Béu : Chapter 3

..... When a noun qualifies another one

A) When the relationship between the nouns is one of ownership (usually a thing owned by a person), the thing comes first and it is followed by the person, with the person taking the pilana of location.

B) When the relationship between the nouns is "part to the whole", with the noun denoting the whole taking the pilana of location.

C) When the relationship between the nouns is a kinship relationship the attribute noun takes the pilana of location.

D) When the relationship between the nouns is of an attribute ( see page 265 ) the attribute noun takes the pilana of location.

F) When the relationship between the nouns is association, the attribute noun takes the pilana of location.

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E) "above the house" = atas nambo ... for the same reason, people get their knickers in a twist about this one. However these "locative words" are a bit different as they are hardly ever used alone (maybe in the past they were, that is if béu had a past). If they are uttered without in isolation these days the invariably have ka suffixed.

M) "cup of water" = cup moze ... people get their knickers in a twist about this one. "cup" must be the head, but surely water is more important. That is, semantically "water" is the "head" but syntactically "cup" is the head. Well in the béu linguistic tradition we get around this by ???

Z) There is one more case to talk about. If something is made out something, then we use the preposition mò meaning "out of". For example ....

a cup of gold ???

Think about other situations in which we can use this partative case (look at Finnish).

..... How to bring a word into focus

Actually there is a way to focused elements in a statement which mirrors the way to focus elements in a question. We use cà for this.

Statement 1) báus glaye timpi alhai = the man gave flowers to the woman

Focused statement 2) báus glaye cà timpi alhai = It is the woman to whom the man gave the flowers.

Any argument or in fact the verb itself can be focused in this way.

..... Questions

béu has a "toolbox" that allows us to ask questions. The tools in that box are ʔái, nái, gwaili and cái ... the 4 words used for asking questions.

..... How to ask a polar question

..

A polar question is a question that can be answered with "yes" or "no".

To turn a normal statement into a polar question (i.e. a question that requires a YES/NO answer), we stick the particle ʔái on the end of the sentence.

ʔái is neutral as to the response you are expecting.

To answer a positive question, YES or NO ( ʔaiwa àu aiya ) is sufficient.

To answer a negative question positively, YES ( ʔaiwa ) is enough.

To answer a negative question negatively, you must give an entire clause.

For example ;-

Question 1) glà (rà) haube ʔái = Is the woman beautiful ? .......... If she is beautiful, answer ʔaiwa, if she isn't answer aiya.

Question 2) glà ká haube ʔái = Isn't the woman beautiful ? ........ If she isn't beautiful, answer ʔaiwa, if she is answer ò rà hauʔe. (notice that the copula must be used in this case)

The above method questions the entire clause. However if you want to question one element in a clause, then you front that element and have ʔái immediately after.

Statement 1) báus glaye kyori alhai = the man gave flowers to the woman

Straight question 2) báus glaye kyori alha ʔái = did the man gave flowers to the woman ?

Focused question 3) glaye ʔái báus kyori alha = Is it the woman that the man gave flowers to ?

Focused question 4) báus ʔái glaye kyori alha = Is it the man that gave flowers to the woman ?

Focused question 5) alha ʔái báus glaye kyori = Is it flowers that the man gave to the woman ?

Focused question 6) kyori ʔái báus glaye alha = the man GAVE flowers to the woman ? (a possible situation ... the speaker has previously thought the woman had stolen the flowers)

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..... How to ask a content question

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English is quite typical of languages in general and has 7 content question words ... "which", "what", "who", "where", "when", "how" and "why".

A corresponding set of béu question words are given below.

..

what/who	é
where	én
when	eku
how	ewe
what type of	emo
why	ega
how much	eli
how many	eno

..

é is the word most commonly used and it is usually plain from context whether a human or non-human argument is being considered. However there are two more words that are occasionally used. These are ebu "who" and eʃi "what".

In English as in about 1/3 of the languages of the world it is necessary to front the content question word.

In béu these words are usually also fronted. They must come before the verb anyway. If they come after the verb, they mean "somebody/something", "somewhere" etc. etc.

The pilana are added to the content question words as they would be to a normal noun phrase.

Here are some examples of content questions ...

Statement 1) báus glaye kyori alhai = the man gave flowers to the woman

Question 2) és glaye kyori alhai = who gave flowers to the woman

Question 3) báus eye kyori alhai = to whom did the man gave flowers

Question 4) báus glaye é kyori = what did the man give to the woman

The above question words (apart from é itself) can be considered just examples of the common process of prefixing e to a noun, to give the meaning "which x" or "some x".

kyù = occasion, time

myò = kind, type

gà = because

lí = amount

nò = number

5) báus é glaye kyori alhai = to which woman did the man give the flowers

6) báus kyori é glaye alhai = the man gave flowers to some woman

7) báus kyori glaye alhai = the man gave flowers to a woman

Of course an interesting question is "in what way does 6) differ from 7).

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..... How to ask what is being done

béu is unusual in that it has a word that is a question verb.

ʔail- meaning "to do what". For example ...

ʔailiri = "what will you do"

ʔailora jonos jene = "what is John doing to Jane"

It doesn't have to be fronted but it usually is.

Some of the words mentioned above are very common. Because of this, they have a shorthand way of being written.

..... The 5 "specifiers"

You can say that béu is basically a SVO language (although actually any of the 6 orders possible are acceptable).

You can say that in the typical sentence, S is definite and O is indefinite or generic.

When O is definite, usually we switch to the SOV word order.

But what do we do when S is indefinite ?

Well in these cases we put a specifier in front of S. There are 5 specifiers ...

Specifying a thing from all things of that type

The 5 specifyana

any	ʔín
some	án
some	àn
all	hùn
every single	hunin

These words appear immediately before nouns. No nouns in plural form are allowed to appear after these "specifiers".

These 5 words have a special "shorthand" form. They are never written out in full. The shorthand form is given below.

ʔín toili = any book

án toili = some book

àn toili = some books

hùn toili = all books

hunin toili = each book, every book ... in the following discussion I consider "each" and "every" to mean exactly the same.

In English, in most instances, "all" and "each" mean the same thing. Both these word indicate "totality" but the second one also indicates "individuality". Because the second one indicates "individuality" the first one came to be associated with "togetherness".

But as I said. in English in most situations, "each"^* and "all" are in free variation. "each" is the word that is used by default.

In béu, hùn is the word used by default. Only when "separateness/individuality" must be emphasised, would you use "hunin". Maybe when you would say "each and every" in English.

These 5 words are unusual in that they have "sandhi". Although always written the same, the final "n" is pronounced "ŋ" when the specified noun has an initial "k" or "g". It is pronounced "m" when the specified noun has an initial "p", "b" or "w". However even though "sandhi" occurs, the specifier remains a separate word from the noun that it specifies.

^*"each" being followed by a singular noun and "all" being followed by a plural noun.

As well as the 5 specifiers above, we have ali meaning "a few" or "a little", alu meaning "many" or "a lot of", léu meaning "too much" and làn meaning "enough".

HOW DO THESE QUALIFY OTHER PARTS OF SPEACH ??

Also aufaba meaning "two or three" and aibaga meaning "three or four". Actually any consecutive two numbers ( under 1727) be connected in this way. They must be of the same grade i.e. ezaukau "eighty or ninety".

..... Some specifier - generic noun amalgamations

As would be expect, there has been some fusion between the specifiers and the generic nouns. The total paradigm is shown below ...

judai	nothing	ʔindai	anything	andai	something	andaia	somethings	hundai	everything	hunindai	every single thing
jubu	nobody	ʔimbu	anybody/anyone	ambu	somebody/someone	ambua	some people	humbu	everybody	hunimbu	every single person
		ʔinde	any day	ande	some day	andeu	some days	hunde	ever	huninde	every single day

Other amalgamations that occur are ...

juku

never

juha

nowhere

jumyan

no type of

juwe

in no way

Note that it is considered bad style to have a junandau as the O argument. Instead the verb should be negated, and the "any"-word should be used.

..... The relativizers

The relativizer in béu is ʔà. This takes all the pilana the same as a normal noun.

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the basket ʔapi the cat shat was cleaned by John.

the wall ʔala you are sitting was built by my grandfather.

the woman ʔaye I told the secret, took it to her grave.

the town ʔafi she has come is the biggest south of the mountain.

the lilly pad ʔalya the frog jumped was the biggest in the pond.

the boat ʔalfe you have just jumped is unsound

báu ʔás timpori glá rà ʔaiho = The man that hit the woman is ugly.

nambo ʔàn she lives is the biggest in town. báu ʔàn dog I shot, reported me to the police = the man whose dog I shot, reported me to the police^*

báu ʔaho ò is going to market is her husband.

the knife ʔage he severed the branch is a 100 years old

The old woman ʔaji I deliver the newspaper, has died.

The boy ʔaco they are all talking, has gone to New Zealand.

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When the relative clause is giving extra information, the relativizer in is ʔài and a slight pause comes before it.

There is another relativized in béu that refers back to a whole proposition. In English "which" is sometimes given this function. For example ...

1) ... John had completely forgotten his wedding anniversary which really annoyed his wife.

béu uses nài in a similar way to how which is used in the above example. Also the same shorthand form is used for nài and nái. However no misunderstanding is possible since nài always has a pause before it (how do I do a comma ?) and nái always is immediately after a noun.

..... 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