenʒi''', with either a relative clause (RC) appended to the right or a partitive appended to the left hand side


'''seŋko''' can have upto 8 elements.
The words highlighted in red convert the noun phrase (or indeed the sentence in which the NP is embedded) into a question. A blue circle indicates the only mandatory element. But even these elements can be dropped on occasion ... when they are understood from context or the preceding conversation. When we have one adjective, and the head is understood, '''ɘ''' can be substituted for the head, '''kɘ''' if the head is plural.


Below is shown the order in which they must occur.
'''ɘ gèu''' = a/the green one : '''kɘ gèu''' = a/the green ones


..
These two particles can also be used with other noun modifiers, however not always mandators with non-adjective modifiers.


[[Image:TW_555.png]]
'''ɘ nái''' = which one : '''kɘ nái''' = which ones


..
'''kɘ dí''' = these ones : '''ɘ dè''' = this one


Elements 1, 2, and 7 have restricted membership, if fact element 1 has only one possibility, the word '''hù'''. The words with red background convert the noun phrase (or indeed the sentence in which the NP is embedded) into a question. A blue circle indicates the only mandatory element. Branching arrows indicate multiple possibilities.
However '''nái''', '''dí''' and '''dè''' can constitute NP's by themselves. A bit like English


==== . The head====
Looking at the chart above might give you a false impression of '''béu''' noun phrases. The number of modifiers within a noun phrase is usually only one or two. When there is two, they must occur in a certain order, hence the necessity of the chart above. I don't think it would be easy to process a noun phrase with six modifiers, probably some of them would be shunted off into a RC with an initial copula. A noun phrase can take multiple RC's. They can stand beside each other in a sort of apposition.


3) ... the head \ '''seŋko baga'''  
I should make one further point here. The particles '''ú''' "all" and '''jù''' "no" can appear to the left of the head. They can also appear in the quantity slot.


==== . The adjective====
..


4) ... the adjective
=== ... Quality===


More than one adjective is allowed. For example ... '''bàu gèu tiji''' = the little green man
..


'''kái''' "what type" can appear in this slot. In which case it turns the whole noun phrase (or sentence) into a question. For example ...
More than one adjective is allowed in this slot. For example ... '''bàu gèu tiji''' = the little green man


'''bàu gèu kái''' = what kind of green man ? ... noun phrase question
'''kái''' meaning "what type" can also appear in this slot. In which case it turns the whole noun phrase (or sentence) into a question. For example ...


'''bàu gèu kái glà timpori''' = what kind of green man hit the woman ? ... sentence question
'''bàu gèu kái''' = what kind of green man ? ... (NP question)


==== . The locative====
'''há bàu gèu kái glà timpori''' = what kind of green man hit the woman ? ... (sentence question)


5) ... the locative. For example ... '''bàu gèu tiji pobomau''' = the little green man on top of the mountain
Now when you have multiple adjectives they will have a certain order depending upon their sub-category.


A locative comprises of a noun plus a locative '''pilana''' ... also the '''pilana''' meaning "from" ... so in total "noun" + '''pi la mau goi ce dua bene komo ?e fi'''
This is the same as English ... for example, you always say "the third big black dog" and never "the black third big dog".


'''dá''' "where" can appear in this slot. In which case it turns the whole noun phrase (or sentence) into a question. For example ...
'''béu''' uses the exact same order as in English but the other way around.


'''bàu gèu dá''' = where is the green man ?
'''béu''' has two adjectives that come in this slot that are worth mentioning. They might have claims to particle-hood, but I guess their appearance in this slot marks them as adjectives. No reason that they can't be both.


==== . The genitive====
1) ... '''ló''' = "other"


6) ... the genitive. For example '''jwado gèu nambomau yó jene''' = Jane's big green bird on top of the house
The semantics of this word remind me of the semantics of '''tuge'''/'''jige'''. With the relative quantifiers the speech participants have agreed on the number/amount relevant to the situation. '''tuge'''/'''jige''' are used to change this value. Similarly '''ló''' is used in a situation where the speech participants have agreed on the population (of whatever noun category) under consideration but one of them wants to expand this population.


Note that the particle '''yó''' is usually dropped when the possessor is next to the head. However as other elements intervene, the likelihood that '''yó''' is used increases.
2) ... '''laubo''' = enough


If '''mín''' (who) is used instead of '''jene''' in the above ... then we would have a question ...
..


'''jwado gèu nambomau yó mín''' = Whose big green bird on top of the house ? = Whose's the big green bird on top of the house ?
=== ... Quantity===


==== . The determiner====
..


7) ... the determiner
This slot is very interesting ...


There are two determiners ... '''dí ''' (this)  and '''dè''' (that). For example ...  
[[Image:SW_071.png]]


'''bàu gèu tiji pobomau dé  ''' = that little green man on top of the mountain.
The above chart is split into ''definite'' and ''vague'' sections. All the items under ''definite'' represent an integer (or "the empty set" or "the full set"). The items under ''vague'' represent an approximate number/amount. This section is further divided into ''discrete'' and ''non-discrete'' (i.e. countable.non-countable).


The primary meaning is for comparing two objects that can be seen. Perhaps accompanied by gestures, '''dé ''' will be appended to the further of the two objects and by way of distinction, '''dí ''' will be appended to the nearer one.
'''yè''' modifies both discrete and non-discrete. It means a moderate amount ... some value between zero and "all". It does NOT mean "indefinite" ... "some man" is '''bàu èn''', not '''*bàu yè'''.


'''nái''' (which) can appear in this slot. In which case it turns the whole noun phrase (or sentence) into a question. For example ...
This word can be used to mark plurality (together with '''iyo''' and '''hài''') for those nouns that can not be pluralized in themselves. For example ... '''húa''', "head" : '''húa yè''', "heads".


'''bàu gèu tiji nái''' = which little green man ? ... noun phrase question
'''jí jí''' and '''jía''' are about equally common and mean the same thing. However '''jía''' tends to be used in more formal situations and '''jí jí''' in less formal.


'''bàu gèu tiji nái glà timpori ''' = which little green man hit the woman ? ... sentence question
..


Also '''lò''' "other" appear in this slot ... '''bàu gèu tiji lò''' = "the other little green man" or "another little green man"
'''láu''' (how many) can appear in this slot. In which case it turns the NP (and hence the clause containing the NP) into a question. For example ...


Note ... '''dían''' => here, '''dèn''' => there ... not '''*dà dí''' and '''*dà dè'''
'''bàu jutu láu''' = "How many men are big ?" or "How many big men ?" ???????????


Note ...  '''dí '''  '''dè''' never appear independently as they do in English and many other languages. For example "this is good" => '''nèn dí r bòi''' .... literally "this THING is good"
..


Actually the above expression usually amalgamate to one word ... '''nendi r bòi''' "this is good" ... '''nende r bòi''' "that is good"
The chart above shows only the terms used for ''absolute'' quantity ????????????????? It does not cover, what I call ''relative'' quantity. Let me explain ...


Note  ... '''nò nendi''' is further contracted to => '''ndi''' and '''nò nende''' => '''nde''' .... these are syllabic nasals ... the only occurance of this sound in '''béu'''
Imagine the speaker and the hearer both have an idea of the number/amount relevant to a situation but one of them wants to change this number/amount. The amount he wants to change this agreed number/amount by, I call the ''relative quantity''. It can be positive or negative. When positive we use the word '''tuge''' "more" ... when negative we use the word '''jige''' "less" '''*'''. For example ...


[[Image:TW_559.png]]
'''turi waudo tuge''' = more dogs came
{|
|-
!  t-u-r-i  || waudo || tuge
|-
|  come-{{small|3PL-IND-PST}}  || dog || more
|}


Note that there is a short hand way to write these four words (shown on the RHS of the above diagram). Actually you never see the long hand version (shown on the LHS of the above diagram)
These to particles can be modified by some (most) of the terms given in the chart above. They can be modified by any of the terms hi-lighted in orange.


==== . The numerative====
[[Image:Sw_060.png]]


2) ... the numerative
For example ... '''bía tuge ima''' = two more beers please"


Any number can go in here ... also '''jù''' "no"  and '''nò''' "plurality particle".
Note : actually '''jía''' and '''tundu''' are not applicable to '''kenʒi'''. They are only applicable to '''olus'''


'''láu''' (how many) can appear in this slot. In which case it turns the whole sentence into a question. For example ...
..


'''láu bàu r pobomau''' = How many men are on top of the mountain ?
'''*''' These words might be derived somehow from '''jutu''' "big" and '''tiji''' "small" ... along with the comparative suffix -'''ge''' '''**'''.


With more complex '''seŋko baga''' it is usual to break it up in order to specify exactly which element is being questioned. For example ...
The comparative suffix can be appended to any adjectives. For example ... '''jini''' "clever" => '''jinige''' "cleverer" : '''hau?e''' "beautiful" => '''hau?ege''' "more beautiful"


'''láu bàu gèu tiji pobomau nài doikura''' = " How many little green men on the  mountain that are walking? " ... would be re-phrased as ...
There is also a superlative suffix ... -'''mo'''. So '''jinimo''' "cleverest" amd '''hau?emo''' "most beautiful"


'''wò bàu gèu tiji pobomau _ láu doikura''' = w.r.t. the little green man on top of the mountain, how many are walking ? ... or ...
'''**''' There is an independant word '''gé''' which might be related to the comparative suffix. It is a particle that always comes in twos. For example ... '''gé tundu ... gé bói''' "the more the merrier".


'''wò bàu tiji pobomau nài doikura _ láu r gèu''' = w.r.t. the little man on top of the mountain who are walking, how many are green ?
Sometimes you coma across '''bù tuge''' "no more". This should be analysed as a contraction of '''bù ?ár tuge''' "I don't want more".


==== . The relative clause====
'''***''' Perhaps '''wóin''' is related to the verb '''gwói''' "to pass by" plus the past participle -'''in'''.


8) ... the relative clause
..


Relative clauses "RC" work pretty much the same as English relative clauses. The relativizer is '''nài''' (that, who). Here are some examples ...
=== ... Ownership===


'''yiŋkai nài doikore''' = the girl that has walked
..


'''bàu nài glás timpore''' = the man whom the woman has hit
Basically you can just stick a personal name, a pronoun or any NP in here and the head noun will be considered owned by the object inserted here.


'''glá nàis bàu timpore''' = the woman who has hit the man
Sometimes, the particle '''yó''' precedes the object inserted.


'''bàu nàin glás fyori yiŋkaiwo''' = the man to whom the woman told about the girl
For example '''jwado gèu yó jene''' = Jane's big green bird


'''glá naiji bàus bundore nambo''' = the woman for whom the man has built a house
Note that the particle '''yó''' is usually dropped when the possessor is next to the head. However as other elements intervene, the likelihood that '''yó''' is used increases.


All the '''pilana''' can be appended to the relativizer to specify what roll the noun would have in the relative clause if it was a simple clause.
If '''mín''' (who) is stuck in this slot ... then we have a question. For example ...


==== . The emphatic particle====
'''jwado gèu yó mín''' = Whose big green bird ? = Whose's the big green bird ?


1) ... the emphatic particle is '''hù'''.
There can be ambiguity with some '''kenʒi''' possessing a genitive. For example ...


'''hù''' is used where we would use what is called  "right dislocation" in English. For example ...
Does '''waudo bàu dí''' mean "the dog of this man" or "this dog of the man" ?


'''bàus hù glán nori alha''' = It is the woman to whom the man gave flowers.
To get around this, we have a special rule ...


'''bàus hù glán nori alha @''' = Is it the woman to whom the man gave flowers ?
"If anything is in the ownership slot, '''dí''' and '''dè''' never appear in the determiner slot. Instead they appear as '''dían''' "here" and '''dene''' "there" in the locative slot"


'''hù''' might be used in exasperated when somebody can not see something. For example ...
Note ... sometimes ownership as such is not what is of interest, it is if a person has actual physical possession. In this case '''yó''' is not used. But the object takes '''pila?o''' 2.


{|border=1
'''jwado gèu là''' ''Long John Silver'' '''catora''' = The big green bird (on Long John's shoulder presumably) is chatting away.
|align=center| '''hù nendi'''
|align=center| "this one !"
|align=center| '''hù nende'''
|align=center| "that one !"
|-
|align=center| '''hù nodi '''
|align=center| "these ones!"
|align=center| '''hù node'''
|align=center| "those ones !"
|}


This can also used as a sort of vocative case ... not obligatory but can be used before a persons name when trying to get their attention. For example ...
Actually segments showing actually physical possession like the example above, go in the locative slot which we will cover next.
 
'''hù jene''' = Hey, Jane
 
'''hù gì''' = Hey, you


..
..


=== ... Olus===
=== ... Location===


..
..


The '''olus kaza''' has the same stucture as '''seŋko kaza''' except for the second element
Ordinal numbers appear in this slot. The ordinal numbers are ...


the second element is replaced with three elements ... call them elements (9), (10) and (11)
[[Image:SW_066.png]]


(9) is a numerative, (10) is called "holder" and (11) is the particle '''yó'''
You will notice that there are two words for first ... '''da?a''' and '''dahua'''. They are both equally common, but '''da?a''' tends to occur in the presence of '''dima''' or '''duya''' while '''dahua''' tends to occur in the presence of '''dauci'''.


we have come across '''yó''' before. it indicates possession, in this case no actual possession but a sort of "extention" of possession. For example ...
..


'''ifa hoŋko yó ʔazwo pona''' = two cups of hot milk
Proper locatives comprise a noun plus one of the 9 '''pila?oi''' ....  '''pi la mau goi ce do bene komo ni'''. For example ...


where element (9) is '''ifa''' "two", element (10) is '''hoŋko''' "cup" and element (11) is '''yó'''
'''duzu pobomau''' = The oryx on the mountain


Note ... just as '''yó''' is often dropped from '''seŋko kaza''', (11) is often dropped if  '''olus kaza''' is short. For example ...
Also '''pila?o''' 14 turns up in this slot. These items are strictly not giving information about "location" but rather "origin". They are classed as a locatives nevertheless. For example ...


'''ifa hoŋko ʔazwo''' = two cups of milk
'''bàu glazgofi''' = a/the man from Glasgow


Nouns denoting quality are '''olus''' through derived originally from '''saidau'''. For example ...
If the location consists of more than one word, the usual rule applies and the '''pila?o''' appears as a preposition ...


'''nelaumi''' = blueness (from '''nelau''' "dark blue") and '''geumai''' = greenness (from '''gèu''' "green")
'''duzu máu pobo jutu''' = The oryx on the big mountain


..
There is a tendance that  the longer the locative item, the more likely the locative item will be shunted into a relative clause ...


=== ... Saidau===
'''duzu nài r máu pobo hau?e jutu''' = The oryx on the big beautiful mountain


..
'''nài r máu pobo hau?e jutu''' is a relative clause. We will cover RC's in a bit.


The '''saidau''' has two uses in the '''béu'''. It can either be part of a NP or it can be a copular complement. For example ...
All prepositions that are not '''pila?o''' lead to the location being shunted into a relative clause. For example ...


'''bàu gèu''' = a/the green man
'''polga?o nài r fiagan gwai''' = "the sailing boat which is among the islands" or simply "the sailing boat among the islands"
 
'''bàu r gèu''' = a/the man is green


..
..


=== ... Maŋga===
Also '''dá''' "where" can appear in this slot. In which case it turns the noun phrase into a question. For example ...


----
'''bàu gèu dá''' = where is the green man ?


This corresponds to what is called "infinitive" or "masDar" in other languages.
..


But in certain circumstances '''maŋga''' can be thought of as a noun. (Actually '''maŋgas''' has a better claim to nounhood ... after all it is discrete).
Addendum ... To keep things simple I refrained from mentioning this before but time can also be expressed in this slot. For example "the turmoil '''jé''' 1300's". Actually location AND time can both be in this slot at the same time. For example "the anger '''pí''' Iceland '''jé''' 1950's ...".


For instance they can be the S O or A argument in a clause. I guess that is their biggest claim to nounhood.
..


Another place they appear is as complements'''*''' of active verbs (live verbs).  Two examples of this usage are given below ...
'''*''' Probably derived from '''uci''' "tail".


1) ... '''blèu''' = to hold ..... '''laila''' = to sing, singing ..... '''jenes blor laila bòi''' = Jane can sing well.
..


2) ... '''cùa''' = to depart ... '''timpa''' = to hit, hitting ...  '''jonos cori timpa jene''' = John stopped hitting Jane
=== ... Determiner===


'''*''' Since all live transitive verbs in '''béu''' are capable of taking a noun complement (object), this usuage can not be said to make them appear any less noun-like, however restrictions/differences in the elements comprising '''maŋga baga''' compaired to '''seŋko baga''' plus there inability to take all the 17 '''pilana''' do make them appear less noun-like .... Actually I prefer not to talk about nouns, verbs and what have you but to stick to the 7 word types'''**''' which I have devised for '''béu'''. However out of pity for the reader (yes ... you) I quite often revisit the terminology of the Western Linguistic Tradition.
..


'''**''' Which are ... '''feŋgi  seŋko olus saidau maŋga maŋgas''' and '''saidaus'''
There are five of these ... '''dí ''' (this), '''dè''' (that), '''nái''' (which),  '''èn''' (some) and '''ín''' (any) . For example ...


----
'''dí''' and '''dè''' are called demonstratives in the WLT. They will be covered in the section after next.


'''maŋga''' =>  infinitive OR  infinitive phrase
'''nái''' turns the whole noun phrase into a question. For example ...


'''maŋga baga''' => infinitive
'''bàu gèu tiji nái''' = which little green man ? ... noun phrase question


'''maŋga kaza''' => infinitive phrase
And of course, if a NP represents a question, any clause containing this NP will also be a question. For example ...


The order for building up '''maŋgas kaza''' is ...
'''bàu gèu tiji nái glà timpori ''' = which little green man hit the woman ? ... a clause AND a question


1) ... the '''maŋga''' always comes first
'''èn''' "some" appear in this slot ... '''bàu gèu tiji èn''' = "some little green man" ...... indefinite


2) ... the A'''*''' argument (if it exists) will immediately follow marked for the ergative.
'''ín''' "any" appear in this slot ... '''bàu gèu tiji ín''' = "any little green man" .............. super indefinite


3) ... the S'''*''' or O'''*''' argument next in its unmarked form (of course if you have an S arguments ... there was no A argument in step 2)
There is one little rule to remember ...


4) ... other clausal elements (for example dative object, time, adverb'''**''', instrument, reason, purpose) can be added now.
"Only one item is allowed in this slot, so if you want an indefinite as well as a demonstrative, the demonstrative is shunted off to the locative slot and given the form '''dían''' or '''dene'''."


'''*'''When talking about these arguments we are thinking as if the '''maŋga''' has been brought to life. And we have a verb in its r-form, n-form, i-form or u-form. Then the A O and S arguments would live up to their name. However the A O and S arguments we are talking about here are merely elements in a noun phrase (or infinitive phrase if you will), as opposed to arguments in a clause.
I guess this is logical in a way. '''dí''' and '''dè''' were originally associated with pointing. But when the object is indefinite, how can you point ? "here" or "there" is about as definite as you can get.


'''**'''If an adverb ending in -'''we''' finds itself up against the '''maŋga''', the -'''we''' affix will be dropped.
..


----
=== ... Side-note re demonstratives===


Two '''pilana''' can be appended to '''maŋga''' ...  these are -'''tu''' and -'''la'''
..


The -'''tu''' usuage is actually exactly the same as the English ... "by ''verb''ing"
'''dí''' "this" and '''dè''' "that" are two words that orientate and focus the hearer's attention on an object (or location '''*''') in the speech situation. These words are called demonstratives in the WLT.


The -'''la''' usuage produced an adjecting meaning " ''verbing'' at the moment of speach". As with all adjectives it can either be part of a NP or it can be a copular complement. For example ...
According to Holger [ Diessel (1999:57) ] ...


'''bàu doikala''' = a/the walking man
i) A demonstrative can be construed as an argument in its own right. That is, it can constitute a NP without any additional elements.


'''bàu r doikala''' = a/the man is walking
ii) A demonstrative can co-occur with a noun in a NP. That is, it can be a noun modifier.


Note ... '''bàu r doikala''' = '''bàu doikora''' ... exactly the same.
iii)'''*''' A demonstatives can function as a verb modifier. It specifies (the) location (where something happens **).


----
'''*''' Perhaps in a more earlier version of the WLT "location" and (iii) would not be included in the definition of determiner. English and '''béu''' conform to this earlier version of the WLT. However I think it is a good idea when considering all the world's languages, to use this wider definition of "demonstrative".


=== ... Maŋgas===
"**" Perhaps in a language where a copula is not routinely used "where something happens" would not necessarily be appropriate.


----
And here are examples of the above three functions (in English) ...


Note .... In English there are various means to derive a pure noun from a verb. For example ... "discover" + "y" => discovery ... "destroy" + "?tion" => destruction ... "run" + ∅ => a/the run
a) ''This'' is excellent.


In '''béu''' there are no method for constructing pure nouns from verbs. However the  '''maŋgas''' is close enough to a pure noun for MOST intents and purposes. Also it is 100% productive ... that is EVERY verb in '''béu''' has a '''maŋgas'''.
b) ''That'' guy is an idiot.


----
c) ''Here'' we do things differently.


'''maŋgas''' => verbal noun OR verbal noun phrase
Diachronically, these three functions can run into each other. Function (a) and function (b) are particularly close. They have the exact same form in English, but no confusion can occur, because "this/that:b" can be deduced to be inside a NP by the rules of English grammar. Most languages in the world (70%) have identical forms for "this/that:a" and "this/that:b". Of the languages that do not have identical forms, the difference can be quite subtle. For example in Thai นี่ [ '''nii''' falling tone ] is "this:a" and นี้ [ '''nii''' high tone ] is "this:b". ........... [see WALS 42A]


'''maŋgas baga''' => verbal noun
Some languages lack (a). For example, in Korean, to express "this:a" you must say "ce il" meaning "this thing". So (b) used instead of (a)


'''maŋgas kaza''' =>verbal noun phrase
Some languages lack (b). They would say something like "the guy here" instead of "this guy". So (c) instead of (b)


The order for building up '''maŋgas kaza''' is ...
Some languages lack (c). They would say something like "this place we do things differently" instead of "here we do things differently". So (b) instead of (c.)


1) ... a numerative
[ And while we are talking on this area, perhaps we should mention 3rd person pronouns (see WALS 43A). Some languages lack 3rd person pronouns. They cover this function by saying something like "this" or "that guy" ...  A further point of interest (well, I find it interesting anyway) is that the English ''he'' and ''here'' are cognates. Going back to a P.I.E. form meaning (a) or (b). ''-r'' was a ProtoGermanic adverbial suffix. ]


2) ... the '''maŋgas''' (mandatory)
'''béu''' patterns pretty much like English (and the pattern of English is not atypical of the world's languages) ...


3) ... a determiner    ('''dí''' '''dè''' '''lò''' or '''nái''') ... but actually these are quite uncommon elements in '''maŋgas kaza'''.
'''dí''' = "this:a" : '''dè''' = "that:a"


4) ... the A argument (if it exists) marked for the ergative.
'''dí''' = "this:b" : '''dè''' = "that:b"


5) ... the S or O argument next in its unmarked form (of course if you have an S arguments ... there was no A argument in step 2)
'''dían''' = "this:c" (i.e. "here") : '''dene''' = "that.c" (i.e. "there")


6) ... other clausal elements (for example time, adverb'''*''', instrument, reason, purpose ) can be added now.
I was originally thinking of just appending the '''béu''' adverbial suffix -'''is''' to produce (c). But rejected that idea in order to get more phonological contrast between ...


[ actually an emphatic particle can be put at the front of all this lot and a relative clause put at the end ... but these usages are so uncommon, that I decided not to list them ]
(A) "this:c" and "that.c", (B) "this/that:a/b" and "this/that:c"


'''*'''If an adverb ending in -'''we''' finds itself up against the '''maŋgas''', the -'''we''' affix will be dropped.
With '''dían''' there is a hint that it might be derived from '''dí''' plus '''pila?o''' 15. And also with '''dene''' ... a hint that it might have the same origin. But who can tell. These things are lost in the mists of time.


----
..


One '''pilana''' can be appended to '''maŋgas''', and that is -'''pi'''.
=== ... Further uses of '''dí''' and '''dè''' ===


The usuage is actually exactly the same as the English ... "while ''verb''ing"
..


----
If we first hear a plural noun articulated in a conversation, the most likely meaning we would assigned to it would be the universal set. For example '''moltai.a'''. There is a more explicit means to express the universal set. For example ... '''kài moltai''' = "doctor.kind" but this construction is seldom used.


=== ... Saidaus===
An example of usage is ... '''moltai.a súr jini''' = "doctors are clever"


..
OK ... now lets zoom in a bit. To zoom in we need to take in or give out some narrative. So now we hear the following ....


'''saidaus''' => noun OR noun phrase derived from a adjective.
<b>Next week British junior doctors will withhold many services in protest against the long hour expected of them</b>


'''saidaus baga''' => noun
OK ... after hearing that ... '''moltai.a dè''' would be taken to mean "British junior doctors"


'''saidaus kaza''' => noun phrase
OK ... lets hear a further bit of narrative ...


'''saidaus kaza''' can have 8 possible elements.
<b>Much to the disgruntlement of the senior doctors who will have a hard week ahead of them making up for the short fall. </b>


These elements are exactly the same as the ones detailed in the '''seŋko''' section below, except the third element is '''saidaus baga''' instead of '''seŋko baga'''.
OK ... after hearing that ...  '''moltai.a dè''' would be taken to mean "British senior doctors". So, what '''dè''' refers to doesn't persist long, Our perspective is continually changing.


Actually '''saidaus''' can be derived from "locatives" and "genitives" as well as from '''saidau'''. For example ...
[ I can't help thinking that the proximate/obviate system existing in Plains Cree would be very useful. You could keep track of two protagonists through a discourse without reverting to full NPs. But I guess there are cognative reasons why it is difficult to use. Well, if it was easy to use, it would be far more wide-spread. It must be very useful. ]


'''pobomaus''' = the one on top of the mountain
This is in normal discourse. However if some objects are physically pointed out '''*''' when first introduced (and presumably they stay in sight for the duration of the discourse) what '''dí''' and '''dè''' referred to would persist.


'''yós jene''' = the one belonging to Jane
So we can see that '''dè''' points back in time. It brings to the top of consciousness, the last set of doctors talked about.


..
..


== ..... To bring a verb alive==
In a narrative many objects are encountered. If a newly introduced object is marked by '''dí''' it means that the object is important to the narrative and you will shortly be getting more information about it. The process is not exactly the inverse of '''anaphora'''. But one is compatible with "information given in the past leading to easy identification of which object in particular we are talking about. The other is compatible with "in the near future I will give you information about this object and you will be able to identify which object in particular I am talking about as well as I can"


'''béu''' and English are exactly the same in this respect.


'''helga''' = life,  '''helga''' = alive .... what abiut '''angwa''' ??? '''helkas''' a clause ??
'''*''' Not necessarily by using a finger ... a gesture with the head ... or even the orientation of the eyes can suffice.


Lets take the  '''solbe''' to explain these different forms. '''solbe''' is a '''maŋga''' and it would be found in the dictionary ... and if it was an English/ '''béu''' dictionary ... the translation "to drink" would lie alongside it.
..


An example of one of its (many)  r.forms is '''solbori''' = He/she/it drank  ....... so the r.form corresponds to a verb in indicative mood.
== ..... Kenzuma==


An example of one of its (handful of) s.forms is '''gò solban''' = I wish I could drink  .......  corresponds to a sort of subjunctive mood.
..


The u.form (only one u.form per word) is '''solbu''' = drink ! ....................... so the u.form corresponds to a verb in imperative mood.
'''béu''' also has what I call an extended noun phrase. An extended noun phrase is a normal NP with either a partitive appended to the LHS, or a RC appended to the RHS.


The i.form (only one i.form per word) is '''solbi''' ... this is the fornm used in verb chains and will be explained later.
The example below shows an extended noun phrase '''kenzuma''' with both a partitive AND an RC ...
 
We will go into a lot more detail about all these forms in the next chapter.


..
..


[[Image:TW_522.png]]
[[Image:SW_090.png]]


..


== ... Other ... to be thought about more==
{|
|-
! || uya ||  wì  || yiŋkai  || ofa || nài || tunheu-h || doik-u-r-a
|-
| ..... ||three  ||  of  || girl || five || {{small|REL}}  || townhall-{{small|DAT}} || walk-{{small|3PL-IND-PRES}}
|}
..... Three of the five girls that are walking to the townhall.


..
..


What about taking more question words out of the big NP as I done in "numerative" ?
=== ... The relative clause===


What about when pronouns are the head.
..


I still haven't resolved the ANY question.
The '''béu''' relative clause is pretty similar to the English relative clause. However not exactly so.


Go into locatives more ... are they restricted to the '''pilana''' ? ... are they full blooded adjectives ?
A relative clause is a clause that modifies a NP of course. I think the best way to explain how the '''béu''' RC works is to give three examples. Each example will demonstrate a subtype of RC. In each example I will reconstitute the plain clause (PC) underlying the RC by looking at the NP and the RC.


(1)


----
{|
|-
! yiŋkai || ofa ||nài  || doik-u-r-a
|-
| the girl || five ||  {{small|REL}}  || walk-{{small|3PL-IND-PRES}}
|} => the five girls who are walking


'''falaja jonos jene timpori pobomau''' "John hit Jane in the afternoon on top of the mountain" .... this is a '''helkas''' ... a clause
NP = '''yiŋkai ofa''' : RC = '''nài doikura''' => PC = '''yiŋkai ofa doikura''' "five girls are walking" ....... notice that '''nài''' is binned.


The corresponding '''maŋga kaza''' would be '''timpa jonos jene pobomau falaja''' ... "John's hitting Jane in the afternoon on top of the mountain"
In the above PC  '''yiŋkai''' is absolutive.  


The above '''maŋga kaza''' could appear in a clause as S, O or A argument.
(2)


----
{|
|-
! bàu || nài-h  || glá-s || fy-o-r-i || yiŋkai-wo
|-
| the man ||  {{small|REL-DAT}}  || women-{{small|ERG}}  || tell-{{small|3SG-IND-PAST}}  || girl-{{small|ABOUT}}
|} => the man to whom the woman told about the girl


Another way in which this construction differs from a "brick" '''fandaunyo''' is that there is a <u>magnifier slot</u>. This can be filled with just one word  ... well two words if you count '''hè''''s derived polar opposite '''uhe''' as a separate word.
NP = '''bàu''' : RC = '''nàih glás fyori yiŋkaiwo''' => PC = '''bàuh glás fyori yiŋkaiwo''' ............ notice that '''nài''' is again binned. Also -'''h''' has to find some other word to stick on to.


Now as '''hè''' also qualifies other parts of speech, we have some ambiguity here. For example ...
In the above PC '''bàu''' is dative.  


'''moze pona hè''' can mean either <u>a lot of hot water</u> or <u>very hot water</u>. One can disambiguate by saying '''moze pona hè . moze hè''' / '''moze pona . moze hè'''  meaning <u>a lot of hot water</u> or '''moze pona hè . pona hè''' / '''moze pona . pona hè''' meaning <u>very hot water</u>.
(3)


..
{|
|-
! gwai.a || nài  || polg-ai-r-a || fía || ?ode
|-
| the islands ||  {{small|REL}}  || sail-{{small|1PL.INC-IND-PRES}}  || between || them
|} => "the islands that we are sailing between"


If there is <u>any</u> entry in this slot, the head noun will be <u>singular</u>.
NP = '''gwaia''' : RC = '''nài polgaira fía ?ode''' => PC = '''polgaira fía gwaia''' ......................  '''nài''' is again binned. Also '''?ode''' is discarded. The NP must be positioned behind '''fía''', the preposition that governs it.


I call it the numerative slot instead of just number slot, because some entries allowed are not strictly numbers.
In the above PC '''gwaia''' is not absolutive, also not adorned by a '''pila?o'''. Instead it exists in a prepositional phrase. For this reason, a pronoun '''?ode''' is needed in the RC to represent the NP


..
..


'''holambu''' = "to explode" ....... '''holambus''' = "an\the explosion"
I believe that Arabic structures its RC in a similar way to the above.


'''laila''' = to sing, singing .......... '''lailas''' = a\the song (one instance of singing)
..


[ Also a game, a thought ... we need a verb meaning "to compose music" ... then the -'''s''' of this would mean "a song" as "champagne supernova" is a song. And  '''nò''' -'''s''' => "music" ]
OK ... you should all be experts in RC's now. You just run backward the 3 NP + RC => PC processes.


..
..


Some trivia ...
This is discussed in greater detail in CH5.


If one were to say ...
..
 
Roger is bla bla bla, Jack is bla bla bla and Charlie is Roger is bla bla bla. All three are bla.


In '''béu''' you would not say "all three", but rather "the threesome" ('''leume''') ... which is a head noun rather than a number.
=== ... The partitive===
OK ... when talking about mathematics we come across it, but otherwise you do not find numbers occurring by themselves.
 
In a similar manner, "no three" = '''jù leume''' and "any three" = '''ʔài ʔài leume'''


..
..


MORE ON THE SENKO SECOND ELEMENT .... to think about ???
A few sections back I mentioned '''ló''' ... the '''béu''' equivalent to "other/others/the other/another/the others".


If there is <u>any</u> entry in this slot, the head noun will be <u>singular</u>.
'''ló''' is used where the speech participants have agreed on the population (of whatever noun category) under consideration but one of them wants to expand this population.  


I call it the numerative slot instead of just number slot, because some entries allowed are not strictly numbers.
This expansion is a bit like "a shot in the dark", the speech participant requesting additional items usually is in the dark as to that additional items are available. Because of this, there is only one word '''ló'''. I mean, if the speech participant requesting additional items had an idea about what additional items were available, he could add more detail along with his request. Perhaps we would have '''donu''' meaning "another with a bell", '''doni''' meaning "another with a whistle" ... well O.K. I am being a bit facetious ... but you understand what I am getting at.


All numbers can go in this slot of course. Also the particle '''nò''' ("number") can go in this slot.
Now '''ló''' is used to expand the population under consideration ... to increase the scope of the conversation ... to sort of "zoom out".


'''ʔà''' = one. So also ...
Now sometimes it is necessary to "zoom in". For instance suppose you heard "three of the doctors decided to stop off at the pub on the way home" within  larger narrative. After this point, these three doctors could be referred to as ''they''. The main-protagonists/subject/topic have been reduced from eight to three. Zooming in is not a shot in the dark. The population under consideration is a known concept. The usual method is to specify the "new scope" plus the "original scope" in some sort of construction. The languages of the world all have methods for zooming in ... usually some quite simple construction, often involving a particle which has evolved from "from"/"out of". '''wì''' is the particle used in '''béu'''. Some examples of its use ...


'''ʔà''' = some (for singular noun)
'''ú wì moltai''' = all of the doctors


'''ʔài''' = some (this makes the noun plural)
'''yè wì moltai''' = some of the doctore = several of those doctors = a number of those doctors


'''ʔà ʔà''' = any (for singular nouns)
'''jù wì moltai''' = none of the doctors


Also we can have ...
'''tontu wì moltai dí''' = the majority of these doctors


{| border=1
'''a?a lú tuge wì moltai dè''' more = one or more of those doctors
  |align=right| '''ú'''
  |align=left| all
  |align=left|
  |align=left|
  |align=right| '''jù'''
  |align=left| no
  |-
  |align=right| '''hài'''
  |align=left|  many
  |align=right|  '''yahai'''
  |align=left|  a moderate number
  |align=right| '''iyo'''
  |align=left|  few
  |-
  |align=right| '''haige'''
  |align=left| more
  |align=left|
  |align=left| 
  |align=right| '''iyoge'''
  |align=left|  less
  |-
  |align=right| '''haimo'''
  |align=left| most, a/the majority
  |align=left|
  |align=left|
  |align=right| '''iyomo'''
  |align=left|  least, a/the minority
  |}


'''haige''' and '''iyoge''' can also be qualified by a number (to qualify exactly how much the increase or decrease should be). In '''béu''' the number comes last. For example ...
'''hài wì moltai dè''' = many of those doctors


'''haige hói''' = two more ... In actual fact, although this is permitted, it is very very rare. Usually it is '''hè hói'''. For '''iyoge''' followed by a number, there is no such contraction.
'''ima ín wì moltai dè''' = any two of those doctors


'''moltai wì bawa dí''' = the doctors out of these men


MORE ON THE SENKO EIGHTH ELEMENT ... to think about ???
[ Note ... '''ú wì moltai''' = "all of the doctors" is pretty similar to '''ú moltai''' and '''moltai ú''' ... similarly these expressions with '''jù'''. Nothing really to worry about. You have similar flexibility in many languages (including English). Perhaps '''ú wì moltai''' stresses that no "zooming" is happening. Perhaps '''ú moltai''' is used for generic statements such as '''ú moltai r jini''' "all doctors are clever". Perhaps '''moltai ú''' is used in non-generic statements such as '''moltai ú ture tìa pà''' "all the doctors came to my home this morning" ]
..


I suppose the nearest equivalent of '''wì''' is "of". However '''wì''' has not so many functions as "of". For "belonging to", '''yó''' is used. For "relating to"/"connected with". '''wò''' is used.


As English has restrictive relative clauses and non-restrictive relative clauses "NRRC" ... so has '''béu'''.
[Still thinking if '''wì''' should be involved with "a glass of milk"/"a heart of gold"]


a) ... RNC ... '''yiŋki nài r doikala nambon sùr hauʔe ''' = the girls that are walking home are pretty
..


b) ... NRRC ...  '''yiŋki _ nài r doikala nambon _ sùr hauʔe ''' = the girls, that are walking home, are pretty ... (a pause (gap), I represent by "_" )
Pronouns are used in partitives in the same way as NP's.


In b) the NRRC is giving us extra information about the girls.
'''a?a wì pài''' = "one of us"


[ Some thoughts ... I guess a RC is a bit like an adjective and it directly qualifies a noun. A NRRC is a bit like the second element in apposition. It is giving us extra information about the noun (which might otherwise be given in a separate utterance). Both NRRC and the second elements in apposition are isolated using pauses. ]
'''ima wì onde''' = "two of them"


In English you get what is sometimes called a <u>headless relative clause</u> "HRC" or a <u>free relative clause</u> ... I guess "free from a noun" is the thinking behind the second term.
'''há ima wì onde glá timpura''' = "two of them are hitting the woman"


"What you see is what you get" is an example of a HRC ... well two examples to be precise.
[ I guess English is a bit stange w.r.t. plural pronoun. I mean ... why not "*two of they are walking" {following the pattern "they are walking"} instead of "two of them are walking" ]


We have exactly the same in '''béu''' ...
----


'''hù bwáir or hù màir''' = what you see is what you get
Two other numeratives that we haven't mentioned yet are '''tontu''' "the majority"/"most" and '''tonji''' "the minority".


[You could also say ... '''dè hù bwáir or dè hù màir''' ... but this would be considered a bit stiff, a bit pedantic
'''ton''' = bit/part/section ... '''tontu''' <= '''ton jutu''' ... '''tonji''' <= '''ton tiji''' ... '''toŋko''' = to seperate ???


..


INDONESIAN
== ... 16 useful little words==


..


Note ... even though we have no word "of" ... there is no ambiguity. If the above was two '''fandaunyo''', there would either be a pause between '''hoŋko''' and '''ʔazwo''' (for example if one was A and one was the O argument), or they would be separated by "and" '''lé''' if they were separate '''fandau'''.
{| border=1
  |align=center| '''jupu'''  
  |align=center| nobody
  |align=center| '''upu'''
  |align=center| everybody
  |- 
  |align=center| '''juku'''  
  |align=center| never
  |align=center| '''uku'''
  |align=center| always
  |- 
  |align=center| '''juda'''  
  |align=center| nowhere
  |align=center| '''uda'''
  |align=center| everywhere
  |- 
  |align=center| '''jufen'''
  |align=center| nothing
  |align=center| '''ufen'''
  |align=center| everything
|}


In this respect '''béu''' takes after Indonesian. For example ... five big bags of this black rice = lima tas besar beras hitam ini (literally ... five bag big rice black this)
..


three bags rice brown
The above are obviously eroded forms of '''jú pú''', '''ú pú''', ... etc. etc.
three bags big (full) wrt rice brown


(5 bag big) (rice black this)  .... Usually languages have a linker, particular when the phrases are long. For example Chinese "de", English "of", Japanese "no". '''béu''' has no linker (similar to Indonesian) ... (however '''à''' or '''fí''' could be pressed into service if needed ??? )
..


(SideNote) ... '''ʔazwe''' = to suck ... '''ʔazweye''' = to suckle, to offer the breast
{| border=1
  |align=center| '''pu.en'''
  |align=center| somebody
  |align=center| '''pu.in'''
  |align=center| anybody
  |- 
  |align=center| '''kyu.en'''  
  |align=center| sometime
  |align=center| '''kyu.in'''
  |align=center| any time
  |- 
  |align=center| '''da.en'''
  |align=center| somewhere
  |align=center| '''da.in'''
  |align=center| anywhere
  |- 
  |align=center| '''fenen'''
  |align=center| something
  |align=center| '''fenin'''
  |align=center| anything
|}


HAREM
..


Opening a door to the harem, revealing 67 scantily clad houries
The above are obviously eroded forms of '''pú èn''', '''pú ín''' etc. etc. They are all two syllable words, and of course as two syllable words lack tone.


1) You can fuck any one.
The words in the first column above can be made plural by adding '''yè'''  ... '''pu.in yè''' = some people, '''kyu.en yè''' = sometimes, etc. etc.


2) You can fuck every one ......... 1) and 2) are NOT the same !
..
 
-----


'''helkas'''
'''upu''' and '''ufen''' can be followed by '''uwe''' to show that the group is acting (or undergoing an action) collectively.


----
'''a?awe''' can be added to show that the group is acting (or undergoing an action) individually.


'''helgo''' => '''helkas'''
..
..


Another important word category is '''helgo''' .. "finite verb". That is .. a verb in its r.form, s.form, u.form or i.form.
== ..... Olus==


So '''helgo''' are derived from  '''manga'''. [related words ... '''helga''' = "to live" and '''helgi''' = "alive"]
..


----
'''olus''' can mean "noun". It can also mean "noun phrase" (NP).


More details about '''maŋkas''' and '''colwaikas'''
Whereas '''kenʒi''' refers to countable nouns, '''olus''' is the term used for uncountable nouns (also called mass nouns).


----
The expansion of '''olus''' by various modifiers is quite similar to  '''kenʒi''' ...


As we know, the main elements in a '''helkas''' are free. That is the S, A and O arguments can appear either side of the verb. However in other areas word order is not so free. For example in copula clauses. Also '''maŋkas''' does not have free word order. So how exactly is it done ... how do we derive '''maŋkas''' which has fixed word order from '''seŋkas''' which has free word order. Well the element that is marked on the '''helkas''' by the vowel just before the "r", comes immediately to the left of the '''maŋga'''. Also note that even though this is often dropped in '''seŋkas''' it can not in '''maŋkas'''*. The O argument (naked noun) of the '''helkas''' must come immediately after the '''maŋga''' in the '''maŋkas'''. Any other peripheral arguments are stuck on at the end.


The '''helkas''' = '''solbari saco he? moze pona''' = I drank some cold water very quickly
[[Image:SW_091.png]]


Derived '''maŋkas''' = '''pà solbe moze pona sacowe''' ... which can be an argument in another '''helkas''' or copula clause ...
Of course numbers, '''iyo''' and '''hài''' are not appropriate (quantity slot)


'''pà solbe moze pona sacowe r kéu''' = my drinking the cold water quickly was bad
Also the items in the determiner slot are a bit "iffy". For example '''moze dí''' is perhaps '''kài moze dí''' with '''kài''' elided.


..
..


.*Well actually it is dropped in certain circumstances. For example ...
So ... an example of an  '''olus''' ...


'''ʔár solbe moze''' = I want to drink water
'''hoŋko ima wì ?azwo pona''' = "two cups of warm milk"


..
..


If you see a '''maŋga''' surrounded by other elements, how do you know if you have a '''maŋkas''' or a '''seŋkas'''. Well in the '''maŋkas''' the '''manga''' can not be plural or have any possessors for one thing. For another thing a '''maŋkas''' can only take a subset of the '''pilana'''. While a '''seŋkas''' can take all 17 '''pilana''' a '''maŋkas''' is restricted to 7 ... '''là''', '''máu''', '''gòi''', '''tú''', '''jì''', '''só''' and '''wò'''.
A few hundred words have a dual existence ... in one guise '''olus''' in another guise  '''kenʒi'''. With final vowel '''e u a o''' or '''i''' (the last one is especially common) they have a collective meaning. For example ...  
 
'''dói''' = month, '''doiwe''' = monthly


..
..


== ..... Pronouns==
{|
! bodi ||align=center|  ng-o-r
|-
| birds || fly-{{small|3SG-IND}}
|} =>small birds fly ................. [notice the third person singular agreement on the verb]


..
..


Here, for a transitive clause, "that which initiates the action" is called the A argument, and "that which is affected by the action" the O argument. Also, for an intransitive verb, the noun is called the S argument. It is convenient to make a distinction between all three cases. I follow the linguist RMW Dixon in using this terminology.
However with a change of the final vowel to '''ai''' these concepts become countable.
 
In most languages the S argument is marked the same way as the A argument. However in some languages the S argument is marked the same way as the O argument. These are called ergative languages. '''béu''' is one of these ergative languages. About a quarter of the world languages are ergative or partly ergative.
 
 
Below are the '''béu''' pronouns for the S and O arguments. This form can be considered the "unmarked form".  


..
..


{| border=1
{|
  |align=center| me
! bodai ||align=center| lail-o-r-a
  |align=center| '''pà'''
|-
  |align=center| us
| a small bird || sing-{{small|3SG-IND-PRES}}
  |align=center| '''wìa'''
|} => a small bird is singing
  |align=center| inclusive
  |-
  |align=center|
  |align=center|
  |align=center| us
  |align=center|  '''yùa'''
  |align=center| exclusive
  |-
  |align=center| you
  |align=center| '''gì'''
  |align=center| you
  |align=center| '''jè'''
  |-
  |align=center| him, her
  |align=center| '''ò'''
  |align=center| them
  |align=center| '''nù'''
  |-
  |align=center| it
  |align=center| '''ʃì'''
  |align=center| them
  |align=center| '''ʃì'''
    |}


..
..


Below are the pronouns for the A  arguments ( the ergative arguments ).
Which can be made plural by putting a number in front (or one of the other numeratives).
 
Pronouns  differ from nouns in that their tones change between the ergative and the non-ergative form. This is in addition to the normal suffixing of  -'''s''' when a noun becomes marked as ergative.


..
..


{| border=1
{|
  |align=center| I
!  bodai ||align=center| uya || lail-u-r-a
  |align=center| '''pás'''
|-
  |align=center| we
| small bird || three || sing-{{small|3PL-IND-PRES}}
  |align=center| '''wías'''
|} => three small birds are singing
  |-
  |align=center|  
  |align=center|  
  |align=center| we
  |align=center| '''yúas'''
  |-
  |align=center| you
  |align=center| '''gís'''
  |align=center| you
  |align=center| '''jés'''
  |-
  |align=center| he, she
  |align=center| '''ós'''
  |align=center| they
  |align=center| '''nús'''
  |-
  |align=center| it
  |align=center| '''ʃís'''
  |align=center| they
  |align=center| '''ʃís'''
    |}


..
..


'''jè''' and '''jés''' are the second person plural forms.
Here are some more of these concepts treated in this way ...
 
There is one other pronoun ... the reflexive pronoun '''tí'''. This is always an O argument. Notice that it is the only O argument with a high tone.
 
There is a strong tendency for it to come after the A argument. For example ...
 
'''jonos tí timporja jindin''' = john has not yet hit myself
 
This particle can be amalgamated to the infinitive to give a reflexive infinitive. For example ...
 
'''timpa''' = to hit ... '''ti.timpa''' = "to self-hit"/ "to hit oneself"/"to hit yourself"
 
[ A dot is used to show that the word comprises two separate elements. I suppose most linguists would use "=" to show cliticization. The dot makes no difference to the pronunciation ]
 
I suppose I should also mention the reciprocal particle '''bèn''' at this point. It always follows the verb. For example ...
 
'''jonos jenes timpur bèn''' = John and Jane hit each other.
 
The plural pronouns above can also combine with specifiers (and number) to make pronoun phrases.
 
Below is a table with '''nù''' "them". 
 
The other plural pronouns pattern in a similar way. That is ... '''yùa''', '''wìa''', '''jè''' and '''ʃì'''


..
..


{| border=1
{| border=1
   |align=left| '''jù nù'''
   |align=center| '''yinki'''
   |align=left| none of them
   |align=center| crumpet
   |align=left| '''ù nù'''
   |align=center| '''yinkai'''
   |align=left| all of them
   |align=left| a young unmarried woman, an attractive girl, a virgin
   |-
   |-  
   |align=left| '''í nù'''
   |align=center| '''toti'''
   |align=left| any of them
   |align=center| children
   |align=left| '''é nù'''
   |align=center| '''totai'''
   |align=left| one of them
   |align=left| a child
   |align=left| '''éu nù'''
  |-
   |align=left| some of them
   |align=center| '''wazbo'''
  |-
   |align=center| distance
   |align=left| '''hài nù'''
   |align=center| '''wazbai'''
   |align=left|  many of them
   |align=left| 3,680 m (the unit of distance ... the '''béu''' km or mile)
  |align=left|
   |-  
  |align=left| 
   |align=center| '''malkufa'''
  |align=left| '''iyo nù'''
   |align=center| cabbages
  |align=left|  few of them
   |align=center| '''malkufai'''
   |-
   |align=left| a cabbage
   |align=left| '''haige nù'''
   |-  
   |align=left| more of them
   |align=center| '''alha'''
   |align=left|
   |align=center| flowers
  |align=left|
   |align=center| '''alhai'''
  |align=left| '''iyoge nù'''
   |align=left| a flower
   |align=left| less of them
   |-
   |align=left| '''haimo nù'''
   |align=left| most of them
  |align=left|
  |align=left|  
   |align=left| '''iyomo nù'''
   |align=left| a minority of them
   |}
   |}
.. [[Image:TW_793.png]]


..
..


Notice that  '''nò uhai haizo''' and '''haizmo''' are 4 specifiers that are never used with pronouns. I don't know why.
Words derived using the suffixes '''mi'''/'''mai''' also pattern with these dual identity words. For example ... '''beumai''' = "somebody with knowledge of the '''béu''' language and/or culture" : '''beumi''' = "the entire body of people with knowledge of the '''béu''' language and/or culture"


..
..


== ..... Word order==
Remember that all collectives take singular pronouns and, if they are A or S arguments, produce an -'''o'''- in slot 1 of the verb (as opposed to -'''u'''-).


..
..


In English it is the order of the verb and the arguments that shows who is the doer and what is the "done to". Namely the A and S argument come before the verb and the O argument after.
There is a particle '''k+''', that when put in front of a '''saidau''' or a '''kenʒi''' gives an '''olus'''


[ English is a non-ergative language and hence the A and S argument get treated in the same way. ]
You hear it a lot prefixed to animal names ... like when talking about characteristics which are common to an entire species. For example ...


In '''béu''', to show who is the doer and what is the "done to", the suffix -'''s''' is appended to the A argument. For example ...
'''sadu''' "elephant" ... '''k+ sadu''' "the elephants" or "elephants" ... as in '''k+ sadu r jodo jini''' "the elephant is an inteligent animal"


'''gèu''' "green" .......... '''k+ gèu''' "the green ones"


'''glás bàu timpra''' = The woman has hit the man


'''glá bàus timpra''' = The man has hit the woman
{|
 
|-
'''bàu r doikala''' = The man is walking
! k+ sadu || r || jodo || jini
|-
| elephant-kind || {{small|COP}} || animal || clever
|}


Note ... '''k+''' is in free variation with '''kài''' "sort/type/kind"


[ '''béu''' is an ergative language and hence the O and S argument have the same form. ]


 
'''**''' Birds smaller than pidgeons are '''bodai'''. Birds that are pidgeon size and above are '''jwado''' ... '''jwado''' is '''kenʒi'''.
But even though '''béu''' doesn't use word order  to show who is the doer and what is the "done to", it does use word order for another purpose. Namely to show if an argument is definite<sup>*</sup> or not. For example ...
 
 
'''bàu doikr''' = The man walks
 
'''doikr bàu''' = A man walks
 
 
So we see ... an argument coming before the verb is definite and one coming after the verb is indefinite.
 
[ <sup>*</sup>And when we say definite, we mean that <U>the person being spoken to</U> can identify X as one particular X instead of some X or any X. ]
 
 
In English only 2 orders are found. Namely ... SV and AVO ... (V = verb). However in '''béu''' you have what is called "free word order". This means that you can come across the following 8 orders ... SV, VS, AVO, AOV, VAO, OVA, OAV and VOA.
 
But actually in a piece of discourse, it is most likely that the S or A argument are old information and probably the topic (the thing that you have been going on about for some time). In '''béu''' an established  topic is usually dropped and so the 8 sentence types shown above collapse into 3 sentence types. Namely ...  V(s), O V(a) and V(a) O
 
[ V(s) represents a verb marked for the person/number of the S argument and V(a) represents a verb marked for the person/number of the A argument ]


..
..


== ..... The Case System==
== ..... Saidau==


..
..


We have just mentioned the ergative case. In total there are 17 cases of course (if you were to include the unmarked case as well you have 18 different forms). They are called the '''pilana'''.
The '''saidau''' (adjective) has two uses in '''béu'''. It can either be part of a NP or it can be a copular complement. For example ...


These are attached to a noun and show the relationship of that noun with respect to the rest of the sentence.
'''bàu gèu''' = a/the green man


The word '''pilana''' is built up from ;-
'''bàu r gèu''' = a/the man is green


'''pila''' (v) = to place, to position
'''gèu''' above is a simple adjective. Adjective phrases exist as well.


'''pilana''' (a, n) = positioning, the positioner
An important particle that increases the degree of an adjective is  '''sowe'''. For example ... '''gèu sowe''' "very green"


..
..


[[Image:TW_450.png]]
These adjectives can become nouns by froning them with '''ə''',  '''kə''' and '''kuwai'''.


..
'''ə gèu''' = a/the green one


The '''pilana''' are either realized as affixes or as stand-alone prepositions. If they are realized as affixes then, in the '''béu''' script uses a sort of shorthand. That is the affix is represented as one letter.
'''kə gèu''' = a/the green ones


Whether the '''pilana''' appears as an suffix or a preposition depends on the noun phrase ... if the NP is only one word => suffix  :  NP more than one word => preposition. For example ...
'''kuwai gèu''' = greenness


'''nambodua''' = beyond the house


'''dùa nambo yinkai hauʔe''' = beyond the house of the pretty girl
[ NOTE : I don't think the schwa is visually distinct enough. From now on I will use a plus sign to depict the schwa ]


[Also for '''pilana''' 11 and 13 .... a preposition is used if the noun ends in a consonant]


..
'''+ gèu''' = a/the green one


[[Image:TW_452.png]] ........................................... <u>Specific Location</u>  ................................................... [[Image:TW_453.png]]
'''k+ gèu''' = a/the green ones


The first 8 define location.
'''kuwai gèu''' = greenness




1) -'''pi''' = in
OK ... that's better.


2) -'''la''' = on


3) -'''mau''' = above, over, on top of
'''+''' and '''k+''' are historically derived from '''?à''' "one" and '''kài''' "type". Actually they are in free variation with their historical counterparts ... a bit like "either" in English can have two pronounciations. When you want to emphasize, you would of course use the phonetically heavier version.


4) -'''goi''' = below, under, underneath, beneath
'''kuwai''' is a word meaning  property/characteristic.


5) -'''ce''' = this side of
Actually these 3 words are also productive with "locatives" and "genitives" as well. For example ...


6) -'''dua''' = beyond, at the far side of
'''+ pobomau''' = the one on top of the mountain


7) -'''bene''' = right, at the right hand side of
'''+ yó jene''' = the one belonging to Jane


8) -'''komo''' = left, on the left hand side of
..


[[Image:TW_918.png]]


These are used to give a location with respect to some object. For example …
..


'''nambopi''' = in the house
The above chart shows the main derivational pathways in '''béu'''. Only pathways 2, 3, 4 are relevent to this section.


'''nambomau''' = on the house, over the house
..


[ Note ... in a lot of situations, where "on" would be used in English, "above" is used in '''béu'''. For example ...
Note ... '''+ gèu sowe''' = "a/the very green one" ... '''sowe''' never modifies a  '''senko'''.


"John is on the mountain" = "'''jono r pobomau'''"  not "'''jono r pobola'''" ]
By the way ... determiners and relative clauses can also stand by themselves, but they are unmodified when they do so. (Note to self : are you sure about this ?)


.............................................................................................................................................. [[Image:TW_455.png]]
..


[[Image:TW_473.png]] ...................................................... <u>Roll</u>  ............................................................. [[Image:TW_474.png]]
== ..... Pila?o==


..


The next 4 define the roll that the noun plays in the sentence.
In total there are 17 cases plus the unmarked case (the absolutive case). The absolutive is not called a case in the '''béu''' linguistic tradition : instead it is called "noun base"


These 17 cases are called '''pila?o'''.


9) -'''tu''' = with, using
These are attached to a noun and show the relationship of that noun with respect to the rest of the sentence.


He/she works as a doctor = '''kodor moltai.tu'''
..


He/she exercises by running = '''xxxor jaŋkastu'''
The word '''pila?o''' is built up from ;-


10) -'''ji''' = for, for the benefit of
'''pila''' (v) = to place, to position, to correctly align


11) -'''s''' = “the ergative case”
'''pila?o''' (n) = the positioner


12) -'''wo''' = about, with respect to
..


Probably the most important case is the ergative (the 11th case). In English it is the order of the verb and the arguments that shows who is the doer and what is the "done to". Namely the A and S argument come before the verb and the O argument after ...  [ English is a non-ergative language and hence the A and S argument get treated in the same way.]


'''bàus glaji nambo bundore kontotu''' = the man has built the house for the woman with a hammer
In '''béu''', to show who is the doer and what is the "done to", the suffix -'''s''' is appended to the A argument. For example ...


'''gala bauwo catur''' = the women talk about the man
..


'''glás bàu timporI''' => The woman hit the man ............... (with "the man" being the O argument)


[[Image:TW_475.png]] ........................................................................................................................... [[Image:TW_476.png]]
'''glá bàus timporI''' => The man hit the woman ................. (with "the man" being the A argument)


[[Image:TW_480.png]] ......................................................... <u>Motion</u>  ....................................................... [[Image:TW_481.png]]  
'''bàu tìah doikori''' => The man walked home ........................... (with "the man" being the S argument) ... [ '''béu''' is an ergative language and hence the O and S argument have the same form.]


..


The next 2 specify motion.
[[Image:SW_063.png]]


..


13) -'''n''' = to
There is a regular relationship between preposition and affix, apart from (11) which is highly irregular, (16) which is irregular and (17) which is very slightly irregular. When suffixes they all are usually written using a single consonant. No confusion can arise as normally consonants are illicit word finally. However there is no abbreviated forms for (15) and (17). Of the 17 consonants, ? and n are not involved in these abbreviations.


14) -'''fi''' = from
..


The '''pila?o''' are either realized as either affixes or as prepositions.


Now these are used to give a motion with respect to some object. For example …
Whether the '''pila?o''' appears as an suffix or a preposition depends on whether you have a N (noun) or a NP (noun phrase). If you have N the affix is used, if you have NP the preposition is used.


'''nambon''' = to the house
'''tiadua''' = beyond the house


'''nambofi''' = from the house
'''dùa tìa yó yinkai hauʔe''' = beyond the house of the pretty girl


The prepositional form of 13) varies. If the NP begins with a vowel, then '''àn''' is used, if the NP begins with a consonant, then '''í''' is used.
..


[[Image:TW_940.png]]


[[Image:TW_482.png]] ............................................................................................................................. [[Image:TW_483.png]]  
[[Image:SW_092.png]]  


[[Image:TW_464.png]] ............................................. <u>General Location</u>  ................................................... [[Image:TW_465.png]]  
[[Image:SW_093.png]]  


[[Image:SW_094.png]]


The next is a “general locative”.
[[Image:TW_568.png]]




15)  -'''ʔe''' = at, on, in


Note on the script ... If they are realized as affixes then, in the '''béu''' script uses a sort of shorthand. That is the affix is represented as one letter.


'''glá (yó) pà r namboʔe''' = My wife is at home
..


'''flovan gì r pazbaʔe''' = Your food is on the table
Earlier we have seen that when 2 nouns come together the second one qualifies the first.


'''boloŋgai r flovanʔe''' = the flies are at the food (some buzzing around and some crawling on the surface of the food)
However this is only true when the words have no '''pila?o''' affixed to them.  If you have two contiguous nouns suffixed by the same '''pila?o''' then they are both considered to contribute equally to the sentence roll specified. For example ...


'''boloŋga r flovanʔe''' = the fly is at the food (sometimes buzzing around and sometimes crawling on the surface)
'''jonos jenes solbur moze''' = "John and Jane drink water"


'''boloŋga r flovanla''' = the fly is on the food (i.e. its legs are touching the food)
In the absence of an affixed '''pila?o''', to show that two nouns contribute equally to a sentence (instead of the second one qualifying the first) the particle '''lé''' should be placed between them. For example ...


[[Image:TW_466.png]] ............................................................................................................................. [[Image:TW_467.png]]
'''jono lé jene maumur''' = "John and Jane sleep"


[[Image:TW_468.png]] .................................... <u>Hybrids of motion & position</u> ........................................ [[Image:TW_469.png]]
Compare the above two examples to '''jono jene maumor''' = "Jane's John sleeps" ... that is "the John that is in a relationship with Jane, sleeps".


..


The last two define motion AND position. They are sort of hybrids of the second '''pilana''' and the '''pilana''' of motion.
.. As parts of speech


..


16) -'''lya''' = onto
'''pila?o''' of location phrases (i.e. nouns with 1 -> 8 or 15) can be considered adjectives. They must come after a noun or a verb. 


17) -'''lfe''' = off
'''pila?o''' of motional phrases (i.e. nouns with 13, 14, 16 or 17) can be considered adverbs. They can come in any position because it is understood that they are qualifying the verb.


[[Image:TW_470.png]] ............................................................................................................................... [[Image:TW_471.png]]
'''pila?o''' phrases defining sentence rolls (i.e. nouns with 9, 10, 11 or 12) can come anywhere. They are considered clause arguments.


----


.. As parts of speech
(Note to self : move the below to a different section)


..
<sup>*</sup> [ Notice that in English, you can either say ... "a bird is in the tree" or "in the tree is a bird"


'''pilana''' of location phrases (i.e. nouns with 1 -> 8 or 15) can be considered adjectives if they come after a noun and adverbs if they come after a verb. They must come after a noun or a verb. Sometimes they come after the copula<sup>*</sup>. In this case they are adjectives. Now often the copula is dropped ... but if this dropping results in any ambiguity it can be readily "undropped".
In '''béu''' only '''jwado r ʔupaiʔe''' is valid ... also note that in this case '''jwado''' is not definite because it is left of the verb. That rule doesn't work with the copula. ]


'''pilana''' of motional phrases (i.e. nouns with 13, 14, 16 or 17) can be considered adverbs. They can come in any position because it is understood that they are qualifying the verb.
----


'''pilana''' phrases defining sentence rolls (i.e. nouns with 9, 10, 11 or 12) can come anywhere. They are considered nouns.
'''jenes solbori moʒi lé ʔazwo''' = "Jane drank water and milk"


<sup>*</sup> [ Notice that in English, you can either say ... "a bird is in the tree" or "in the tree is a bird"
'''jonos jenes hecuri sadu ima lé ʔusfa uya''' = John and Jane saw two elephants and three giraffes.


In '''béu''' only '''jwado r ʔupaiʔe''' is valid ... also note that in this case '''jwado''' is not definite because it is left of the verb. That rule doesn't work with the copula. ]
This word is that is never written out in full but has its own symbol. See below ...


..
..


== ..... Punctuation and page layout==
== ..... Maŋga==


..
..


The letters in a word are always contiguous, that is there is always a line running right through the word. Writing is firstly from top to bottom and secondly from left to right.
These are verbs. In particular '''maŋga''' = "the infinitive form of the verb" or "verbal noun". They call it "maSdar" in Arabic.


Between words there is a small break in the line. The break should be 25% the height of a letter.
I shall call it "base verb".


When telling somebody how to spell a succession of words, this small break would be indicated by '''dù'''
In the BLT ('''béu''' linguistic tradition) the base verb is considered "dead" or "inactive". Only when a suitable "tail" is added does it become "alive" or "active".


Between some words there is a gap. This represents a pause. A pauses in English is represented by a comma, a colon or a semicolon. Whenever an orator draws breath, this will be reflected in the writing by a gap. Also there are occasions where the grammar of '''béu''' demands a gap. A gaps hould be 75% the height of a letter. When such a gap is required I will represent in in my transcription as an underscore. (I could have used a comma, however I prefer not too ... presumable in English, commas originally were always used for pauses in speech. However nowadays in English many pauses are not represented in any way (presumably in these cases when it is not necessary for reading comprehension. Also in English, in a surprising amount of text commas are found where they shouldn't be. In '''béu''' gaps in a textblock have a one-to-one correspondence to a pause in speech). 
So "finite verb" is called '''maŋga ?algu'''. The infinitive form of the verb is simply  '''maŋga'''  


 
(By the way ...  '''?algu''' = alive) ... the next Chapter is all about  '''maŋga ?algu'''.
<sup>*</sup>When listing items, '''béu''' is similar to English ... there is pause between every item except the last two items. Between these items, '''béu''' has '''lé''', English has "and".


..
..


[[Image:TW_400.png]]
In '''béu''' the base verb is a noun. This is different to most languages in the world. In most languages, verbal nouns are derived from verbs. For example ... destroy => destruction : verb => noun whereas in '''béu'''. For example ... '''twá''' : "a/the meeting" => '''twarua''' : "I intend to meet".
 
'''suna_dunu_celai lé àu''' = "orange, brown, pink and black" ... notice the two gaps and then the two breaks in the '''béu''' script above.
 
By the way, this would be spelled out as ... ‘’’sadu sanu nùa sana jù_duzu sanu nùa sanu jù_compa sane lata sanai dù_lata dite dù_sanau dù dù’’’


..
..


When telling somebody how to spell a succession of words, the gap is indicated by saying '''jù'''
English is very chaotic as to the various means it derives nouns from verbs. For example ... "discover" + "y" => the discovery ... "destroy" + "tion" => the destruction ... "run" + '''∅''' => a/the run. Whereas '''béu''' is as orderly as it is possible to get.


OK ... lets get started ...


Single gaps are very common. Occasionally you can have "double gaps" and even "treble gaps". These rare creatures represent "pregnant pauses" which are sometimes used for comic effect.
'''solbe''' = "to drink"


When telling somebody how to spell a succession of words, a "double gap" is rendered by '''bauva''' ??? , a treble gap by '''baiba''' ???.
Now the '''manga''' can amalgamate with other elements. For example ...


Note the single point used in the "double gap" and the pair of points used in the "treble gap".
'''solbe saco''' = "to drink quickly" or "drinking quickly"


For a "double gap" there should be 75% letter height space above and below the dot. For a "treble gap" it is the same plus a 25% letter height space between the two dots.
...and adding more elements ...
..
 
[[Image:TW_401.png]]


..
'''solbe moze sacois*''' = "to drink the water quickly" or "drinking the water quickly"


There is also a punctuation mark called the "sunmark" ( '''kòi''' = sun ). This is basically a full-stop. The "sunmark" has double the diameter of '''omba''' ('''omba''' means "circle" and is used as a decimal point).
'''solbe moze sacois''' and  '''solbe saco''' are examples of '''maŋguma''' ('''maŋga''' plus the augmentive  -'''uma''')


..
Actually a  '''maŋguma''' can get as involved as a clause can. With arguments to the left of the head considered definite and arguments to the right, indefinite. But there is one difference. The ergative argument is marked by the particle '''hí''' rather than '''há''' or -'''ta''' or -'''s'''.


so adding even more elements ...


There are also punctuation marks called "moonmark" ( '''dèu''' = moon ). These are basically brackets. The opening one is called "moonmark" '''damau''' and the closing one is called "moonmark" '''dagoi'''. Direct speech is enclosed in "moonmarks". These bits of direct speech are also highlighted. Usually the first speaker's words are highlighted in blue and the second speaker's words are highlighted in yellow. The highlighted area is lozenge shape. Every "textblock" the protagonists are reset ??. In a story,  after the scene is set ... that is the time of speaking and the identity of the speakers have been established, then their names are dropped from the text and the '''kloi''' "speak" is also dropped. However somebody reading the text out loud would give this information from their understanding of the situation.
'''hí jono solbe moze sacois hí jono''' = "John drinking the water quickly" or "for John to drink the water quickly".


..
This is as involved as I will go. But note that other clausal elements ( dative object, time, adverb, instrument, reason, purpose) can be added. As in normal clauses there is a tendancy to add them to the RHS.  


[[Image:TW_278.png]]
Now the '''maŋguma''' is basically a noun ... as is '''kenʒi''' and '''olus'''. And as with '''kenʒi''' and '''olus''' more modifiers can be added.


..
..


In a normal narrative, everything is written in "textblocks".
[[Image:SW_095.png]]I don't know the '''béu''' name for this. Actually I don't know the English name for this.


The items in the determiner slot are quite rare compared to  '''kenʒi''', but they are licit. There can be nothing in the quantity slot or the ownership slot.


[[Image:TW_270.png]]
The "number + '''wì'''" modifier is quite rare. It means "so many iterations of the action". For example ...


(Please note ... the light lines surrounding the "textblocks" are not real. They are just there to assist me drawing)
'''uya wì hí pà solbe moze''' = (the) three times I drank water


..
..


This is the first page in a "chapter". Notice the symbol at the top left hand side of the first "textblock". This is called a "heavy tile".  
Adjectives can be a bit confusing. For example '''saco''' "quick" would be used immediately after '''maŋga'''. But if not immediately after '''maŋga''' but within the '''maŋguma''', it should take the form '''sacois''' (-'''is''' being the adjective => adverb suffix). But is it is outwith the '''maŋguma''' in the quality slot it will be '''saco'''. Got it ?


Textblocks fit in between "rails" about 4 inches apart. The width of a block should be between 60% and 90% <sup>*</sup> of the block height. Of course it is best to start a new block when the scene of the narrative changes or there is some discontinuity of the action, but this is not always possible. Then you just must arbitrarily split the text into two blocks. The standard practice is to stretch the text a bit so that the tops and bottoms of every column line up with their neighbours. XXXXXX
..


There is no way to split a word between two lines (as we can do in the West by using two hyphens). A "sunmark" must be next to the last word in a sentence (it can not go to the start of a new column by itself) However if a "sunmark" fall next to the bottom rail, then the next column will begin with a "sunmark". This is purely due to a love of symmetry.
In the example we are using '''sacois''' "quickly" can be taken out of the heart, and placed in the '''senko''' phrase as '''saco'''. In the adjective slot of course.


The first text block starts at the top left (as you would expect). The second textblock starts below where the first text block stops. In fact the vertical space between the stop and the start of the two textblocks is equal to the horizontal "interblockspace" (see the figure above).
In a similar vain you have a choice as to where to put a locative. A locative can be placed in the locative slot or it can be placed in '''maŋguma'''. No change of form for the locative ...


If the last "sunmark" of a "textblock" falls next to the bottom rail (as indeed happens with the very first "textblock" of the "chapter", then this "sunmark" is changed into a symbol called a "bottom tile". If a "textblock" ends in a "bottom tile", then what is called a "top tile" will appear before the first word of the next "textblock". This is purely due to a love of symmetry. Note that the "top tile" is exactly the same as the "bottom tile".
'''solbe moze sacois tiapi hí jono''' = '''solbe moze sacois hí jono tiapi''' = "John drinking the water quickly in the house" = "for John to drink the water quickly in the house".
(Actually in modern printing techniques, the text in complete "textblocks" can be stretched to prevent the final "sunmark" falling on the bottom rail)


When you come to the end of the page (you will have some sort of margin of course and not go all the way to the edge), you simply continue the block on the LHS of the next rail (or page). Below is the second page of the chapter. This page continues on from the page above.
OK ... so much for  '''maŋguma'''.


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[[Image:TW_271.png]]
Now we have already introduced the  '''pila?o'''. The '''pila?o''' are totally compatible with '''kenʒi'''. Nearly totally compatible with '''olus'''. However only two '''pila?o''' fit in with '''maŋga'''. These are '''pila?o''' 2 and 9 ... '''là''' and '''tú'''. When fitted to '''maŋga''' they produce an adjective and an adverb respectively.


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..


In every textblock, one word or short noun phrase is highlighted in red. The shape of the highlighted area is rectangular with rounded edges. Usually a noun is chosen and the more iconic the better. Statistically these highlighted words tend to come towards the beginning of the "textblock".
We'll talk about and adverbial construction first ...


..
'''tore doikatu''' = "he/she came on foot" or  "he/she came by walking"


There are two sizes for books. For all hardback books the size is about 8 inches by about 11 inches. For all paperback books the size is about 5 inches by about 8 inches. They are stored as shown in the figure below.
'''tore tú doika saco''' = "he/she came by walking quickly"


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Notice that the particle '''tú''' acts as it normally does and appends to the end of a single word, but stands alone to the left of a multi-word phrase.
 
[[Image:Books.png]]


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Unlike books produced in the West, these books are held with the spine horizontal when being read. The hardback page has two "rails" per page (i.e. three dark lines).
And the adjectival constuction ...
 
On the paperback book, the title is written on the spine and on the front of the book. On the hardback book the title is written on the front, also there is a flap that slides into the spine. However when the book is stored on a shelf, it is pulled out and hangs down. Hence the hardback books can be easily located, even when they are in the bookshelf.
 
 
A book will be divided into chapters. A chapter will have a number and usually a title as well. Either at the end of the book or just after the chapter, there will be a page, in which all the highlighted words for a chapter are listed in order. Instead of referencing things by page number, things are reference by chapter and textblock (indictated by the highlighted word(s) ).
 
Any particular word in a book can be reference by 5 parameters ...
 
1) "title of book"
 
2) number of the chapter
 
3) the highlighted word(s)
 
4) the number of the sunmarks counted. Actually they are counted backwards ... from the final "sunmark" of the "textblock". Note ... all "sunmarks" are counted, even the ones next to the top rail.
 
5) the number of the word. This is also counted backwards (i.e. the final word of the sentence is word "1" ... and so on)
 
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<sup>*</sup> Occasionally very narrow blocks can not be avoided. And of course in mathematical/scientific tracts the tracts are all over the place ... interspersed with diagrams and what have you.


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== ..... Noun totality ... collective and individually==


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..


Sometimes we want to talk about all members of the category "noun" acting (or being acted upon) COLLECTIVELY.
{|
|-
! bàu || doika-la
|
| man || walk-{{small|1SG-IND-PRES}}
|}


For this we use the particle '''ú''' before the plural of the noun. For example ...
{|
|-
! bàu || r  ||doika-la
|
| man || {{small|COPULA} ||walk-{{small|P2}}
|}


'''moltai''' = a/the doctor
Also '''là''' appears often in conjunction with '''manga'''


'''moltai.a''' = doctors
The '''là'''-constuction acts as an adjective. An adjective meaning "XXX-ing" at the (relevant ???) moment of speech". As with all adjectives it can either be part of a NP or it can be a copular complement. For example ...


'''ú moltai''' = all doctors
'''bàu doikala''' = a/the walking man


Note ... the same word, when appended to a noun, means "the whole" or "entire". For example ...
'''bàu r doikala''' = a/the man is walking .... [Note ... '''bàu r doikala''' means exactly the same as '''bàu doikora''']


'''falaja ú''' = all morning
'''là''' differs from most other '''pila?o''' in that, with a '''manga''', it never stands alone. For example ...


..
'''bàu doikala sacois''' = a/the quickly walking man .... [Note ... the affix -'''is''' is appended to '''saco''' to show it is connected to '''doika''' and not '''bàu'''] instead of '''*bàu là doika saco'''
 
The opposite of the above, is when all members of the category "noun" is acting (or is being acted upon) INDIVIDUALLY.
 
By doubling the noun (or the first part of a noun) you give what can be called a distributive meaning.


Some examples ...
In a '''là'''-constuction, everything has the same order as a MP ... the only difference is that -'''la''' is appended to the '''manga''' and '''hí''' XXX is dropped. Well  '''hí''' XXX represents the A argument and the A argument is the thing being described by the '''là'''-constuction, so no need to exist inside the construction.


'''kòi''' = day
This '''là'''-constuction can be called the present participle. The present participle has the meaning "in the process of XXXing".For example ...


'''kòi kòi''' = every day
'''doika''' "to walk" =>  '''doikala''' "in the process of walking"


'''moltai''' = doctor
'''kata''' "to cut" => '''katala''' "in the process of cutting".


'''moltai moltai''' = each doctor
When derived from a transitive verb the object can be included as well. For example '''katala lazde''' "in the process of cutting the grass".


'''falaja''' = afternoon
[ Note ... '''bàu katala lazde''' "the man cutting the grass" means the same as '''bàu nàis katora lazde''' "the man who is cutting the grass" ... however the first is nearly always preferred ... well it is shorter ]


'''fa falaja''' = every afternoon
[ Also note ... '''pà r katala lazde''' means the same as '''(pás) katara lazde''' ... however the second is nearly always preferred ... well it is shorter ]


Notice that for words over two syllables, only the first syllable is prefixed.
O arguments (in an equivalent active clause) can be modified by the '''là'''-construction as well. For example ... '''lazde jwola kata''' "grass being cut" ... '''jwola kata''' being classed as an adjective phrase ('''jwòi''' meaning "to undergo").


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The "word-hood" of these duplications is murky. I am writing them here as two separate words ... i.e. '''fa falaja'''. But maybe '''fafalaja''' or '''fa-falaja''' would be more appropriate.
'''maŋga''' ... as well as appearing as arguments in a clause. That is S, A, O, CS and CO, also appear as complements to auxiliary verbs.


Single syllable words retain there tone when duplicated ... which indicates two separate words. However you also get phonological processes that are usually only word internal. That is to say, these structures show "sandhi".
One such auxilliary is '''tuma''' meaning "to squeaze" or "to force". [ when it means "to squeaze" it is followed by a '''kenʒi''' and is acting as a normal verb, when it means "to force" it is followed by a '''manga''' and is acting as an auxiliaryl verb ]


For example ...


'''yildos yildos''' (every morning) would be pronounced / jildoʃ jildos /
In these constructions, there is a very strong tendency (almost a rule) that the '''maŋga''' is on RHS of  '''maŋguma'''. However if an ergative (A) argument is present, that element can instead be on RHS. Also a very strong tendency fot the O aurgment to directly follow the '''maŋga'''. There is a fairly strong tendency for the S argument to directly follow the '''maŋga'''.


'''bàu bàu''' (every man) could be pronounced / bàu vàu /
So ...


Anyway ... these constructions are never written out in full. Instead a special symbol  is placed above the simple noun. This symbol can vary a bit, depending on the font being used : it can vary from a lower half circle bisected by a vertical stroke to a shape that looks a bit like the Arabic shaddah.
Thomas forced John to hit Jane => '''tomos tumori timpa jene hí jono''' or '''tomos hí jono timpa jene'''


For example ...
Thomas forced Jane to walk => '''tomos tumori doika jene'''


[[Image:TW_394.png]]
[By the way ... as an example of '''tuma''' being a normal verb ... '''tomos jwuba komo jene tumori''' = Thomas squeazed Jane's left buttock ]


It some contexts, semantically, it does not matter whether the individual or the collective form is used. When this is the case, the default choice is "individual" structure. '''ú''' tends to  be used with tangible nouns more, it is hardly ever used with nouns denoting periods of time.
..


Note (as in English) the plural verb form is used for the collective structure, the singular verb form for the individual structure. For example ...
Two other examples of '''maŋga''' with auxilliary verbs (why not) ...


'''ú bàu súr''' = all men are
1) ... '''mbe''' = to hold ..... '''lelpa''' = to sing, singing ..... '''jenes mbor lelpa bòi''' = Jane can sing well. ['''lelpai''' = a song ?]


'''bàu bàu sór'''  = every man is
2) ... '''glù''' = to depart ... '''timpa''' = to hit, hitting ... '''jonos glori timpa jene''' = John stopped hitting Jane


TO THINK ABOUT ...
..
 
?à ?à bàu hù ?ís  =  any man that you want ( ?ís ... "you would want" ???? )


?ài ?ài bàu hù ?ís  =  any men that you want
One notable use of the '''maŋga''' is emphasis, where the '''manga''' is used right next to the same word in '''r'''-form. For example ...


?ài bàu = some men
{|
|-
! daw-o-r-u || dàu
|-
| die-{{small|3SG-IND-FUT}} || death
|} = He/she will die a death => He/she will die for sure


..
..


== ..... '''lé''' .... '''lú''' .... '''lò'''==
{|
|-
! lay-o-r-i || lái
|-
| live-{{small|3SG-IND-PAST}} || life
|} = He/she lived a life => He/she had a full life


..
..


Earlier we have seen that when 2 nouns come together the second one qualifies the first.
{|
|-
! maum-a-r-i || mauma
|-
| sleep-{{small|1SG-IND-PAST}} || sleep
|} = I slept a sleep => I had a deep and satisfying sleep
 


However this is only true when the words have no '''pilana''' affixed to them.  If you have two contiguous nouns suffixed by the same '''pilana''' then they are both considered to contribute equally to the sentence roll specified. For example ...
Now '''maumori mauma''' and '''daw.oru dàu''' are strange. Normally both verbs are strictly intransitive. But here there are transitive. Seemingly sometimes '''béu''' allows


'''jonos jenes solbur moze''' = "John and Jane drink water"
a) intransitive => transitive
b) A argument => absolutive form
c) O argument = '''maŋga'''  


In the absence of an affixed '''pilana''', to show that two nouns contribute equally to a sentence (instead of the second one qualifying the first) the particle '''lé''' should be placed between them. For example ...
'''pà maumari mauma''' is the answer to '''mìn maumari mauma'''  


'''jenes solbori moʒi lé ʔazwo''' = "Jane drank water and milk"
..
..


'''jonos jenes bwuri hói sadu lé léu ʔusʔa''' = John and Jane saw two elephants and three giraffes.
'''*''' Another way to say this is '''solbe saco moze**'''  


[ Compare the above two examples to '''á jono jene solbori moze''' = Jane's John drank water ... i.e. The John that is in a relationship with Jane, drank water ]
'''**''' If '''saco''' doesn't immediately follows the '''manga''', it must be explicitly tagged as an adverb by the -'''is''' suffix. The exact same rule as for (finite)clauses.


This word is that is never written out in full but has its own symbol. See below ...
----
Note ... "I saw a man cutting the grass" is an English clause. I think Dixon analyses "the man cutting the glass" as a complement clause ??? This sees a bit strange to me. The '''béu''' equivalent .... '''hecari bàu katala lazde''' is just analyzed as Verb '''hecari''' ... Object '''bàu''' and Adjective Phrase '''katala lazde'''


----


[[Image:TW_494.png]]
== ..... Feŋgi==


..
..


Note ... in the '''béu''' script, the "o" before "r" is always dropped. This is just a sort of short hand thing.
The '''feŋgi''' or particles are too diverse to say anything meaningful about them here. We will learn them one by one as we go though the ten chapters.


..
..


The following construction is also found.
But just to fill out this section a bit,  I will give you two sets of pronouns. One set being the pronouns in their unmarked form'''*''' and the other ... the pronouns in their ergative form'''**'''.


'''lé moze lé ʔazwo''' = "both water and milk"
Here, for a transitive clause, "that which initiates the action" is called the A argument, and "that which is affected by the action" the O argument. Also, for an intransitive verb, the noun is called the S argument. It is convenient to make a distinction between all three cases. I follow RMW Dixon in using this terminology.


The above construction emphasizes the "linking" word '''lé'''
In most languages the S argument is marked the same way as the A argument. However in some languages the S argument is marked the same way as the O argument. These are called ergative languages. '''béu''' is one of these ergative languages. About a quarter of the world languages are ergative or partly ergative. The ergative system ...


Another linking word is '''lú''' meaning "or".
..
 
'''jenes blor solbe moze lú ʔazwo''' = "Jane can drink water or milk"
 
The following construction is also found.


'''lú moze lú ʔazwo''' = "either water or milk"
{|
|-
! bàu || lé || glá || maum-u-r-i
|-
| man || and || woman||align=center| sleep-{{small|3PL-IND-PAST}}
|} ==> The man and the woman slept


The above construction emphasizes the "linking" word '''lú'''


There is another word that corresponds to the English "or". This is '''ʔala''' and it is a question word. For example ...
{|
|-
! bàu-s ||align=center| glá || timp-o-r-i
|-
| man-{{small|ERG}} || align=centre|woman|| hit-{{small|3SG-IND-PAST}}
|} ==> The man hit the woman


'''ʔís moze ʔala ʔazwo''' = "would you want water or milk"


And the answer expected of would be either "water" or "milk"
{|
 
|-
Say you were asking somebody if they were thirsty and you had only water or milk to give them. Then you would say ... '''ʔís moze lú ʔazwo ʔai@'''
! bàu ||align=center| glá-s || timp-o-r-i
 
|-
The expected answer to the above question would be either "yes" or "no" (as is always the case when you have @ ( @ is pronouced a bit like '''ʔai''' but has contour tone instead of a normal high tone, it has a special symbol and I am using "@" to represent this symbol in my transliteration)).
| man ||align=centre| woman-{{small|ERG}}|| hit-{{small|3SG-IND-PAST}}
 
|} ==> The woman hit the man
Now if the question was "would you want water or milk, or both" you should say ...
 
'''ʔís mose ʔala ʔazwo ʔala leume'''
 
But sometimes (either because of the laziness of the speaker or because the likelyhood was not considered) ... '''ʔís moze ʔala ʔazwo ʔala leume''' comes out as '''ʔís moʒi ʔala ʔazwo'''.
 
So '''ʔís leume''' (I would like both) is an acceptable answer to the question '''ʔís moze ʔala ʔazwo'''
 
If the questioner would like to rule out the answer '''ʔís leume''' he would use the construction .
 
'''ʔís ʔala moze ʔala ʔazwo'''
 
So '''ʔala''' before the first item does exactly the same as '''lé''' or '''lú''' before the first item : it emphasizes the linking word.


..
..


=== ... "no"===
Below are the '''béu''' pronouns for the S and O arguments. This form can be considered the "unmarked form".


..
..


In '''béu''', '''jù''' corresponds to "no".
[[Image:SW_119.png]][[Image:SW_108.png]]
 
"neither water nor milk" would be translated as '''jù moʒi jù ʔazwo'''


..
..


=== ... lists===
'''mpau''' includes the listener in the "we", '''pài''' excludes the listener from the "we" and '''jè''' indicates a plural "you".


..
The proper way to use '''?o''' is to use it for all non-humans. But in actually practice, some people might "elevate" the status of a family pet and call it '''òn''' or '''ʃì'''.


So far we have restricted ourselves to two items. We can summarize the system for two items as below ...
'''onde''' is used for "they" when they are all male, '''ʃide''' is used for "they" when they are all female, '''ʃinde''' is used for "they" when they are mixed, and '''?ode''' is used for "they"when they are all non-human.


..
..


{| border=1
Below are the '''béu''' pronouns for the A argument  ... the "ergative form".
  |align=center| '''lé'''
  |align=center| giving
  |align=center| 2
  |align=center| items
  |-
  |align=center| '''lú'''
  |align=center| giving
  |align=center| 1
  |align=center| item
  |align=center|.....
  |align=center| '''ʔala'''
  |align=center| asking for
  |align=center| 1
  |align=center| item
  |-
  |align=center| '''jù'''
  |align=center| giving
  |align=center| 0
  |align=center| items
  |}
 
..


However we can join up more than two items. When more than two items are joined by the above 4 linking words, it is considered good style to have the linking word before the first item and the last item, before each item (except the first and the last) should be a slight pause (I call it a gap ... see "punctuation and page layout" earlier on this page).


For example ...
[[Image:SW_120.png]]
 
'''jenes bwori lé ifa sadu _ uba ʔusʔa _ ega moŋgo lé oda gaifai falaja dí''' = Jane saw two elephants, three giraffes, four gibbons and five flamengos this morning.


..
..


=== ... other===
NOTE ... Pronouns differ from nouns in that their tones change between the ergative and the unmarked form. For a normal noun it is sufficient that -'''s''' is suffixed. For example ...


..
From now on I will call the ergative form the '''s'''-form, and the unmaked form the base form.
 
'''lò''' = other
 
'''lòi''' = others
 
'''kyulo''' = again
 
'''welo''' = otherwise


..
..


== ..... Correlatives==
There is one other pronoun ... the reflexive pronoun '''tí'''. This is always an O argument. Notice that it is the only O argument with a high tone.


..
..


{| border=1
'''*''' In the Western Linguistic Tradition, these "forms" are called "cases". The English word case used in this sense comes from the Latin casus, which is derived from the verb cadere, "to fall", from the Proto-Indo-European root *ḱad-. The Latin word is a calque of the Greek πτῶσις, ptosis, "falling, fall". The sense is that all other cases are considered to have "fallen" away from the nominative (considered the unmarked form in Latin).  
  |align=center| '''juvan'''
  |align=center| nothing
  |align=center| '''juda'''
  |align=center| nowhere
  |align=center| '''juku'''
  |align=center| never
  |align=center| '''jubu'''
  |align=center| nobody
  |- 
  |align=center| '''ivan'''
  |align=center| anything
  |align=center| '''ida'''
  |align=center| anywhere
  |align=center| '''iku'''
  |align=center| anytime
  |align=center| '''ibu'''
  |align=center| anybody
  |- 
  |align=center| '''evan'''
  |align=center| something
  |align=center| '''eda'''
  |align=center| somewhere
  |align=center| '''eku'''
  |align=center| sometime
  |align=center| '''ebu'''
  |align=center| somebody
  |- 
  |align=center| '''uvan'''
  |align=center| everything
  |align=center| '''uda'''
  |align=center| everywhere
  |align=center| '''uku'''
  |align=center| always
  |align=center| '''ubu'''
  |align=center| everybody
  |}
 
[[Image:TW_288.png]]
 
These correlatives are always written in their shorthand form. See the chart above.
 
The first column is a contraction of '''jù fanyo''', '''í fanyo''', '''é fanyo''' and '''ù fanyo''' ('''fanyo''' = thing)
 
The second column is a contraction of '''jù dà''', '''í dà''', '''é dà''' and '''ù dà''' ('''dà''' = place)
 
The third column is a contraction of '''jù kyù''', '''í kyù''', '''é kyù''' and '''ù kyù''' ('''kyù''' = time/occasion)
 
The last column is a contraction of '''jù glabu''', '''í glabu''', '''é glabu''' and '''ù glabu''' ('''glabu''' = person)
 
The non-contracted forms are still used, usually when emphasis is wanted.
 
There is another row in the above table.
 
[[Image:TW_289.png]]
 
This is the plural equivalent of the third row of the table above. The emphatic form of the above series would be ...
 
'''è fanyo''', '''è dá''', '''è kyù''' and '''è glabu''' .... if these elements were under<sup>*</sup> the main verb, it would be more normal to use ...
 
'''fanyoi''', '''nò dá''', '''nò kyù''' and '''glabua''' .... and actually, if any word from the third row of the main table came under the main verb, you could just use ...
 
'''fanyo''', '''dá''', '''kyù''' and '''glabu''' ... in this position you have probably a 50% chance of coming across '''evan''' and a similar chance to come across '''fanyo''' ... the same with '''eda''', '''eku''' and '''ebu'''.
 
One interesting point is ... well for example '''ubu''' can mean "each person" and "all the people". If '''ubu''' was the S or A argument there could be one of two verbs in a SVC. One would have the meaning "to do together"/"to cooperate" and the other would have the meaning "to work alone". If '''ubu''' was the O argument or has some other roll in the sentence there is a partical that can be put in above<sup>*</sup> '''ubu'''. This particle means something like "individual" or "independent" and would disambiguate the meaning of the '''béu''' sentence.


<sup>*</sup>I was going to say 'after" and "before", however as the '''béu''' writing system is vertical I thought I should get in the spirit of things and use "under" and "above".
'''**''' By the way, there are 17 marked forms (cases) in '''béu''' ... the ergative being one of these.


..
..

Latest revision as of 22:00, 26 June 2020

TW 415.png

..... The 5 basic word types

..

All words are derived from these 5 basic types. Actually the fengi "particle" have so many subtypes (often single particles are a subtype to themselves) that it is a bit of a fudge to say that béu has 5 basic types. Maybe more honest to say that béu has 4 groups of words and the behaviour (syntactically) of any word in these 4 groups depends on which group it is in.

..

1) fengi = particle ... this is a sort of "hold-all" category for all words (and affixes) that don't neatly fit into the other categories. Interjections, numbers, pronouns, conjunctions, determiners and certain words that would be classed as adverbs in English, are all classed as fengi.

By the way ... all affixes are counted as a type of fengi.

An example is wò .. the preposition indicating the oblique case.

..

2) kenʒi = an object

An example is bàu ... "a man"

..

3) olus = material, stuff

An example is moze ... "water"

..

4) saidau = adjective

An example is nelau ... "dark blue"

..

5) manga = a verb in its base form (citation form). When used "actively" it will take its r-form, u-form or i-form.

An example is twá meaning "to meet" or "a meeting" (the concept of "meet" disassociated from any arguments, tense, aspect or whatever).

..

SW 062.png

..

..... Kenʒi

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kenʒi can mean "noun". It can also mean "noun phrase" (NP).

.

Probably the most "basic" of the basic 5 ... tangible and discrete.

The noun can take six types of modifiers. These six types must come in a certain order ...

..

SW 070.png

..

In the above diagram, an descending arrow followed by a bar indicates a closed set. A descending arrow by itself indicates an open set. Branching arrows indicate multiple possibilities.

The head of the NP can be referred to as kenʒita. Usually it is called this by lay people and by linguists when the concept is first brought up. However, thereafter it is usually referred to as húa meaning "head".

kenʒita is kenʒi plus the diminutive suffix. kenʒi can also take the augmentative suffix -uma. kenzuma "extended noun phrase" is a normal kenʒi, with either a relative clause (RC) appended to the right or a partitive appended to the left hand side

The words highlighted in red convert the noun phrase (or indeed the sentence in which the NP is embedded) into a question. A blue circle indicates the only mandatory element. But even these elements can be dropped on occasion ... when they are understood from context or the preceding conversation. When we have one adjective, and the head is understood, ɘ can be substituted for the head, kɘ if the head is plural.

ɘ gèu = a/the green one : kɘ gèu = a/the green ones

These two particles can also be used with other noun modifiers, however not always mandators with non-adjective modifiers.

ɘ nái = which one : kɘ nái = which ones

kɘ dí = these ones : ɘ dè = this one

However nái, dí and dè can constitute NP's by themselves. A bit like English

Looking at the chart above might give you a false impression of béu noun phrases. The number of modifiers within a noun phrase is usually only one or two. When there is two, they must occur in a certain order, hence the necessity of the chart above. I don't think it would be easy to process a noun phrase with six modifiers, probably some of them would be shunted off into a RC with an initial copula. A noun phrase can take multiple RC's. They can stand beside each other in a sort of apposition.

I should make one further point here. The particles ú "all" and jù "no" can appear to the left of the head. They can also appear in the quantity slot.

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... Quality

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More than one adjective is allowed in this slot. For example ... bàu gèu tiji = the little green man

kái meaning "what type" can also appear in this slot. In which case it turns the whole noun phrase (or sentence) into a question. For example ...

bàu gèu kái = what kind of green man ? ... (NP question)

há bàu gèu kái glà timpori = what kind of green man hit the woman ? ... (sentence question)

Now when you have multiple adjectives they will have a certain order depending upon their sub-category.

This is the same as English ... for example, you always say "the third big black dog" and never "the black third big dog".

béu uses the exact same order as in English but the other way around.

béu has two adjectives that come in this slot that are worth mentioning. They might have claims to particle-hood, but I guess their appearance in this slot marks them as adjectives. No reason that they can't be both.

1) ... ló = "other"

The semantics of this word remind me of the semantics of tuge/jige. With the relative quantifiers the speech participants have agreed on the number/amount relevant to the situation. tuge/jige are used to change this value. Similarly ló is used in a situation where the speech participants have agreed on the population (of whatever noun category) under consideration but one of them wants to expand this population.

2) ... laubo = enough

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... Quantity

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This slot is very interesting ...

SW 071.png

The above chart is split into definite and vague sections. All the items under definite represent an integer (or "the empty set" or "the full set"). The items under vague represent an approximate number/amount. This section is further divided into discrete and non-discrete (i.e. countable.non-countable).

yè modifies both discrete and non-discrete. It means a moderate amount ... some value between zero and "all". It does NOT mean "indefinite" ... "some man" is bàu èn, not *bàu yè.

This word can be used to mark plurality (together with iyo and hài) for those nouns that can not be pluralized in themselves. For example ... húa, "head" : húa yè, "heads".

jí jí and jía are about equally common and mean the same thing. However jía tends to be used in more formal situations and jí jí in less formal.

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láu (how many) can appear in this slot. In which case it turns the NP (and hence the clause containing the NP) into a question. For example ...

bàu jutu láu = "How many men are big ?" or "How many big men ?" ???????????

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The chart above shows only the terms used for absolute quantity ????????????????? It does not cover, what I call relative quantity. Let me explain ...

Imagine the speaker and the hearer both have an idea of the number/amount relevant to a situation but one of them wants to change this number/amount. The amount he wants to change this agreed number/amount by, I call the relative quantity. It can be positive or negative. When positive we use the word tuge "more" ... when negative we use the word jige "less" *. For example ...

turi waudo tuge = more dogs came

t-u-r-i waudo tuge
come-3PL-IND-PST dog more

These to particles can be modified by some (most) of the terms given in the chart above. They can be modified by any of the terms hi-lighted in orange.

Sw 060.png

For example ... bía tuge ima = two more beers please"

Note : actually jía and tundu are not applicable to kenʒi. They are only applicable to olus

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* These words might be derived somehow from jutu "big" and tiji "small" ... along with the comparative suffix -ge **.

The comparative suffix can be appended to any adjectives. For example ... jini "clever" => jinige "cleverer" : hau?e "beautiful" => hau?ege "more beautiful"

There is also a superlative suffix ... -mo. So jinimo "cleverest" amd hau?emo "most beautiful"

** There is an independant word gé which might be related to the comparative suffix. It is a particle that always comes in twos. For example ... gé tundu ... gé bói "the more the merrier".

Sometimes you coma across bù tuge "no more". This should be analysed as a contraction of bù ?ár tuge "I don't want more".

*** Perhaps wóin is related to the verb gwói "to pass by" plus the past participle -in.

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... Ownership

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Basically you can just stick a personal name, a pronoun or any NP in here and the head noun will be considered owned by the object inserted here.

Sometimes, the particle yó precedes the object inserted.

For example jwado gèu yó jene = Jane's big green bird

Note that the particle yó is usually dropped when the possessor is next to the head. However as other elements intervene, the likelihood that yó is used increases.

If mín (who) is stuck in this slot ... then we have a question. For example ...

jwado gèu yó mín = Whose big green bird ? = Whose's the big green bird ?

There can be ambiguity with some kenʒi possessing a genitive. For example ...

Does waudo bàu dí mean "the dog of this man" or "this dog of the man" ?

To get around this, we have a special rule ...

"If anything is in the ownership slot, dí and dè never appear in the determiner slot. Instead they appear as dían "here" and dene "there" in the locative slot"

Note ... sometimes ownership as such is not what is of interest, it is if a person has actual physical possession. In this case yó is not used. But the object takes pila?o 2.

jwado gèu là Long John Silver catora = The big green bird (on Long John's shoulder presumably) is chatting away.

Actually segments showing actually physical possession like the example above, go in the locative slot which we will cover next.

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... Location

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Ordinal numbers appear in this slot. The ordinal numbers are ...

SW 066.png

You will notice that there are two words for first ... da?a and dahua. They are both equally common, but da?a tends to occur in the presence of dima or duya while dahua tends to occur in the presence of dauci.

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Proper locatives comprise a noun plus one of the 9 pila?oi .... pi la mau goi ce do bene komo ni. For example ...

duzu pobomau = The oryx on the mountain

Also pila?o 14 turns up in this slot. These items are strictly not giving information about "location" but rather "origin". They are classed as a locatives nevertheless. For example ...

bàu glazgofi = a/the man from Glasgow

If the location consists of more than one word, the usual rule applies and the pila?o appears as a preposition ...

duzu máu pobo jutu = The oryx on the big mountain

There is a tendance that the longer the locative item, the more likely the locative item will be shunted into a relative clause ...

duzu nài r máu pobo hau?e jutu = The oryx on the big beautiful mountain

nài r máu pobo hau?e jutu is a relative clause. We will cover RC's in a bit.

All prepositions that are not pila?o lead to the location being shunted into a relative clause. For example ...

polga?o nài r fiagan gwai = "the sailing boat which is among the islands" or simply "the sailing boat among the islands"

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Also dá "where" can appear in this slot. In which case it turns the noun phrase into a question. For example ...

bàu gèu dá = where is the green man ?

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Addendum ... To keep things simple I refrained from mentioning this before but time can also be expressed in this slot. For example "the turmoil jé 1300's". Actually location AND time can both be in this slot at the same time. For example "the anger pí Iceland jé 1950's ...".

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* Probably derived from uci "tail".

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... Determiner

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There are five of these ... dí (this), dè (that), nái (which), èn (some) and ín (any) . For example ...

dí and dè are called demonstratives in the WLT. They will be covered in the section after next.

nái turns the whole noun phrase into a question. For example ...

bàu gèu tiji nái = which little green man ? ... noun phrase question

And of course, if a NP represents a question, any clause containing this NP will also be a question. For example ...

bàu gèu tiji nái glà timpori = which little green man hit the woman ? ... a clause AND a question

èn "some" appear in this slot ... bàu gèu tiji èn = "some little green man" ...... indefinite

ín "any" appear in this slot ... bàu gèu tiji ín = "any little green man" .............. super indefinite

There is one little rule to remember ...

"Only one item is allowed in this slot, so if you want an indefinite as well as a demonstrative, the demonstrative is shunted off to the locative slot and given the form dían or dene."

I guess this is logical in a way. dí and dè were originally associated with pointing. But when the object is indefinite, how can you point ? "here" or "there" is about as definite as you can get.

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... Side-note re demonstratives

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dí "this" and dè "that" are two words that orientate and focus the hearer's attention on an object (or location *) in the speech situation. These words are called demonstratives in the WLT.

According to Holger [ Diessel (1999:57) ] ...

i) A demonstrative can be construed as an argument in its own right. That is, it can constitute a NP without any additional elements.

ii) A demonstrative can co-occur with a noun in a NP. That is, it can be a noun modifier.

iii)* A demonstatives can function as a verb modifier. It specifies (the) location (where something happens **).

* Perhaps in a more earlier version of the WLT "location" and (iii) would not be included in the definition of determiner. English and béu conform to this earlier version of the WLT. However I think it is a good idea when considering all the world's languages, to use this wider definition of "demonstrative".

"**" Perhaps in a language where a copula is not routinely used "where something happens" would not necessarily be appropriate.

And here are examples of the above three functions (in English) ...

a) This is excellent.

b) That guy is an idiot.

c) Here we do things differently.

Diachronically, these three functions can run into each other. Function (a) and function (b) are particularly close. They have the exact same form in English, but no confusion can occur, because "this/that:b" can be deduced to be inside a NP by the rules of English grammar. Most languages in the world (70%) have identical forms for "this/that:a" and "this/that:b". Of the languages that do not have identical forms, the difference can be quite subtle. For example in Thai นี่ [ nii falling tone ] is "this:a" and นี้ [ nii high tone ] is "this:b". ........... [see WALS 42A]

Some languages lack (a). For example, in Korean, to express "this:a" you must say "ce il" meaning "this thing". So (b) used instead of (a)

Some languages lack (b). They would say something like "the guy here" instead of "this guy". So (c) instead of (b)

Some languages lack (c). They would say something like "this place we do things differently" instead of "here we do things differently". So (b) instead of (c.)

[ And while we are talking on this area, perhaps we should mention 3rd person pronouns (see WALS 43A). Some languages lack 3rd person pronouns. They cover this function by saying something like "this" or "that guy" ... A further point of interest (well, I find it interesting anyway) is that the English he and here are cognates. Going back to a P.I.E. form meaning (a) or (b). -r was a ProtoGermanic adverbial suffix. ]

béu patterns pretty much like English (and the pattern of English is not atypical of the world's languages) ...

dí = "this:a" : dè = "that:a"

dí = "this:b" : dè = "that:b"

dían = "this:c" (i.e. "here") : dene = "that.c" (i.e. "there")

I was originally thinking of just appending the béu adverbial suffix -is to produce (c). But rejected that idea in order to get more phonological contrast between ...

(A) "this:c" and "that.c", (B) "this/that:a/b" and "this/that:c"

With dían there is a hint that it might be derived from dí plus pila?o 15. And also with dene ... a hint that it might have the same origin. But who can tell. These things are lost in the mists of time.

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... Further uses of dí and dè

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If we first hear a plural noun articulated in a conversation, the most likely meaning we would assigned to it would be the universal set. For example moltai.a. There is a more explicit means to express the universal set. For example ... kài moltai = "doctor.kind" but this construction is seldom used.

An example of usage is ... moltai.a súr jini = "doctors are clever"

OK ... now lets zoom in a bit. To zoom in we need to take in or give out some narrative. So now we hear the following ....

Next week British junior doctors will withhold many services in protest against the long hour expected of them

OK ... after hearing that ... moltai.a dè would be taken to mean "British junior doctors"

OK ... lets hear a further bit of narrative ...

Much to the disgruntlement of the senior doctors who will have a hard week ahead of them making up for the short fall.

OK ... after hearing that ... moltai.a dè would be taken to mean "British senior doctors". So, what dè refers to doesn't persist long, Our perspective is continually changing.

[ I can't help thinking that the proximate/obviate system existing in Plains Cree would be very useful. You could keep track of two protagonists through a discourse without reverting to full NPs. But I guess there are cognative reasons why it is difficult to use. Well, if it was easy to use, it would be far more wide-spread. It must be very useful. ]

This is in normal discourse. However if some objects are physically pointed out * when first introduced (and presumably they stay in sight for the duration of the discourse) what dí and dè referred to would persist.

So we can see that dè points back in time. It brings to the top of consciousness, the last set of doctors talked about.

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In a narrative many objects are encountered. If a newly introduced object is marked by dí it means that the object is important to the narrative and you will shortly be getting more information about it. The process is not exactly the inverse of anaphora. But one is compatible with "information given in the past leading to easy identification of which object in particular we are talking about. The other is compatible with "in the near future I will give you information about this object and you will be able to identify which object in particular I am talking about as well as I can"

béu and English are exactly the same in this respect.

* Not necessarily by using a finger ... a gesture with the head ... or even the orientation of the eyes can suffice.

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..... Kenzuma

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béu also has what I call an extended noun phrase. An extended noun phrase is a normal NP with either a partitive appended to the LHS, or a RC appended to the RHS.

The example below shows an extended noun phrase kenzuma with both a partitive AND an RC ...

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SW 090.png


uya wì yiŋkai ofa nài tunheu-h doik-u-r-a
..... three of girl five REL townhall-DAT walk-3PL-IND-PRES

..... Three of the five girls that are walking to the townhall.

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... The relative clause

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The béu relative clause is pretty similar to the English relative clause. However not exactly so.

A relative clause is a clause that modifies a NP of course. I think the best way to explain how the béu RC works is to give three examples. Each example will demonstrate a subtype of RC. In each example I will reconstitute the plain clause (PC) underlying the RC by looking at the NP and the RC.

(1)

yiŋkai ofa nài doik-u-r-a
the girl five REL walk-3PL-IND-PRES

=> the five girls who are walking

NP = yiŋkai ofa : RC = nài doikura => PC = yiŋkai ofa doikura "five girls are walking" ....... notice that nài is binned.

In the above PC yiŋkai is absolutive.

(2)

bàu nài-h glá-s fy-o-r-i yiŋkai-wo
the man REL-DAT women-ERG tell-3SG-IND-PAST girl-ABOUT

=> the man to whom the woman told about the girl

NP = bàu : RC = nàih glás fyori yiŋkaiwo => PC = bàuh glás fyori yiŋkaiwo ............ notice that nài is again binned. Also -h has to find some other word to stick on to.

In the above PC bàu is dative.

(3)

gwai.a nài polg-ai-r-a fía ?ode
the islands REL sail-1PL.INC-IND-PRES between them

=> "the islands that we are sailing between"

NP = gwaia : RC = nài polgaira fía ?ode => PC = polgaira fía gwaia ...................... nài is again binned. Also ?ode is discarded. The NP must be positioned behind fía, the preposition that governs it.

In the above PC gwaia is not absolutive, also not adorned by a pila?o. Instead it exists in a prepositional phrase. For this reason, a pronoun ?ode is needed in the RC to represent the NP

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I believe that Arabic structures its RC in a similar way to the above.

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OK ... you should all be experts in RC's now. You just run backward the 3 NP + RC => PC processes.

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This is discussed in greater detail in CH5.

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... The partitive

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A few sections back I mentioned ló ... the béu equivalent to "other/others/the other/another/the others".

ló is used where the speech participants have agreed on the population (of whatever noun category) under consideration but one of them wants to expand this population.

This expansion is a bit like "a shot in the dark", the speech participant requesting additional items usually is in the dark as to that additional items are available. Because of this, there is only one word ló. I mean, if the speech participant requesting additional items had an idea about what additional items were available, he could add more detail along with his request. Perhaps we would have donu meaning "another with a bell", doni meaning "another with a whistle" ... well O.K. I am being a bit facetious ... but you understand what I am getting at.

Now ló is used to expand the population under consideration ... to increase the scope of the conversation ... to sort of "zoom out".

Now sometimes it is necessary to "zoom in". For instance suppose you heard "three of the doctors decided to stop off at the pub on the way home" within larger narrative. After this point, these three doctors could be referred to as they. The main-protagonists/subject/topic have been reduced from eight to three. Zooming in is not a shot in the dark. The population under consideration is a known concept. The usual method is to specify the "new scope" plus the "original scope" in some sort of construction. The languages of the world all have methods for zooming in ... usually some quite simple construction, often involving a particle which has evolved from "from"/"out of". wì is the particle used in béu. Some examples of its use ...

ú wì moltai = all of the doctors

yè wì moltai = some of the doctore = several of those doctors = a number of those doctors

jù wì moltai = none of the doctors

tontu wì moltai dí = the majority of these doctors

a?a lú tuge wì moltai dè more = one or more of those doctors

hài wì moltai dè = many of those doctors

ima ín wì moltai dè = any two of those doctors

moltai wì bawa dí = the doctors out of these men

[ Note ... ú wì moltai = "all of the doctors" is pretty similar to ú moltai and moltai ú ... similarly these expressions with jù. Nothing really to worry about. You have similar flexibility in many languages (including English). Perhaps ú wì moltai stresses that no "zooming" is happening. Perhaps ú moltai is used for generic statements such as ú moltai r jini "all doctors are clever". Perhaps moltai ú is used in non-generic statements such as moltai ú ture tìa pà "all the doctors came to my home this morning" ] ..

I suppose the nearest equivalent of wì is "of". However wì has not so many functions as "of". For "belonging to", yó is used. For "relating to"/"connected with". wò is used.

[Still thinking if wì should be involved with "a glass of milk"/"a heart of gold"]

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Pronouns are used in partitives in the same way as NP's.

a?a wì pài = "one of us"

ima wì onde = "two of them"

há ima wì onde glá timpura = "two of them are hitting the woman"

[ I guess English is a bit stange w.r.t. plural pronoun. I mean ... why not "*two of they are walking" {following the pattern "they are walking"} instead of "two of them are walking" ]

Two other numeratives that we haven't mentioned yet are tontu "the majority"/"most" and tonji "the minority".

ton = bit/part/section ... tontu <= ton jutu ... tonji <= ton tiji ... toŋko = to seperate ???

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... 16 useful little words

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jupu nobody upu everybody
juku never uku always
juda nowhere uda everywhere
jufen nothing ufen everything

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The above are obviously eroded forms of jú pú, ú pú, ... etc. etc.

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pu.en somebody pu.in anybody
kyu.en sometime kyu.in any time
da.en somewhere da.in anywhere
fenen something fenin anything

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The above are obviously eroded forms of pú èn, pú ín etc. etc. They are all two syllable words, and of course as two syllable words lack tone.

The words in the first column above can be made plural by adding yè ... pu.in yè = some people, kyu.en yè = sometimes, etc. etc.

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upu and ufen can be followed by uwe to show that the group is acting (or undergoing an action) collectively.

a?awe can be added to show that the group is acting (or undergoing an action) individually.

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..... Olus

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olus can mean "noun". It can also mean "noun phrase" (NP).

Whereas kenʒi refers to countable nouns, olus is the term used for uncountable nouns (also called mass nouns).

The expansion of olus by various modifiers is quite similar to kenʒi ...


SW 091.png

Of course numbers, iyo and hài are not appropriate (quantity slot)

Also the items in the determiner slot are a bit "iffy". For example moze dí is perhaps kài moze dí with kài elided.

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So ... an example of an olus ...

hoŋko ima wì ?azwo pona = "two cups of warm milk"

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A few hundred words have a dual existence ... in one guise olus in another guise kenʒi. With final vowel e u a o or i (the last one is especially common) they have a collective meaning. For example ...

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bodi ng-o-r
birds fly-3SG-IND

=>small birds fly ................. [notice the third person singular agreement on the verb]

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However with a change of the final vowel to ai these concepts become countable.

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bodai lail-o-r-a
a small bird sing-3SG-IND-PRES

=> a small bird is singing

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Which can be made plural by putting a number in front (or one of the other numeratives).

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bodai uya lail-u-r-a
small bird three sing-3PL-IND-PRES

=> three small birds are singing

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Here are some more of these concepts treated in this way ...

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yinki crumpet yinkai a young unmarried woman, an attractive girl, a virgin
toti children totai a child
wazbo distance wazbai 3,680 m (the unit of distance ... the béu km or mile)
malkufa cabbages malkufai a cabbage
alha flowers alhai a flower

.. TW 793.png

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Words derived using the suffixes mi/mai also pattern with these dual identity words. For example ... beumai = "somebody with knowledge of the béu language and/or culture" : beumi = "the entire body of people with knowledge of the béu language and/or culture"

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Remember that all collectives take singular pronouns and, if they are A or S arguments, produce an -o- in slot 1 of the verb (as opposed to -u-).

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There is a particle k+, that when put in front of a saidau or a kenʒi gives an olus

You hear it a lot prefixed to animal names ... like when talking about characteristics which are common to an entire species. For example ...

sadu "elephant" ... k+ sadu "the elephants" or "elephants" ... as in k+ sadu r jodo jini "the elephant is an inteligent animal"

gèu "green" .......... k+ gèu "the green ones"


k+ sadu r jodo jini
elephant-kind COP animal clever

Note ... k+ is in free variation with kài "sort/type/kind"


** Birds smaller than pidgeons are bodai. Birds that are pidgeon size and above are jwado ... jwado is kenʒi.

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..... Saidau

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The saidau (adjective) has two uses in béu. It can either be part of a NP or it can be a copular complement. For example ...

bàu gèu = a/the green man

bàu r gèu = a/the man is green

gèu above is a simple adjective. Adjective phrases exist as well.

An important particle that increases the degree of an adjective is sowe. For example ... gèu sowe "very green"

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These adjectives can become nouns by froning them with ə, kə and kuwai.

ə gèu = a/the green one

kə gèu = a/the green ones

kuwai gèu = greenness


[ NOTE : I don't think the schwa is visually distinct enough. From now on I will use a plus sign to depict the schwa ]


+ gèu = a/the green one

k+ gèu = a/the green ones

kuwai gèu = greenness


OK ... that's better.


+ and k+ are historically derived from ?à "one" and kài "type". Actually they are in free variation with their historical counterparts ... a bit like "either" in English can have two pronounciations. When you want to emphasize, you would of course use the phonetically heavier version.

kuwai is a word meaning property/characteristic.

Actually these 3 words are also productive with "locatives" and "genitives" as well. For example ...

+ pobomau = the one on top of the mountain

+ yó jene = the one belonging to Jane

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TW 918.png

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The above chart shows the main derivational pathways in béu. Only pathways 2, 3, 4 are relevent to this section.

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Note ... + gèu sowe = "a/the very green one" ... sowe never modifies a senko.

By the way ... determiners and relative clauses can also stand by themselves, but they are unmodified when they do so. (Note to self : are you sure about this ?)

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..... Pila?o

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In total there are 17 cases plus the unmarked case (the absolutive case). The absolutive is not called a case in the béu linguistic tradition : instead it is called "noun base"

These 17 cases are called pila?o.

These are attached to a noun and show the relationship of that noun with respect to the rest of the sentence.

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The word pila?o is built up from ;-

pila (v) = to place, to position, to correctly align

pila?o (n) = the positioner

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Probably the most important case is the ergative (the 11th case). In English it is the order of the verb and the arguments that shows who is the doer and what is the "done to". Namely the A and S argument come before the verb and the O argument after ... [ English is a non-ergative language and hence the A and S argument get treated in the same way.]

In béu, to show who is the doer and what is the "done to", the suffix -s is appended to the A argument. For example ...

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glás bàu timporI => The woman hit the man ............... (with "the man" being the O argument)

glá bàus timporI => The man hit the woman ................. (with "the man" being the A argument)

bàu tìah doikori => The man walked home ........................... (with "the man" being the S argument) ... [ béu is an ergative language and hence the O and S argument have the same form.]

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SW 063.png

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There is a regular relationship between preposition and affix, apart from (11) which is highly irregular, (16) which is irregular and (17) which is very slightly irregular. When suffixes they all are usually written using a single consonant. No confusion can arise as normally consonants are illicit word finally. However there is no abbreviated forms for (15) and (17). Of the 17 consonants, ? and n are not involved in these abbreviations.

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The pila?o are either realized as either affixes or as prepositions.

Whether the pila?o appears as an suffix or a preposition depends on whether you have a N (noun) or a NP (noun phrase). If you have N the affix is used, if you have NP the preposition is used.

tiadua = beyond the house

dùa tìa yó yinkai hauʔe = beyond the house of the pretty girl

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TW 940.png

SW 092.png

SW 093.png

SW 094.png

TW 568.png


Note on the script ... If they are realized as affixes then, in the béu script uses a sort of shorthand. That is the affix is represented as one letter.

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Earlier we have seen that when 2 nouns come together the second one qualifies the first.

However this is only true when the words have no pila?o affixed to them. If you have two contiguous nouns suffixed by the same pila?o then they are both considered to contribute equally to the sentence roll specified. For example ...

jonos jenes solbur moze = "John and Jane drink water"

In the absence of an affixed pila?o, to show that two nouns contribute equally to a sentence (instead of the second one qualifying the first) the particle lé should be placed between them. For example ...

jono lé jene maumur = "John and Jane sleep"

Compare the above two examples to jono jene maumor = "Jane's John sleeps" ... that is "the John that is in a relationship with Jane, sleeps".

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.. As parts of speech

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pila?o of location phrases (i.e. nouns with 1 -> 8 or 15) can be considered adjectives. They must come after a noun or a verb.

pila?o of motional phrases (i.e. nouns with 13, 14, 16 or 17) can be considered adverbs. They can come in any position because it is understood that they are qualifying the verb.

pila?o phrases defining sentence rolls (i.e. nouns with 9, 10, 11 or 12) can come anywhere. They are considered clause arguments.

(Note to self : move the below to a different section)

* [ Notice that in English, you can either say ... "a bird is in the tree" or "in the tree is a bird"

In béu only jwado r ʔupaiʔe is valid ... also note that in this case jwado is not definite because it is left of the verb. That rule doesn't work with the copula. ]

jenes solbori moʒi lé ʔazwo = "Jane drank water and milk"

jonos jenes hecuri sadu ima lé ʔusfa uya = John and Jane saw two elephants and three giraffes.

This word is that is never written out in full but has its own symbol. See below ...

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..... Maŋga

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These are verbs. In particular maŋga = "the infinitive form of the verb" or "verbal noun". They call it "maSdar" in Arabic.

I shall call it "base verb".

In the BLT (béu linguistic tradition) the base verb is considered "dead" or "inactive". Only when a suitable "tail" is added does it become "alive" or "active".

So "finite verb" is called maŋga ?algu. The infinitive form of the verb is simply maŋga

(By the way ... ?algu = alive) ... the next Chapter is all about maŋga ?algu.

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In béu the base verb is a noun. This is different to most languages in the world. In most languages, verbal nouns are derived from verbs. For example ... destroy => destruction : verb => noun whereas in béu. For example ... twá : "a/the meeting" => twarua : "I intend to meet".

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English is very chaotic as to the various means it derives nouns from verbs. For example ... "discover" + "y" => the discovery ... "destroy" + "tion" => the destruction ... "run" + ∅ => a/the run. Whereas béu is as orderly as it is possible to get.

OK ... lets get started ...

solbe = "to drink"

Now the manga can amalgamate with other elements. For example ...

solbe saco = "to drink quickly" or "drinking quickly"

...and adding more elements ...

solbe moze sacois* = "to drink the water quickly" or "drinking the water quickly"

solbe moze sacois and solbe saco are examples of maŋguma (maŋga plus the augmentive -uma)

Actually a maŋguma can get as involved as a clause can. With arguments to the left of the head considered definite and arguments to the right, indefinite. But there is one difference. The ergative argument is marked by the particle hí rather than há or -ta or -s.

so adding even more elements ...

hí jono solbe moze sacois hí jono = "John drinking the water quickly" or "for John to drink the water quickly".

This is as involved as I will go. But note that other clausal elements ( dative object, time, adverb, instrument, reason, purpose) can be added. As in normal clauses there is a tendancy to add them to the RHS.

Now the maŋguma is basically a noun ... as is kenʒi and olus. And as with kenʒi and olus more modifiers can be added.

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SW 095.pngI don't know the béu name for this. Actually I don't know the English name for this.

The items in the determiner slot are quite rare compared to kenʒi, but they are licit. There can be nothing in the quantity slot or the ownership slot.

The "number + wì" modifier is quite rare. It means "so many iterations of the action". For example ...

uya wì hí pà solbe moze = (the) three times I drank water

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Adjectives can be a bit confusing. For example saco "quick" would be used immediately after maŋga. But if not immediately after maŋga but within the maŋguma, it should take the form sacois (-is being the adjective => adverb suffix). But is it is outwith the maŋguma in the quality slot it will be saco. Got it ?

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In the example we are using sacois "quickly" can be taken out of the heart, and placed in the senko phrase as saco. In the adjective slot of course.

In a similar vain you have a choice as to where to put a locative. A locative can be placed in the locative slot or it can be placed in maŋguma. No change of form for the locative ...

solbe moze sacois tiapi hí jono = solbe moze sacois hí jono tiapi = "John drinking the water quickly in the house" = "for John to drink the water quickly in the house".

OK ... so much for maŋguma.

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Now we have already introduced the pila?o. The pila?o are totally compatible with kenʒi. Nearly totally compatible with olus. However only two pila?o fit in with maŋga. These are pila?o 2 and 9 ... là and tú. When fitted to maŋga they produce an adjective and an adverb respectively.

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We'll talk about and adverbial construction first ...

tore doikatu = "he/she came on foot" or "he/she came by walking"

tore tú doika saco = "he/she came by walking quickly"

Notice that the particle tú acts as it normally does and appends to the end of a single word, but stands alone to the left of a multi-word phrase.

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And the adjectival constuction ...

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bàu doika-la man walk-1SG-IND-PRES
bàu r doika-la man COPULA} walk-P2

Also là appears often in conjunction with manga

The là-constuction acts as an adjective. An adjective meaning "XXX-ing" at the (relevant ???) moment of speech". As with all adjectives it can either be part of a NP or it can be a copular complement. For example ...

bàu doikala = a/the walking man

bàu r doikala = a/the man is walking .... [Note ... bàu r doikala means exactly the same as bàu doikora]

là differs from most other pila?o in that, with a manga, it never stands alone. For example ...

bàu doikala sacois = a/the quickly walking man .... [Note ... the affix -is is appended to saco to show it is connected to doika and not bàu] instead of *bàu là doika saco

In a là-constuction, everything has the same order as a MP ... the only difference is that -la is appended to the manga and hí XXX is dropped. Well hí XXX represents the A argument and the A argument is the thing being described by the là-constuction, so no need to exist inside the construction.

This là-constuction can be called the present participle. The present participle has the meaning "in the process of XXXing".For example ...

doika "to walk" => doikala "in the process of walking"

kata "to cut" => katala "in the process of cutting".

When derived from a transitive verb the object can be included as well. For example katala lazde "in the process of cutting the grass".

[ Note ... bàu katala lazde "the man cutting the grass" means the same as bàu nàis katora lazde "the man who is cutting the grass" ... however the first is nearly always preferred ... well it is shorter ]

[ Also note ... pà r katala lazde means the same as (pás) katara lazde ... however the second is nearly always preferred ... well it is shorter ]

O arguments (in an equivalent active clause) can be modified by the là-construction as well. For example ... lazde jwola kata "grass being cut" ... jwola kata being classed as an adjective phrase (jwòi meaning "to undergo").

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maŋga ... as well as appearing as arguments in a clause. That is S, A, O, CS and CO, also appear as complements to auxiliary verbs.

One such auxilliary is tuma meaning "to squeaze" or "to force". [ when it means "to squeaze" it is followed by a kenʒi and is acting as a normal verb, when it means "to force" it is followed by a manga and is acting as an auxiliaryl verb ]


In these constructions, there is a very strong tendency (almost a rule) that the maŋga is on RHS of maŋguma. However if an ergative (A) argument is present, that element can instead be on RHS. Also a very strong tendency fot the O aurgment to directly follow the maŋga. There is a fairly strong tendency for the S argument to directly follow the maŋga.

So ...

Thomas forced John to hit Jane => tomos tumori timpa jene hí jono or tomos hí jono timpa jene

Thomas forced Jane to walk => tomos tumori doika jene

[By the way ... as an example of tuma being a normal verb ... tomos jwuba komo jene tumori = Thomas squeazed Jane's left buttock ]

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Two other examples of maŋga with auxilliary verbs (why not) ...

1) ... mbe = to hold ..... lelpa = to sing, singing ..... jenes mbor lelpa bòi = Jane can sing well. [lelpai = a song ?]

2) ... glù = to depart ... timpa = to hit, hitting ... jonos glori timpa jene = John stopped hitting Jane

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One notable use of the maŋga is emphasis, where the manga is used right next to the same word in r-form. For example ...

daw-o-r-u dàu
die-3SG-IND-FUT death

= He/she will die a death => He/she will die for sure

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lay-o-r-i lái
live-3SG-IND-PAST life

= He/she lived a life => He/she had a full life

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maum-a-r-i mauma
sleep-1SG-IND-PAST sleep

= I slept a sleep => I had a deep and satisfying sleep


Now maumori mauma and daw.oru dàu are strange. Normally both verbs are strictly intransitive. But here there are transitive. Seemingly sometimes béu allows

a) intransitive => transitive b) A argument => absolutive form c) O argument = maŋga

pà maumari mauma is the answer to mìn maumari mauma

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* Another way to say this is solbe saco moze**

** If saco doesn't immediately follows the manga, it must be explicitly tagged as an adverb by the -is suffix. The exact same rule as for (finite)clauses.

Note ... "I saw a man cutting the grass" is an English clause. I think Dixon analyses "the man cutting the glass" as a complement clause ??? This sees a bit strange to me. The béu equivalent .... hecari bàu katala lazde is just analyzed as Verb hecari ... Object bàu and Adjective Phrase katala lazde

..... Feŋgi

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The feŋgi or particles are too diverse to say anything meaningful about them here. We will learn them one by one as we go though the ten chapters.

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But just to fill out this section a bit, I will give you two sets of pronouns. One set being the pronouns in their unmarked form* and the other ... the pronouns in their ergative form**.

Here, for a transitive clause, "that which initiates the action" is called the A argument, and "that which is affected by the action" the O argument. Also, for an intransitive verb, the noun is called the S argument. It is convenient to make a distinction between all three cases. I follow RMW Dixon in using this terminology.

In most languages the S argument is marked the same way as the A argument. However in some languages the S argument is marked the same way as the O argument. These are called ergative languages. béu is one of these ergative languages. About a quarter of the world languages are ergative or partly ergative. The ergative system ...

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bàu lé glá maum-u-r-i
man and woman sleep-3PL-IND-PAST

==> The man and the woman slept


bàu-s glá timp-o-r-i
man-ERG woman hit-3SG-IND-PAST

==> The man hit the woman


bàu glá-s timp-o-r-i
man woman-ERG hit-3SG-IND-PAST

==> The woman hit the man

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Below are the béu pronouns for the S and O arguments. This form can be considered the "unmarked form".

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SW 119.pngSW 108.png

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mpau includes the listener in the "we", pài excludes the listener from the "we" and jè indicates a plural "you".

The proper way to use ?o is to use it for all non-humans. But in actually practice, some people might "elevate" the status of a family pet and call it òn or ʃì.

onde is used for "they" when they are all male, ʃide is used for "they" when they are all female, ʃinde is used for "they" when they are mixed, and ?ode is used for "they"when they are all non-human.

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Below are the béu pronouns for the A argument ... the "ergative form".


SW 120.png

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NOTE ... Pronouns differ from nouns in that their tones change between the ergative and the unmarked form. For a normal noun it is sufficient that -s is suffixed. For example ...

From now on I will call the ergative form the s-form, and the unmaked form the base form.

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There is one other pronoun ... the reflexive pronoun tí. This is always an O argument. Notice that it is the only O argument with a high tone.

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* In the Western Linguistic Tradition, these "forms" are called "cases". The English word case used in this sense comes from the Latin casus, which is derived from the verb cadere, "to fall", from the Proto-Indo-European root *ḱad-. The Latin word is a calque of the Greek πτῶσις, ptosis, "falling, fall". The sense is that all other cases are considered to have "fallen" away from the nominative (considered the unmarked form in Latin).

** By the way, there are 17 marked forms (cases) in béu ... the ergative being one of these.

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... Index

  1. Introduction to Béu
  2. Béu : Chapter 1 : The Sounds
  3. Béu : Chapter 2 : The Noun
  4. Béu : Chapter 3 : The Verb
  5. Béu : Chapter 4 : Adjective
  6. Béu : Chapter 5 : Questions
  7. Béu : Chapter 6 : Derivations
  8. Béu : Chapter 7 : Way of Life 1
  9. Béu : Chapter 8 : Way of life 2
  10. Béu : Chapter 9 : Word Building
  11. Béu : Chapter 10 : Gerund Phrase
  12. Béu : Discarded Stuff
  13. A statistical explanation for the counter-factual/past-tense conflation in conditional sentences
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