Béu : Chapter 5 : Questions
Welcome to béu
..... Clause Pairs
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More times than not, clauses come in pairs or even longer strings. The particles è is used to join clauses. Well this is the more neutral particle (the particle plí can also be used ??)
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huʒia = to smoke
koʔua = to cough
solbe = to drink
caume = medicine
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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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..... 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
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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
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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
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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 :*peugə gau => peugəgau
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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 => gozəfai
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And here are a few examples to demonstrate the semantic range that this technique can encompass ...
laŋku = shadow, reflection
miaka = echo, response, effect
Which produce miakəka meaning "subtle influence" or "to subtly influence"
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sword.spear => weaponry ... shield.helmet => armour, protection ... knife.fork => cuttlery ... table.chair => furniture
There are no cases where both contributing words are monosyllables.
As with the schwa-form and the i-form verbs ... the schwa is represented by cross.
When spelling words out, this cross 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).
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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..... Totality ... collectively or individually
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Sometimes we want to talk about all members of the category "noun" acting (or being acted upon) COLLECTIVELY.
For this we use the particle ú before the plural of the noun. For example ...
moltai = a/the doctor
moltai.a = doctors
ú moltai = all doctors
Note ... the same word, when appended to a noun, means "the whole" or "entire". For example ...
falaja ú = all morning
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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 ...
kòi = day
kòi kòi = every day
moltai = doctor
moltai moltai = each doctor
falaja = afternoon
fa-falaja = every afternoon
Notice that for words over two syllables, only the first syllable is prefixed.
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The "word-hood" of these duplications is murky. When the word in its entirety is dublicated, they are written as to seperate words. When a word is only partially duplicated I write it as a hyphenated word. In the béu script a special symbol is used to indicate duplication.
Single syllable words retain their 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".
For example ...
yildos yildos (every morning) would be pronounced / jildoʃ jildos /.
bàu bàu can be pronounced bàu vàu ... [ If you remember ( Chapter 1.1) b and v are in free variation ]
là bàu bàu = "on every man" .... indicates that bàu bàu is multi-word as the pilana is in its stand alone form.
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.
For example ...
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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 ...
ú bàu súr = all men are
bàu bàu sór = every man is
NOTE TO MYSELF
Every language has a word corresponding to "every" (or "each", same same) and a word corresponding to "all". "all" emphasises the unity of the action (especially when the NP is S or A) while "every" emphasises the separateness of the actions. Now it is not always necessary to make this distinction (perhaps in most cases). 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.
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.)----
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
?ài bàu = some men
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..... lé .... lú .... ló
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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 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 ...
jonos jenes solbur moze = "John and Jane drink water"
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 ...
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.
[ 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 ]
This word is that is never written out in full but has its own symbol. See below ...
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Note ... in the béu script, the "o" before "r" is always dropped. This is just a sort of short hand thing.
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The following construction is also found.
lé moze lé ʔazwo = "both water and milk"
The above construction emphasizes the "linking" word lé
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"
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 ...
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@
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)).
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.
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... "no"
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In béu, jù corresponds to "no".
"neither water nor milk" would be translated as jù moʒi jù ʔazwo
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... lists
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So far we have restricted ourselves to two items. We can summarize the system for two items as below ...
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| lé | giving | 2 | items | |||||
| lú | giving | 1 | item | ..... | ʔala | asking for | 1 | item |
| jù | giving | 0 | items |
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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 ...
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.
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... other
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ló = other
lói = others
kyulo = again
welo = otherwise
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..... Set Phrases
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If you meet somebody who you have not met for sometime you say fò fales sàu gipi "may peace be in you" (may peace fill you ??... fò í fales FILL jè
If you meet some people who you have not met for sometime you say fò fales sàu jepi "may peace be in you" (may peace fill you ??... fò í fales FILL jè
On taking your leave of somebody who you have not met for sometime you say fò nela sàu gimau "may the blue sky be above you"
On taking your leave of somebody who you have not met for sometime you say fò nela sàu jemau "may the blue sky be above you"
If you pass somebody in the street or you meet your workmates for the first time in the morning fales is sufficient. If you say fò fales sàu gipi it typically means that you are going to have a ten minute (at least) chat.
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There are some set phrases ... these are not a million miles from interjections
Also there two phrases { "j" and "k" } which could be considered interjections. They have the intonation pattern of a single word.
(A) yuajiswe.iʃʃ which expresses consternation and/or grief. In about 30% of cases it is shortened to swe.iʃʃ only.
It means ... (say "iʃʃ" for us)
(B) hambətunmazore which expresses great joy. In about 70% of cases it is shortened to hambətun only.
It means ... (the gates to heaven have opened)
(C) And finally when somebody is telling a story or giving detailed instructions, you might say plirai at suitable intervals. This is simply a contraction of plìr ʔai? ... "do you follow ?"
(D) ... OK, we are scrapping the bottom of the barrel here. Not an exclamation in béu but maybe an exclamation in another language ... hù nén.
It expresses sudden consternation/dismay, equivalent to ... WHAT !!
(E) kè kè = "sorry" or "excuse me" ... Related to the word kelpa meaning "to apologize".
(F) sè sè = "thank you" ... Related to the word senda meaning "to thank".
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... A discussion on Complement Clauses and Variable Clauses
We live in a world that has an independent reality. For example ... If nobody is looking at ... say A TREE, that TREE continues to exist. If nobody is thinking about this TREE, this TREE continues to exist. Even if no sentient being has any knowledge whatsoever of this TREE, this TREE continues to exist ... in fact this TREE is totally indifferent as to whether it is being looked at or thought about ... this TREE is totally indifferent as to whether it has EVER been looked at or thought about.
I BELIEVE THE ABOVE IS SELF-EVIDENT.
The philosopher George Berkeley (1685–1753) questioned the above (or at least he is reported to have questioned the above).
But in reality ... the entire Universe exists independently of any observers. In actual fact EVERY ADULT HUMAN carries an (imperfect) model of his environment in his mind and uses this model to plan his actions. The main reason HUMANS have been so successful compared to other animals is that we have a more complete model than ... say ... our primate cousins. The reason that out model is good is that we have LANGUAGE and so get information from our fellows. Probably the building of this MODEL and LANGUAGE were co-developements and could well be reflected in the size of the HUMAN BRAIN over the last few million years. I believe that this MODEL and LANGUAGE are intertwined and hence I don't think it is a good idea to consider either in isolation.
Now usually when we communicate ... we just talk about reality. For example ... JOHN IS TALL. We do not acknowledge the actual more complicated situation ... IN MY WORLD MODEL, JOHN IS TALL.
But sometimes we do .... usually when we are talking about activities related to our mind ... like "thinking", "knowing" ... disseminating knowledge to our fellows "telling", "saying" ... gathering knowledge first hand "seeing", "hearing" ... trying to gather knowlege from our fellows "asking". All these bracketed verbs can take what are called complement clauses. When you see a complement clause you are seeing an admission that what we are talking about is not in fact REALITY, but some MODEL of REALITY. Maybe you could say that it is an admission that we are using META-DATA rather than DATA.
The following might illuminate a bit. What is on the white background is REALITY. What is on a black background is part of a MIND MODEL . The script on an orange background is a speach act appropriate for the situation shown. The first panel is the way that we normally speak ... that is REALITY is presented directly with no referrence to any MIND MODEL.
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Now it seems that most languages have at least one way of bracketing off the META-DATA from DATA.
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From now on Complement Clauses => CC's
Dixon reckons there are 7 different types of CC in English ...
(1) John said that you are an idiot.
(2) John knowswhat you did last night.
(3) She mentioned John hitting the dog.
(4) It's bad for Jane to waste all her money.
(5) She declared John to be an idiot.
(6) I told her where to park her car.
(7) She dissuaded him from going
Actually I would only consider (1) and (2) to be CC ... I would say (3) to (7) to contain different types of "Infinitive Phrases" ( Infinitive Phrases => IP )
Take example 7 for example ... how can you parse that ? There should be nothing underlined there ... "dissuade" is a 3-part verb ... "from" is a preposition that defines the roll of the least pertinant part ... "she dissuaded him from going" really can not be broken up into smaller parts.
(1) The word "that" functions as what is called a "deictic noun" ia in "Did you see that ? It is reasonable to assume that "John said that you are an idiot" <= "John said that" ... "you are an idiot" with "that" referring to the second clause. However over time this sentence type got more integrated and (along with a change in intonation) "that you are an idiot" got re-analized as an embedded clause.
(2) This type of construction is very interesting. The embedded clause what you did last night is equivalent to a variable in mathematics (usually represented by X, Y or Z). And just as in mathematics the use of variables allows you to you to manipulate concepts without knowing there exact value, this "what" type of construction allows to to say things that ... either (a) you don't know .... or (b) are to unwieldy to say. For example the guy that spoke "John knowswhat you did last night" does not have to have this knowledge himself (alternatively he could have this knowledge ... but maybe if ten things were done last night ... well it is just too time consumming to enumerate them all).
This type of construction represents a "indefinite" ....
(2a) She asked what did you eat ................................... indefinite thing
(2b) She asked who ate the sandwich ........................... indefinite person
(2c) She asked where did you eat the sandwich ........... indefinite place
(2d) She asked when did you eat last ........................... indefinite time
(2e) She asked whose sandwich did you eat ................ indefinite owner (person)
(2f) She asked which restaurant did we eat at ............. indefinite X out of all the X present/possible/pertinant. X represents a "unit" rather than a "type".
(2g) She asked how we got to the restaurant .............. indefinite manner
(2h) She asked why we didn't go to her restaurant ..... indefinite reason ............. 8 question words in all in English
All 8 function as Question Words.
All 8 function as Complementers ... well all languages have verbs which introduce direct speech (page 36 of A Semantic Approach to English Grammar). And as all 8 are used in direct speech (i.e. QW's) it is not surprising that they have worked their way into complementizer position. Note that the above CC do not have direct speech. Well sometimes it is hard to determine if they are direct or indirect ... you must know the background to know ???
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Note that the QUESTION and the VARIABLE CLAUSE have different forms because of the English rule that you swap the position of the subject and the first word in the verb phrase in a question. However for (e) and (f) this swapping of positions is not possible as "whose" and "which" are constituents of NP as opposed to constituents of a verb phrase.
It is (probably) for this reason that the element -"ever" is required appended to these to forms. In fact the element -"ever" can be appended to the "wh" word in any variable clause. It increases the "indefiniteness" feeling.
From this analysis it seems like we should write "whose" as "who's" ... that is ... there is no independent word "whose".
As to "why" is not a variable clause ... well to me "why I let you go ..." sounds infelicitous rather than a big NO NO. I judge it to be wrong but not by much. Probably it is illegal because of the prevalence of the conjunction "because" ... which makes a variable clause about reason ... unnecessary.
... More on the noun phrase
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In section 2.7 we analyzed the the different components that can go into seŋko kaza or the noun phrase if you will. Here we will go into it in a bit more detail. It will be seen that there is a bit of "internal structure" ... a bit of complexity that is not obvious upon first blush.
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.. Sets and subsets
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Nearly every seŋko occurs in multitudes. OK, there are a few counter examples, such as kòi "sun" but for the most part they occur in multitudes. When we talk about any plurality of these nouns it is possible to change the scope of the set under discussion ... it as if we can zoom in and zoom out and this ability to "zoom" is defined by grammar (what else).
Let as take the noun moltai "doctor" to demonstrate this. Below ... represented by the orange area is all the doctors in the world (and also presumable the Universe*).
*This "zooming" idea is not fully air-tight, there is a bit of fuzzyness about it ... hence the inclusion of "presumably".
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The above is as far as we can zoom out. Call the total orange area the "u* set". This scope is appropriate for generic pronouncements. Such as ...
moltai.a súr jini = "doctors are clever"
* u for universal.
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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 ... and if the NP "these doctors" moltai.a dí is mentioned and commented on it becomes fixed in the mind of all the interlocators.
moltai.a dí is represented by the orange area in the Venn diagram below.
OK ... lets hear another bit of narrative and change the "set" of doctors under consideration again. The narrative is ...
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 ... and if the NP "those doctors*" moltai.a dè is mentioned and commented on it becomes fixed in the mind of all the interlocators.
moltai.a dè is represented by the orange area in the Venn diagram below.
OK ... after hearing that, the NP "those doctors*" moltai.a dè is represented by the orange area in the Venn diagram below.
* This is presuming that the NP moltai.a dí was actually talked about after the first narrative. If not ... then the NP moltai.a dí would be used to refer to the senior doctors. So it is like the particles dí and dè are letting us keep track of two "sets" of doctors at the same time. That is ... the NP's moltai.a dí and moltai.a dè have been set up in the minds of all interlocators to refer to two different sets. The second NP ( moltai.a dè ) only exists as a sort of contradistinction to the initial NP moltai.a dí .
OK ... this is as far as we can go with this example. I believe if you add the set "senior" doctors to the set "junior" doctors you have a set identical to the "set" doctors (However I could be wrong about this)
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Lets change the example to take this idea further. Let us take bawa "men" for our noun. OK assume some narrative was given, and then bawa dí was mentioned to cement it into everybody's mind.
Then more narrative was given (defining a further subset) and bawa dé was mentioned to cement it into everybody's mind. A further NP can be used to refer to all bawa outside the first two sets. This NP is bawa lò "other men"
Actually bawa lò is usually used just one ... the set referred to as bawa lò are hardly ever kept in anybody's mind for more than a few seconds. In actual fact the first two terms don't usually persist long in a discourse either. We are continually zooming in ... zooming out ... changing our perspective.
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.. The extended NP
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When we were talking about how the NP was built up ( chapter 2.7 ) we mentioned the "numerative slot" that comes just before the head. We said that in this slot we can have either a "numerative" or a "selective". In this section we will discuss how these two classes of words interact with the singularity/plurality of the head noun. Also we will introduce a construction called "the extended NP" which gives a "partitive" meaning.
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| 1 | jù moltai dí... | no doctor here | moltai.a dí làu jù... | none of these doctors |
| 2 | ʔà moltai dí... | one doctor here | moltai.a dí làu ʔà... | one of these doctors |
| 3 | hói moltai dí... | two doctors here | moltai.a dí làu hói... | two of these doctors |
| 4 | léu moltai dí... | three doctors here | moltai.a dí làu léu... | three of these doctors |
| 5 | iyo moltai dí... | a few doctors here | moltai.a dí làu iyo... | few of these doctors |
| 6 ... | euca moltai dí... | seven doctors here | moltai.a dí làu euca... | seven of these doctors |
| 7 | hài moltai dí... | many doctors here | moltai.a dí làu hài... | many of these doctors |
| 8 | ú moltai dí... | all the doctors here | moltai.a dí làu ú... | "all of the doctors here" or "every one of the doctors here" |
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In the table above the RHS has a "partitive" meaning. For example ... euca moltai dí means that we are talking about "seven doctors" and they are "here". But moltai.a dí làu euca means, we are talking about "seven out of a (significantly) larger number of doctors here". The RHS expressions I call an "extended NP's" ... [ NP + làu + numerative = extended NP ]
làu has been mention before in Chapter 2.12.1 ... it is a particle and it serves a number of functions*
* These different functions are not totally unrelated to each other ... they "impinge" on each other ... just as particles in natural language do.
To use an extended NP is to "zoom in". It is to narrow the scope of the items we are focusing on (as discussed in the previous section).
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TWO RULES ...
A) For non-extended NP ... in any numerative before the head, then the head is SINGULAR.
B) For extended NP ... the head is PLURAL.
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But what about the "selectives". What about ín and èn ? Listing the four possibilities below ...
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9 ) ín moltai dí = any doctor here
10) ín moltai.a dí = any doctors here
11) èn moltai dí = some doctor here
12) èn moltai.a dí = some doctors here
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It can be seen that following a "selective" ... the head can can be either SINGULAR or PLURAL
Now how can we interpret a sentence ... such as ... "any two doctors here" ?
Well the rules state that only one word is allowed in the numerative slot ... so ... *ín hói moltai dí or *hói ín moltai dí are not allowed.
However we can use extended NP's. For example ...
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| 9 | ín moltai dí | any doctor here | => | [ empty due to Rule B ] | |
| 10 | ín moltai.a dí * | any doctors here | => | ín moltai.a dí làu hói | any two doctors here |
| 11 | èn moltai dí | some doctor here | => | [ empty due to Rule B ] | |
| 12 | èn moltai.a dí | some doctors here | => | èn moltai.a dí làu hói | two doctors here ** |
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* ... ín moltai.a dí exists, however it is a very rare beast. By far the most common use of ín is with a singular head. But in certain situations you have a situation where it is known that a PLURALITY is needed. For example "to lift up a long narrow table". So in this situation ín moltai.a dí could be used ( "any doctors here can lift the table" ... just an example). However in most situations where it is known that a plurality is needed ... it is know exactly HOW MANY are needed. In the above example TWO ... hence you would hear ín moltai.a dí làu hói more often than hearing ín moltai.a dí
COMMON .... ín moltai dí >>> ín moltai.a dí làu X (where X is any numerative) >>> ín moltai.a dí ... UNCOMMON
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** You don't know which two ... bit we are defining them now ... henceforth we shall refer to them as nù.
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The particle nò can also occur in the tail of an extended NP. For example ...
moltai.a dí làu nò = "several of these doctors"
In this case ... nò can be looked on as indicating plurality neutrally ... without any connotations of HIGH MAGNITUDE as hài ... or LOW MAGNITUDE as iyo.
Note that nò now has 3 uses ... it is a noun "number" ... it is a plural marker for most monosyllable nouns ... and now this use. Note that it is not a numerative (or a selective either for that matter).
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moltai.a dí làu ʔà lú more = "one or more of these doctors" ??????????????
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Note ... ʔà moltai dí means pretty much the same as èn moltai dí ... one a selective, one a numerative.
In béu, èn is preferred over ʔà to code indefinite [ ??? go into indefiniteness after this section ??? ]
ʔà moltai dí could mean "the one man here" but ʔà/"one" is superfluous in both béu and English (unless you were to appand a relative clause)
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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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The distributive can occur in the tail of an extended NP. For example ...
moltai.a dí làu ò ò ... = You see the doctors here ... well everyone of them ...
[ Of course if "the doctors here" was on the top of every ones mind ... then only ò ò would be expressed ]
OK ... I have explain all the above using the determiner dí. But it is exactly the same pattern with a different determiner or no determiner at all.
I have explain all the above using a multi-syllable head. But the same pattern holds for mono-syllable heads ... regular and irregular. For example you could change wèu "vehicle" or "car" for moltai and nò wèu for moltai.a in the above explanation and everything would hold. Or bàu for moltai and bawa for moltai.a.
Also pronouns follow the above pattern. But note ... "those two*" in English is hói nù "two us" in béu ... "you three" is léu jè ... "us four" (including you) is ega wìa ... "us five" (excluding you) is oda yùa ... and so on.
"five of them" being nù làu oda of couse, following the exact same pattern that a normal noun takes for partitiveness.
á hói yùa doikuarua í london = "the two of us will walk to london" OR "us two will walk to london" ... [ I guess there would be a tendency to drop yùa??? ]
á yùa làu hói doikuarua í london = two of us will walk to london ... [tendency to drop yùa??? ]
* I guess English is a bit irregular with the 3rd person plural pronoun. This would be "they two" if it patterned the same as the other pronouns.
( write about partitive in Finnish ) ... ( write about the other uses of làu ) ... ( revisit the DISTRIBUTIVE )
WHAT ABOUT .... enough of the men .... too many of the men ... above 100 of the men ... more of the men
all others => ú lòs
some others => nò lòs
any doctor => ín moltai
any doctor here = any of these doctors => ín moltai dí
any of the doctors here => ín moltai.a dí
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ʔà ʃì = it ... nò ʃì = them (inanimate)
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| 1 | ʔà ʃì nái | which one |
| 2 | nò ʃì nái | which ones |
| 3 | léu ʃì nái | which two |
| 4 | léus nái | which two |
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... A discussion on definiteness
[ IMPORTANT ... And at this point I would like to say that I consider "definite" to be the same as "specific" to be the same as "referential". I actually like to use the term "known". I am always careful to always specify "known to who". So "definite" = "specific" = "referential" = "known" ... and a noun "N" designated by any of these terms can be identified as one particular "N" out of every "N" in existance.
Also I consider "indefinite" to be the same as "non-specific" to be the same as not referential. I actually like to use the term "unknown". I am always careful to always specify "unknown to who" So "indefinite" = "non-specific" = "not referential" = "unknown" ... and a noun "N" designated by any of these terms can not be identified as one particular "N" out of every "N" in existance. ... IMPORTANT ]
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Before I discuss how béu handles definiteness I would like to digress a little. Originally I tried using terms like 1st person specific / 2nd person non-specific and 1st person non-specific / 2nd person non-specific etc. etc. to express my ideas. But I soon realized that by using such terms I wasn't helping matters at all. So I decided to use a new terminology. I like to compare me introducing this new terminology and the introduction of modern algebraic notation. Algebra existed for a long time with very little progress being made : all through the Greek Age and the Roman age and the Middle Ages. It was only when an efficient notation was devised that people could started to manipulate the different terms and progress was made. I hope I can do likewise for the definite/indefinite dichotomy.
Logically you can gave the specificity of a noun in a 24-way system (or we can say a noun can exist in 24 different situations). Namely ...
The noun in question can be either specific or non-specific to the speaker. (2 choices)
The speaker can consider the noun to be specific to the listener, the noun to be non specific to the listener, or the speaker can be ignorant about the specificity of the noun to the listener. (3 choices)
A third person could exist or not exist, if they exist, the speaker can consider this third person to know the noun in question specifically, to not know the noun in question specifically, or the speaker can be ignorant about how this third person knows the noun in question. (4 choices).
2 x 3 x 4 so 24 ways that the various protagonists can view the specificity of a given noun. Of these 24 states, 16 are just over fussy, they specify specificity too specifically :-) to be useful. So that leaves us with 8 states (of definite/indefiniteness) which I believe can be profitably considered.
So now let me introduce my notation ...
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The term for every state will begin with a capital "S" (maybe meaning "state" or "situation" or "in the situation" ... it doesn't really matter). Then there will follow 2 or 3 values.
The first value is "1" if the item (noun under consideration) is known to the 1st person (i.e. the speaker) ... "0" if not.
The second value is "1" if the item is known to the 2nd person (i.e. the spoken to) ... "0" if not. If the speaker does not know if the "spoken to" can identify the item, the value is "X" (unspecified).
The third value is blank if no third person is involved ... "1" if the item is known to a 3rd person ... "0" if not. If the speaker does not know if the "3rd person" can identify the item the value is "X" (unspecified).
So ... in the sentence "She wants to marry the Norwegian", we can say Norwegian is defined [S 1 1 1] ... pronounced ... ɛs wən wən wən.
In the sentence "during my trip to Budapest I met this really nice girl", we can say "girl" is defined [S 1 0] ... pronounced ... ɛs wən zɪro.
In the sentence "Do you know that/the guy that got drunk last night ?", we can say "guy" is defined [S 1 X] ... pronounced ... ɛs wən ɛks.
OK ... we have the notation. Now let us consider my 8 states one by one.
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(A) [S 1 1] .... this one is easy. known to both speaker and hearer, part of the body of knowledge that they share. I consider (A) to be "stable"
(B) [S 0 0] ... this one is also easy. The item is non-specific to both speaker and hearer. (B) is "stable" also.
The next 4 situations represent a mismatch between the knowledge that the first person has and that the second person has. Now assuming that the two protagonists are from the same family or tribe : that they are friends or colleagues (the usual situation) they would probably like the information to spread to the other person.
(C) [S 1 0] ... This one is my favorite. I consider it pretty unstable ... humans are a gregarious lot and like to share information. In English there are two particles used to tag (C) items ... "a" and "this".
When physically introducing a new item to a person it is common to use "this". For example "come and look at this colorful little insect". Well of course "this" core meaning is/was for drawing the hearers attention to something near the speaker ... the hearer typically being further away from the object. Right away you get connotations of ... "seen better by the speaker" => "understood better by the speaker" => perhaps "known only by the speaker" and hence in modern day English "this" is used for introducing an unseen [S 1 0] object. And just as when you introduce a visible object with "this", when you introduce a distant object with "this", the expectation is that you are going to talk a bit about the object : to change the state from (C) => (A) .
If you heard from an acquaintance "during my trip to Budapest I met this really nice girl" you would expect to hear quite a bit about her. Whereas if you heard "during my trip to Budapest I met a really nice girl" there would be no such expectations. Maybe the latter sentence was a reply to you saying "all hungarian girls are unfriendly to foreigners" ... "during my trip to Budapest I met a really nice girl" is just your acquaintance rebutting your assertion.
So I would say, (C), when tagged with "this", is likely to change into (A) but when tagged with "a", is more likely to stay an (C) state. However these are just tendencies, not rules. There is nothing wrong with introducing an [S 1 0] state with "this" and then saying nothing more about it, and there is nothing wrong with introducing an [S 1 0] state with "a" and then expanding on it.
I consider (C) tagged by "this" as "unstable" and tagged by "a" as "stable".
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OK ... we have covered the first three situations. The remaining 3 situations are quite different. They all engender questions*. So instead of the objects being tagged with "the"/"a"/"this", they are sought ou, they are represented by a question word such as "who"/"what"/"which".
* Well they engender questions only if they are deemed significant, if they are considered insignificant (only part of the background) they will continue to be referred to as indefinite.
(D) [S 1 X] ... Pretty unstable. The speaker will want to ascertain if the hearer can identify the object that he wants to discuss. So he ask question to that effect. If the hearer replies in the affirmitive then immediately the situation changes : [S 1 X] => [S 1 1].
If the hearer replies in the negative, the speaker will, in all probability, enlighten him. A two stage process leading to the same result : [S 1 X] => [S 1 0] => [S 1 1]
NB .... where as in (C) the speaker will use "this" if he intends to talk more about a certain object. In (D) the speaker might use "that" in a question to ascertain if the situation is [S 1 1] or [S 1 0] **. For example "do you remember that girl that was really freaking out at her boyfriend last night" ***. In this case "girl" is [S 1 1] but maybe she is not that prominent in the hearers memory. The reason for "Do you remember that girl that was really freaking out at her boyfriend last night" is to raise awareness of the girl in the hearer's mind ... to make her a solid [S 1 1] (as opposed to a [S 1 0.5] or a [S 1 0.3] ..... or even [S 1 X] if the hearers attention was wondering the night before).
** I find it pretty neat how the usage of "that" in (D) mirrors the usage of "this" in (C).
*** This is a good time to point out that we are not talking digital here ... more analogue ... more a spectrum of values than two discrete values. But of course there is always an attraction in considering a situation as either black or white ... it makes it so much more simple.
(E) [S 0 1] ... Along with (C) the most unstable. If you don't know something and your mate does ... well, you will want that information.
(F) [S 0 X] ... Unstable. How the situation changes mirrors (D). For example ... the speaker knows that Jane had been raped a few days ago in the town. So, of course, he knows a human male agent was involved. But he doesn't know who. Assume he is visited by his brother from the town. The question will be either "who raped Jane" or "do you know who raped Jane". That is either a content question or a polarity question.
Content Question ...
Question : "who raped Jane" ... Answer : "I don't know" ......................... [S 0 X] => [S 0 0]
Question : "who raped Jane" ... Answer : "Mad Hugo raped her" ............ [S 0 X] => [S 1 1]
Polarity Question ...
Question : "do you know who raped Jane" ... Answer : "Mad Hugo" ......... [S 0 X] => [S 1 1]
Question : "do you know who raped Jane" ... Answer : "no" ...................... [S 0 X] => [S 0 0]
Question : "do you know who raped Jane" ... Answer : "yes" ... Retort : "well who" (annoyed voice) ..... Maybe this dialogue shouldn't be included. To answer "yes" in this situation is abnormal.
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Here is a table of what we have covered so far ...
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Notice that there are no undefined values in the final states, our interlocutors have shared information as much as possible.
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Earlier I proposed considering how well a third party knew the object under discussion. My initial system was very complicated. I was going to include all of [S 1 1 1] , [S 0 0 1] , [S 1 0 1] , [S 1 X 1] , [S 0 X 1] , [S 0 1 1] , [S 1 1 0] , [S 0 0 0] , [S 1 0 0] , [S 1 X 0] , [S 0 X 0] , [S 0 1 0] , [S 1 1 X] , [S 0 0 X] , [S 1 0 X] , [S 1 X X] , [S 0 1 X] ... definitely overkill.
However I would like to keep these two situations ...
(G) [S 0 0 1]
(H) [S 0 0 0]
The third person I am talking about, could be anybody. If one person can identify the object under discussion it is obviously real.
If nobody can identify the object under discussion it is not (necessarily) real or at least not real at this point in time.
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Martin Haspelmath has written a thought provoking book called "Indefinite Pronouns" ( ISBN: 9780198299639 ). In it he talks about 9 indefinite "situations" (page 64 if you have the book at hand) and about how the grammar of different languages express the indefiniteness of these different situations. I find that 3 of his "situations" correspond to 3 of my "situations". In particular I find (1) = [S 1 0] : (2) = [S 0 0 1] : (3) = [S 0 0 0].
I have marked (yellow background) where my "situations" overlap with Haspelmath's "situations". [I would include another situations ... [S 1 1] to the left of [S 1 0]].
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The main observation in this book is that different languages divide up this semantic domain and have different particles tagging the 9 "situations". The interesting thing is that these tags must appear contiguously on the diagram. For example ... below is the semantic domain of English with the particles some-, any- and no- mapped.
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The sentence "Mary wants to marry a Norwegian"**** can be given an [S 0 0 0] interpretation and an [S 0 0 1] interpretation.
**** I find it a bit strange that English has no way to differentiate between (G) and (H). If "she wants to marry any norwegian" was grammatical this differentiaion would be made. However I find it a bit unfelicitous. The string "Mary wants to marry a norwegian ... ANY norwegian" I find felicitous ... strange.
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... How béu codes definiteness
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In English if the definite article "the" comes before a noun it means that the noun is specific to both the speaker and the spoken to ... that is [S 1 1]
Also in English if the indefinite article "a" comes before a noun, it means that the noun is non-specific to the spoken to ... that is [S 0 0]
[S 1 0] is coded the same way as [S 0 0]. Most modern Western European languages do things in a similar way. However it is possible to code [S 1 1] and [S 1 0] together. For example ...
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béu follows Futuna-Aniwa and Samoan in codeing [S 1 1] and [S 1 0] the same way. For [S 1 1] and [S 1 0] the noun comes before the verb, for [S 0 0] (which includes both [S 0 0 1] and [S 0 0 0]) the noun comes after the verb. So we have ...
bàu doikori = The man walked / A man walked ..... [S 1]
doikori bàu = A man walked .................................. [S 0]
The first example encompassing both [S 1 1], [S 1 X] and [S 1 0]. Actually in béu ... for [S 1 0] if the speaker intends to talk about this object for a bit (if he intends to make it "known" to the listener) then the first time it is mentioned this object will have ʔà "one" in front of it. If it is a plural object it will have nò in front of it and the object itself will appear in its base form. For example ...
ʔà bàu doikori ... = This/a man walked ... (I know who but you do not)
nò bàu doikuri ... = These men walked ...
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béu can also code indefiniteness by the particles ín and èn. These two particles are nearly used in the same way as "any" and "some" (see Haspelmath's Implicational Mapin the previous section). See below ...
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(??? what about using glu.ia "known" ... glu.ua "to be known" ... uglu.ia "unknown" ... uzwia "unsaid" ??? )
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Addendum
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*Futuna-Aniwa (Dougherty 1983: 135, 23)
a) na-n tukia ta fatu
pst-1sg hit spec rock
‘I hit against a rock.’
b)
a roroveka kaseroitia ma sa ika aratu
art Roroveka catch neg nonspec fish tomorrow
‘Roroveka won’t get any fish tomorrow.’
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Samoan ...
o sa fafine = a woman
o le fafine = a woman
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... Correlatives
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| uda | everywhere | uku | always | ubu | everybody | ufan | everything |
| juda | nowhere | juku | never | jubu | nobody | jufan | nothing |
| ida | anywhere | iku | anytime | ibu | anybody | ifan | anything |
| eda | somewhere | eku | sometime | ebu | somebody | efan | something |
| enda | some places | eŋku | some times | embu | some people | enfan | somethings |
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The above 20 correlatives all have a special symbols (ignore the blue and red squares). A further 4 of these special symbols are shown below ....
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The short-hand forms (symbols) are always used.
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Actually before g and k the form íŋ is used instead if ín and èŋ instead of èn. Likewise before b and p the form ím is used instead if ín and èm instead of èn.
This has led some people to claim that ín and èn are actually prefixes. The question is unresolved in the béu orthography as these two particles are always written using the short-hand form. In my English transliteration I write them as seperate words ... after all ín and èn always retain their tone. ..
The columns are related to the words ... dàn = place ... kyùs = time/occasion ... glabu = person ... fanyo = thing
ubu can mean "each person" and "all the people". If they act together uwe can be added. If they act individually bajawe can be added.
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... The non-alphabet symbols
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... Index
- Introduction to Béu
- Béu : Chapter 1 : The Sounds
- Béu : Chapter 2 : The Noun
- Béu : Chapter 3 : The Verb
- Béu : Chapter 4 : Adjective
- Béu : Chapter 5 : Questions
- Béu : Chapter 6 : Derivations
- Béu : Chapter 7 : Way of Life 1
- Béu : Chapter 8 : Way of life 2
- Béu : Chapter 9 : Word Building
- Béu : Chapter 10 : Gerund Phrase
- Béu : Discarded Stuff
- A statistical explanation for the counter-factual/past-tense conflation in conditional sentences
