Béu : Chapter 5 : Questions

Welcome to béu

..... Combining clauses

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... With respect to time

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huʒia = to smoke

koʔua = to cough

solbe = to drink

caume = medicine

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... XXX

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Grammar provides ways to make the stream of words coming out a speaker's mouth nice and smooth ... no lumpy bits. Well the smoothness comes from the rules (you can think of the rules as traffic rules, and affixes and particles as the traffic signs), and getting rid of the lumps entails dropping the elements that are already known, that are already accessible in the mind of the hearer. This section is about getting rid of these elements : both arguments and person-tense markers.

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Now we have already come across the particle lé which links nouns together. béu doesn't use the same particle for linking clauses together though. It uses the particle è. English allows the dropping of an S or A argument in a sentence when this argument has already been established as the topic. béu is exactly the same : it allows the dropping of an S or A argument. However when you have a clause with the S argument dropped, this clause is not introduced by è, it is introduced by the particle sé. For example ...

A) bawa turi = The men came

B) bawas bwuri gala = The men saw some women

C) bawa turi sé bwuri gala = The men came and saw some women.

D) bawas bwuri gala è turi = The men saw some women and then came.

You can see that C) flows a lot better than A) juxtaposed with B). And D) flows a lot better than B) juxtaposed with A).

This seems a good place to list all the particles that can join clauses.

sé/è : these have nothing to say about the relative timing of clause A (before the particle) and clause B (after the particle).

sé dù/è dù : these mean that action B follows on immediately from action A.

sé kyude/è kyude : these mean that action B follows action A but not necessarily immediate. Sometimes sé è are dropped.

kyugo : this means that action A and B happen at the same time. Usually we have different actors in the two clauses, but not always.

Another particle used for combining clauses is tè. This is exactly equivalent to the English "but". tè is occasionally also used before nouns. However before nouns it is more usual to use ???

There are also some phrases with more "sound.weight" that have the exact same meaning as tè.

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..... The three types of Verb

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Some concepts are naturally intransitive. Like "to shave". Well at least in béu it is very unusual to shave another.

Some concepts are naturally transitive. Like "to hit". It is worth remarking on when somebody hits themselves.

And there are also some concepts that appear in both manifestations. For example ... "turn", "spread", "rise/raise"

These three types of concept are represented in beu by three different types of verb.

V1) té = to come ... this is a intransitive verb

(Always accompanied by a naked noun)

V2) timpa = to hit ... this is a transitive verb

(Always accompanied by an s-marked noun and a^* naked noun)

^*Although sometimes the naked noun can be dropped for lack of interest. For example ...

jenes solbori = Jane drank (something)

V3) kwèu = to turn

Now this sometimes behaves like V1 and sometimes like V2.

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.. V1 Derivations

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There are 5 deriuvation processes shown below ...

First from doika => doikaya This involves infixing ay before the final vowel.

Secondly from doika => doikana and doikaya => doikayana.

This involves deleting the final vowel and adding ana.

Thirdly from doika => doikala and doikaya => doikayala.

This involves deleting the second part of the final vowel if it is a diphthong, and then adding la.

Fourthly from doikaya => doikaiwai.

This involves deleting the final vowel and y and adding iwai.

Fifthly from doikaya => doikaiwau.

This involves deleting the final vowel and y and adding iwau.

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	doikaiwai		doikaiwau
	"that which has been made to walk" (A/N)		"that which must be made to walk" (A/N)
doikayana	<============	doikaya	============>	doikayala
"the one that makes walk" (N)		"to make to walk" (V1)		"causing to walk" (A)
		^
		|
		|
doikana	<============	doika	============>	doikala
"walker" (N)		"to walk" (V2)		"walking" (A)

Note that we have 8 word forms in total.

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.. V2 Derivations

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There are 5 deriuvation processes shown below ...

First from kludau => kludawau This involves infixing aw before the final vowel.

Secondly from kludau => kludana and kludawau => kludawana.

This involves deleting the final vowel and adding ana.

Thirdly from kludau => kludala and kludawau => kludawala.

This involves deleting the second part of the final vowel if it is a diphthong, and then adding la.

Fourthly from kludau => kludwai.

This involves deleting the final vowel and adding wai.

Fifthly from kludau => kludwau.

This involves deleting the final vowel and adding wau.

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kludawana	<============	kludawau	============>	kludawala
"computer memory" (N)		"to be written" (V2)		"being written" (A)
		^
		|
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kludana	<============	kludau	============>	kludala
"writer" (N)		"to write" (V1)		"writing" (A)
	kludwai		kludwau
	"written" (A/N)		"which must be written" (A/N)

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kludwai is the passive past participle, and kludwau is the passive future participle.

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Note that we have 8 word forms in total.

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.. V3 Derivations

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haikana	<============	haika	============>	haikala
"breaker" (N)		"to break" (V3a)		"breaking" (A)
	haikwai		haikwau
	"broken" (A/N)		"that which must be broken" (A/N)

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Note ... haikwai could very well have broken by itself. There is no connotation that an outside agent was responsible. The same with haikwau.

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heukana	<============	heuka	============>	heukala
"breaker" (N)		"to break" (V3b)		"breaking" (A)

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There are 4 derivational processes involved with V3a and 2 derivational processes involved with V3b. They have been already been explained in the sections on V1 and V2.

Note that we have 8 word forms in total.

kó = to see

kowa = to be seen

The subject of the active clause, can be included in the passive clause as an afterthought if required. hí is a normal noun meaning "source". However it also acts as a particle (prefix) which introduces the agent in a passive clause.

poʔau = to cook

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When the final consonant is w y h or ʔ the passive is formed by suffixing -wa

In monosyllabic words, it is formed by suffixing -wa.

Note ... when wa is added to a word ending in au or eu, the final u is deleted.

Also note ... these operations can make consonant clusters which are not allowed in the base words. For example, in a root word -mpw- would not be allowed ( Chapter 1, Consonant clusters, Word medial)

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... Valency ... 1 => 2

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Now all verbs that can take an ergative argument can undergo the 2=>1 transformation.

There also exists in béu a 1=>2 transformation. However this transformation can only be applied to a handful of verbs. Namely ...

ʔoime	to be happy, happyness	ʔoimora	he is happy	ʔoimye	to make happy	ʔoimyana	pleasant
heuno	to be sad/sadness	heunora	she's sad	heunyo	to make sad	heunyana	depressing
taudu	to be annoyed	taudora	he is annoyed	tauju	to annoy	taujana	annoying
swú	to be scared, fear	swora	she is afraid	swuya	to scare	swuyana	frightening, scary
canti	to be angry, anger	cantora	he is angry	canci	to make angry	cancana	really annoying
yodi	to be horny, lust	yodora	she is horny	yoji	to make horny	yojana	sexy, hot
gái	to ache, pain	gayora	he hurts	gaya	to hurt (something)	gayana	painful *
gwibe	to be ashamed/shame/shyness	gwibora	she is ashamed/shy	gwibye	to embarrass	gwibyana	embarrassing
doimoi	to be anxious, anxiety	doimora	he is anxious	doimyoi	to cause anxiety, to make anxious	doimyana	worrying
ʔica	to be jealous, jealousy	ʔicora	she is jealous	ʔicaya	to make jealous	ʔicayana	causing jealousy

ʔoimor would mean "he is happy by nature". All the above words take this sense when the "a" of the present tense is dropped.

The above words are all about internal feelings.

The third column gives a transitive infinitive (derived from the column two entry by infixing a -y- before the final vowel).

The fourth column gives an adjective of the transitive verb (derived from column three entry by affixing a -ana ... the active participle).

When the final consonant is ʔ j c w or h the causative is formed by suffixing -ya.

Also when the verb is a monosyllable, the causative is formed by suffixing -ya.

Note ... when ya is added to a word ending in ai or oi, the final i is deleted.

Note ... when y is infixed behind t and d : ty => c and dy => j

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Normally in béu, to make a nominally intransitive verb transitive, it doesn't need the infixing of -y. All it needs is the appearance of an ergative argument. For example ...

doika = to walk

doikor = he walk

ós doikor the pulp mill = he runs the pulp mill

doikyana = management ???

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^*You would describe a gallstone as gayana. However you would describe your leg as gaila (well provided you didn't have a chronic condition with your leg)

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Concatenation of the valency changing derivations ... 1 => 2 => 1 and 2 => 1 => 2

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ʔoime

= to be happy

ʔoimye

= to make happy

ʔoimyewa

= "to be made to be happy" or, more simply "to be made happy

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fàu

= to know

fa??

= to tell

fa ??

=

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timpa

= to hit

timpawa

= to be hit

timpawaya

= to cause to be hit

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Semantically timpa is direct action (from agent to patient). Whereas timpawaya is indirect, possibly involving some third party between the agent and the patient and/or allowing some time to pass, between resolving on the action and the action being done unto the patient.

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..... 9 important verbs

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pòi	to enter, to join	poinau	to put in
féu	to exit, to leave	feunau	to take out
bwí	to see	bwinau	to show
glù	to know	glunau	to tell
pyà	to fly	pyanau	to throw
jó	to go	jonau	to send
tè	to come	tenau	to summon
bái	to rise	bainau	to raise
kàu	to fall	kaunau	to lower

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pyà _ jó _ tè _ bái and kàu are intransitive.

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..... Word building

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Many words in béu are constructed from amalgamating two basic words. The constructed word is non-basic semantically ... maybe one of the concepts needed for a particular field of study.

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In béu when 2 nouns are come together the second noun qualifies the first. For example ...

toili nandau (literally "book" "word") ... the thing being talk about is "book" and "word" is an attribute of "book".

Now the person who first thought of the idea of compiling a list of words along with their meaning would have called this idea toili nandau.

However over the years as the concept toili nandau became more and more common, toili nandau would have morphed into nandəli.

Often when this process happens the resulting construction has a narrower meaning than the original two word phrase.

There are 4 steps in this word building process ...

1) Swap positions : toili nandau => nandau toili

2) Delete syllable : nandau toili => nandau li

3) Vowel becomes schwa : nandau li => nandə li

4) Merge the components : nandə li => nandəli

The above example is for 2 non-monosyllabic words. In the vast majority of constructed words the contributing words are polysyllables.

The process is slightly different when a contributing word is a monosyllabic. First we look at the case when the main word is a monosyllable ...

wé deuta (literally "manner soldier")

1) Swap positions : wé deuta => *deuta wé ........ there is no step 2

3) Vowel becomes schwa : *deuta wé => *deutɘ wé

4) Merge the components : *deutə wé => deutəwe

And the case when the attribute is a monosyllable ...

nandau sài (literally "word colour")

1) Swap positions : *sài nandau

2) Delete syllable : *sài dau .......................................... there is no step 3

4) Merge the components : *sài dau => saidau

And the case when the attribute ends in a consonant ...

megau peugan ... "body of knowledge" "society"

1) Swap positions : *peugan megau

2) Delete syllable : *peugan gau

3) Delete the coda and neutralize the vowel :*peugan gau => *peugə gau

4) Merge the components :*peugən gau => peugəŋgau

And the case when the main word has a double consonant before the end vowel ...

kanfai gozo ... merchant of fruit

1) Swap positions : *gozo kanfai

2) Delete syllable : *gozo fai ............................. Note kan is deletes, not just ka

3) Vowel before the final consonant becomes schwa :*gozo fai => *gozə fai

4) Merge the components :*gozə fai => gozəvai

There are no cases where both contributing words are monosyllables.

Note ...

1) the schwa is represented by a sturdy dot.

2) the consonant before the schwa takes its final form

3) the consonant after the schwa takes its medial form

When spelling words out, this dot is pronounced as jía ... meaning "link".

Notice that when you hear nandəli, deutəwe or peugəgau you know that they are a non-basic words (because of the schwa).

Also when you see nandəli or deutəwe, peugəgau written you know that they are non-basic words (because of the dot).

However when you come across hipe it is not immediately obvious that it's a non-basic word.

This method of word building is only used for nouns.

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..... Bicycles, Insects and Spiders

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wèu = vehicle, wagon

weuvia = a bicycle

weubia = a tricycle

Perhaps can be thought of derived from an expression something like "wagon two-wheels-having" or "wagon double-wheel-having" with a lot of erosion.

Notice that the "item" that is numbered (i.e. wheel) is completely dropped ... probably not something that would evolve naturally.

There are not many words in this category.

jodoʒia^* = spider

jodolia = insect

jodogia = quadraped

jodovia = biped

nodebia = a three-way intersection ... usually referring to road intersections.

nodegia = a four-way intersection

nodedia = a five-way intersection

nodelia = a six-way intersection ... and you can continue up of course.

^*jodo = animal ... from jode = to move

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..... Ambitransitive verbs

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In English there are some verbs that sometimes take one participant and sometimes involve two participants. For example "knit" or "turn". In English you know if the verb is appearing in its intransitive form if an extra argument turns up after the verb (that is ... an O argument has turned up) ... S and A appear the same in English.

Similarly in béu there are some verbs that sometimes take one participant and sometimes take two participants. For example mekeu "knit" or kwèu "turn". In béu you know if the verb is appearing in its intransitive form if an extra argument turns up with the ergative marker -s attached (that is ... an A argument has turned up) ... S and O appear the same in béu.

Note on nomenclature

Dixon calls "knit"/mekeu an ambitransitive verb of type S=A or an [S=A ambitransitive verb].

I call "knit"/mekeu an ambitransitibe verb of type "one unaffected argument" or an [unaffected ambitransitive verb].

For "knit" the preverb argument^* is either S or A .... For mekeu the unaffected argument is either S or A.

Dixon calls "turn"/kwèu is an ambitransitive verb of the type S=O or an [S=O ambitransitive verb].

I call "turn"/kwèu an ambitransitibe verb of type "one affected argument" or an [affected ambitransitive verb].

For "turn" the affected argument is either S or O .... For kwèu the naked argument^** (i.e. no -s) is either S or O.

^*It is also the unaffected argument.

^**It is also the affected argument.

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..... More on definiteness

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In the section on word order we said that when the person being spoken to can identify X as one particular X ... then X will come before the verb, where X is any of the A O or S arguments.

However ... the above leaves undefined, whether the person speaking can identify X. This can be made explicit in béu by adding either the particle é or the participle fawai. For example ...

doikora bàu = A man is walking .... unknown to the person being spoken to : known-ness to the person speaking is not defined.

doikora é bàu = Some man is walking .... unknown to the person being spoken to : unknown to the person speaking.

doikora bàu fawai = A man is walking .... unknown to the person being spoken to : known to the person speaking.

This distinction is also made in certain natural languages. For example with nouns in Samoan ...

o sa fafine = a woman

o le fafine = a woman ……. unknown to you but known to me

Or between these two indefinite pronouns in Latin ...

aliquis = somebody

quidam = somebody ……. unknown to you but known to me

[ Note ... the argument qualified by é or fawai invariably come after the verb. Also, while it is possible to imagine some scenario where an argument is known to the person being spoken to but unknown to the person speaking, in reality this very very rarely happens and I know of no natural language that makes this distinction. ]

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One interesting point .....

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Take the sentence ... "She wants to marry a Norwegian"

How do we show the definiteness of the Norwegian in relation to the subject. That is ... does she have a certain Norwegian in mind or does she want to marry any Norwegian.

In English ... when you hear this sentence ... you will nearly always know from the context, which of the two meanings is meant.

"any" or "that she knows" could be added to make the distinction explicit within the sentence itself.

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..... Questions

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Polar Questions and focus

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

To turn a normal statement into a polar question the particle ʔai is put at the very end.

It starts of neutral tone and rises. In fact if you look in chapter 1 and look at the intonation profiles of the interjections, you will see how ʔaiwa is pronounced. ʔai is pronounced exactly as the first part of ʔaiwa. In beu orthography, this word is given its own symbol ... a plus sign.

From now on ... in my representation of the beu sounds in the latin alphabet ... I will use ? ... why not.

? is neutral as to the response you are expecting.

To answer a positive question you answer ʔaiwa "yes" or aiya "no". For example ...

glá è hauʔe ? = Is the woman beautiful ? .......... If she is beautiful, answer ʔaiwa, if she isn't answer aiya.

To answer a negative question you can not use ʔaiwa or aiya but must repeat the whole sentence in either the negative or the positive.

glá sorke hauʔe ? = Isn't the woman beautiful ? .... If she is beautiful, answer glá è hauʔe, if she is not answer glá sorke hauʔe

Sometimes it is permissible to drop everything except the verb (which of course incorporates the negative element).

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To bring a word into focus you put cù in front of it. For example ...

Statement ... bàus glán nori alha = the man gave flowers to the woman

Focused statement ... bàus cù glán nori alha = It is the woman to whom the man gave flowers. (English uses a process called "left dislocation" to give emphasis to a word).

Statement ... bàus ná glá hauʔe nori alha = the man gave flowers to the beautiful woman

Focused statement ... bàus ná cù glá hauʔe nori alha = It is to the beautiful woman that the man gave flowers to.

Any argument can be focused in this way. In fact the verb can also be focused using this method.

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To question one element in a clause, you have cù in front of the element and ? sentence final.

Alternatively you can dispense with the cù and put the ? directly behind the element you want to question. For example ...

cù bàus glán nori alha ? = Is it the man that has given flowers to the woman ?

bàus ? glán nori alha = Is it the man that has given flowers to the woman ?

[should I replace cù with á]

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Content questions

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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".

béu has 9 content question words also ...

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dá	where
kyú	when
nén nós	what
mín mís	who
kái	"what kind of"
láu	"how much" or "how many"
nái	which

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nós and mís are the ergative equivalents to nén and mín (the unmarked words)

There is a strong tendency for nén nós mín and mís to be sentence-initial.

There is a tendency for the NP's containing kái, láu and nái to be sentence-initial.

kái and nái come after the nouns they ask about.

láu comes before the noun it asks about. ??? [ this doesn't agree with what I wrote in fandaunyo Chapter 2 ... but maybe láu in number slot : kái in adjective slot and nái in determiner slot }

"how" is represented by wé nái (which way) ... "why" by nenji (for what)

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

Here are some example ...

Statement ... báus glán nori alha = the man gave the woman flowers

Question 1 ... mís glán nori alha = who gave the woman flowers ?

Question 2 ... í mín bàus nori alha = the man gave flowers to who ?

Question 3 ... nén bàus glán nori = what did the man give the woman ?

Question 4 ... ná glá nái bàus nori alha = the man gave the flowers to which woman ?

Question 5 ... á bàu nái glán nori alha = which man gave the woman flowers ?

Question 6 ... alha kái báus glán nori = what type of flowers did the man give the woman ?

Question 7 ... láu alha báus glán nori = how many flowers did the man give the woman

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

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.. Specifiers X determiners

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Below is a table showing all the specifiers plus a countable noun plus the proximal determiner "this".

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1	ù báu dí	all of these men OR all these men
2	hài báu dí	many of these men
3	iyo báu dí	few of these men OR a few of these men
4	auva báu dí	two of these men => ataitauta báu dí ... 1727 of these men
5	jù báu dí	none of these men
6	í báu dí	any of these men OR any one of these men
7	é báu dí	one of these men
- 8 -	éu báu dí	some of these men
9	?? báu dí	every one of these men
10	nò báu dí	several of these men OR several of these men here
11	é nò báu dí	one or more of these men ???
12	í auva báu dí ...	any 2 of these men => í ataitauta báu dí ... any 1727 of these men

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The above table is worth discussing ... for what it tells us about English as much as anything else.

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One line 1 ... I do not know why "all these men" is acceptable ... on every other line "of" is needed (to think about)

Similarly on line 3 ... I do not know why "a few" is a valid alternative.

Notice that *aja báu dí does not exist. It is illegal. "one of these men" is expressed on line 7. aja only used in counting ???

I should think more on the semantic difference between line 10 and line 8. ???

line 1 and line 9 are interesting. Every language has a word corresponding to "every" (or "each", same same) and a word corresponding to "all". Especially when the NP is S or A, "all" emphasises the unity of the action, while "every" emphasises the separateness of the actions. Now of course (maybe in most cases) this dichotomy is not needed. It seems to me, that in that case, English uses "every" as the default case (the Scandinavian languages use "all" as the default ??? ). In béu the default is "all" ù.

On line 9, it seems that "one" adds emphasis to the "every". Probably, not so long ago, "every" was valid by itself. The meaning of this word (in English anyway) seems particularly prone to picking up other elements (for the sake of emphasis) with a corresponding lost of power for the basic word when it occurs alone. (From Etymonline EVERY = early 13c., contraction of Old English æfre ælc "each of a group," literally "ever each" (Chaucer's everich), from each with ever added for emphasis. The word still is felt to want emphasis; as in Modern English every last ..., every single ..., etc.)

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This table is also valid for the distal determiner "that". For the third determiner ("which") the table is much truncated ...

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1	nò báu nái	which men
2	... auva báu nái	which two men => ataitauta báu nái which 1727 of these men

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Below I have reproduced the above two tables for when the noun is dropped (but understood as background information). It is quite trivial to generate the below tables. Apart from lines 8 and 10, just delete "men" from the English phrase and báu from the béu phrase. (I must think about why 8 and 10 are different ???)

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1	ù dí	all of these OR all these
2	uwe dí	many of these
3	iyo dí	few of these OR a few of these
4	auva dí	2 of these => ataitauta dí ... 1727 of these
5	kyà dí	none of these
6	í dí	any of these OR any one of these
7	é dí	one of these
- 8 -	è dí	some of these OR several of these
9	yú dí	every one of these
10	nò dí	these NOT several of these
11	é nò dí	one or more of these
12	í auva dí ...	any 2 of these => í ataitauta dí ... any 1727 of these

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1	nò nái	which ones
2	... auva nái	which two => ataitauta nái which 1727

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In the last section we introduced the rule, that when a determiner is the head, then the determiner changes form (an a is prefixed to it)

Now we must introduce an exception to that rule ... when you have a specifier just to the left of a determiner (in this conjunction, the determiner MUST be the head) the determiner takes its original form.

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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