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.

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.

..... 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)

..

..... How to ask a content question

..

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).

..

..... 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.

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.

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.

..... More about the pilana

-pi or pì

meu (rà) "basket"pi

While the original meaning was about space, this pilana is very often found referring to time.

I read the book hourpi => I read the book in an hour

I gets dark pi ten minutes => It get dark in ten minutes

She qualified as a doctor pi five years

One can get from Glasgow to London daypi

I'm coming to Sweden pi next month

meu (rà) topla basketn = The cat is on top of the house

meu (rà) interior basketn = the cat is in the basket

-la or lá

mat (rà) floorla => the mat is on the floor ... notice "the mat"

twor mat floorla => there is a mat on the floor ... notice "a mat". Also the verb two is usually sentence initial, at least when introducing something new.

meu (rà) topla nambon => The cat is on top of the house

Notice that "topla nambon" is allowed, I should mention this somewhere.

twor ble pàn = I have (some) money

ble twor pàn = I have the money

tworka ble pàn = I don't have any money .... Note that it is also possible to say twor yà ble pàn, but the first method is definitely preferred.

ble tworka pàn = I don't have the money

bird (rà) top nambon = The bird is above the house

Notice that in the above example "top" is considered a specifier ... "top nambo" forms a tight compound.

The eight specifiers of location are above, below, right, left, this side (with respect to the speaker, of course), the far side

yè and fí are not used for locations. Instead the transitive verbs "arrive" and "leave" are used in a SVC.

Also the words "come" and "go" covered by "arrive" and "leave".

When not talking about location, yè and fí are used.

For example ...

She gave food to the beggar = ...... beggarye

The beggar got food from the woman = ...... wamanfi

Verbs such as hear and tell use these pilana also.

Also such sentences as ...

I was made to sing by the guard = I receive sing guardfi

He made the prisoner sing = He give sing prisonerye

Also such sentences as ...

He went from being very rich, to very poor, within six months

use yè and fí

-ye or yè

kyiwa toili oye = give the book to her

This is the pilana used for marking the receiver of a gift, or the receiver of some knowledge.

However the basic usage of the word is directional.

*namboye = "to the house"

distanceye nambon = "as far as the house"

"limit"ye nambon = "up to the house" ... this usage is not for approaching humans however ... for that you must use "face".i.e. "face"ye báun = right up to the man

yèu = to arrive ... yài a SVC meaning "to start" ... fái a SVC meaning "to stop" ???

-fi or fí

nambofi = "from the house"

fí "direction" nà nambo = "away from the house" i.e.you don't know if this is his origin but he is coming from the direction that the house is in.

fí "limit/border" nà nambo = all the way from the house

fí "top" nà nambo = from the top of the house ... and so on for "bottom", "front", etc. etc.

he changed frog.fi ye prince handsome = he changed from a frog to a handsome prince

fía = to leave, to depart ... fái a SVC meaning "to finish" .... then bai cound mean continue and -ana would be the present tense ???

-lya or alya

Sometimes called the "Allative case". Can be said to translate to English as "onto".

The x means that the previous vowel is repeated.

xxx yyy zzz = put the cushions on the sofa

-lfe or alfe

The ablative

-s or sá

that Stefen turned up drunk at the interview sank his chance of getting that job

sá tá ........

-ge or gé

The instrumental is used for nouns that represent the instrument ("with"), the means ("by") or the agent ("by").

John writes with a pen

banu = to learn

banuge = by learning

book was written page = The book was written by me

andage = manually

I work as a translator ??? ... I work sàu translator ??

gé ta ...

-ho or hò

The commitive

"in the company of", often used with the personal pronouns ;-

with me	paho	with us	yuaho
		with us	wiaho
with you	giho	with you (plural)	jeho
with him, with her	oho	with them	uho
with it	ʃiho	with them	ʃiho

tùa = to use, to wear ... tàu a SVC meaning ??

-ji or jí

The benefactive. Sometimes used with gomia

banu = to learn, banuji = in order to learn

-wo or wó

Not used for the locative sense of about, it has the sense "with respect to" more. Used for example when have the word halfa = to laugh.

1) pà halfari = I laught

2) pà halfari jonowo = I laught at John

Is 2) a transitive verb ? Semantically transitive maybe ... but (in English and in béu), John is introduced by a preposition ... so I guess 2) is not transitive ???

2) pà halfari jonoye = I taunted John

Used for marking the "theme" as in such sentences as the one below.

gala caturi jonowo => The women were talking about John

jonowo ... = as for John ....

-n or nà

The locative or the possessive. Basically if the noun is human, it is the possessive : if the noun is non-human, it is locative.

nambo jonon (rà) hauʔe = John's house is beautiful

jono (rà) nambon = John is at home

Some example;-

fanfa = horse

sonda = son

blico = king

fanfa sondan = the horse of the son

sonda blicon = the son of the king

However the suffixed form can only be used if the genitive is a single word. Otherwise the particle na must be placed in front of the words that qualify. For example ;-

We can't say *fanfa sondan blicon however. The -n on sonda is splitting the NP sonda blico.

So we must say fanfa nà sonda blicon

Some more examples ...

fanfa nà sonda jini blicon = "the horse of the king's clever son

fanfa nà sonda nà blico somua = "the horse of the fat king's son"