Béu : Chapter 2

... Parts of speech and word order ... part 2

Now we talk about the béu noun phrase. This can be described as ;-

Quantifier₁ Head₂ (Adjective₃ x n) Genitive₄ Determiner₅ Relative-clause₆

1) The Quantifier is either a number or a word such as "all", "many", "a few" etc.

2) The head is usually a noun but can also be an adjective. When you come across an adjective as head of a noun phrase, its meaning is "the person/thing that is "adjective" ".

3) An adjective ... not much to say about this one, you can have as many as you like, the same as English.

4) A Genitive is made from a noun (and I guess an adjective as defined in 2) ) with an n suffix. It says that the head has some quality or relationship to the genitive.

A genitive or a genitive phrase can be considered an adjective. Ownership is also shown by the genitive, however note that when the head is a multi-syllable word and the owner is a stand alone pronoun, then ownership is shown by an infix in the actual head (see "Possessive Infixes").

5) Either dí "this", or dè "that".

6) This is a clause, beginning with tà that qualifies the head of the noun phrase.

Note ... We can have genitives and we can have "genitive phrases". A genitive phrase has no suffix, but the particle nà must be placed immediately in front of it.

The son of the king => sonda blicon

The son of the old king => sonda nà blico gáu

(can a determiner be the head ??)

The 8 possessive infixes

In the above section we learnt how to say "mine", "yours", etc. etc.. But how do we say "my", "your", etc. etc.

Well these words (which would be considered adjectives in the béu linguistic tradition) are represented by infixes. The table below shows how it works.

my coat	kaunapu
our coat ("our" includes "you")	kaunayu
our coat ("our excludes "you")	kaunawu
your coat	kaunigu
your coat (with "you" being plural)	kauneju
his/her coat	kaunonu
their coat	kaununu
xxxx own coat	kaunitu

It can be seen that the infixes are the same as the plain pronouns, but the order of the consonant and vowel are swapped over.

There could also be another entry in the table above. That is the infix -it- (this is the possessive equivalent of the reflexive pronoun tí (see above). It is probably easiest to explain -it- by way of example;-

polo hendoru kaunitu = Paul will wear his coat (To be absolutely specific "Paul will wear his own coat")

polo hendoru kaunonu = Paul will wear his coat (To be absolutely specific "Paul will wear someone else's coat")

A thing to note is that you can not insert an infix into a monosyllable word. You could not say *glapa for "my woman" but would have to say glá nà pà

The transitivity of verbs in béu

All languages have a Verb class, generally with at least several hundred members.

Leaving aside copula clauses, there are two recurrent clause types, transitive and intransitive. Verbs can be classiﬁed according to the clause type they may occur in: (a) Intransitive verbs, which may only occur in the predicate of an intransitive clause; for example, "snore" in English. (b) Transitive verbs, which may only occur in the predicate of a transitive clause; for example, "hit" in English. In some languages, all verbs are either strictly intransitive or strictly transitive. But in others there are ambitransitive (or labile) verbs, which may be used in an intransitive or in a transitive clause. These are of two varieties: (c) Ambitransitives of type S = A. An English example is "knit", as in "She_S knits" and "She_A knits socks_O". (d) Ambitransitives of type S = O. An English example is "melt", as in "The butter_S melted" and "She_A melted the butter_O".

English verbs can be divided into the four types mentioned above. béu verbs however can only be divided into two types, a) Intransitive, and b) Transitive. In this section it will be shown how the four English types of verb map into the two béu types. (Of course there is nothing special or unique about English ... other than the fact that a reader of this grammatical sketch will already be familiar with English)

Intransitive

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An intransitive verb in English => an intransitive verb in béu

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An example of an intransitive verb in English is "laugh". This is also an intransitive verb in béu. In a clause containing an intransitive verb, the only argument that you have is the S argument.

By the way ... some concepts that are adjectives in English are primarily intransitive verbs in béu, for example ;- to be angry, to be sick, to be healthy etc. etc.

Ambitransitive of type S=O

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	x) An intransitive in béu
An "ambitransitive of type S=O" =>	y) A pair of verbs, one being intransitive and one being transitive
	z) A transitive in béu

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x) "Ambitransitive verbs of type S=O" which have greater frequency in intransitive clauses, are intransitive verbs in béu.

For example ;- flompe = to trip, (ò)_S flomporta = She has tripped

y) "Ambitransitive of type S=O" verbs which are frequent in both transitive and intransitive clauses, are represented as a pair of verbs in béu, one of which is intransitive and one transitive. There are a few hundred béu verbs that come in pairs like this. One should not be thought of as derived from the other; each form should be considered equally fundamental. All the pairs have the same form, except the transitive one has an extra "l" before its final consonant.

For example hakori kusoni_S = his chair broke : (pás)_A halkari kusoni_O = I broke his chair :

z) "Ambitransitive of type S=O" verbs which have greater frequency in transitive clauses, are transitive vebs in béu.

For example ;- nava = to open, (pás)_A navaru pinto_O = I am going to open the door

Ambitransitive verbs of type S=A and Transitive verbs

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An "ambitransitive of type S=A"
or	'=> A transitive in béu'
A transitive verb in English

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I am taking transitive and ambitransitive of type (S=A) together as I consider them to be basically the same thing but tending to opposite ends of a continuum.

Consider the illustration below.

At the top (with the "objects easily guessed") are verbs that are normally designated "ambitransitive of type S=A".

At the bottom (with the "objects could be anything") are verbs that are normally designated "transitive".

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Considering the top first. One can have "I_A eat apples_O" or we can have "I_S eat"

Then considering the bottom. One can have "I_A hit Jane_O" but you can not have "*I_S hit"

Moving up from the bottom. One can imagine a situation, for example when showing a horse to somebody for the first time when you would say "She_S kicks". While this is possible to say this, it is hardly common^*.

As we go from the top to the bottom of the continuum;-

a) The semantic area to which the object (or potential object if you will) gets bigger and bigger.

b) At the bottom end the object becomes is more unpedictable and hence more pertinent.

c) As a consequence of a) and b), the object is more likely to be human as you go down the continuum.

béu considers it good style to drop as many arguments as possible. In béu all the verbs along this continuum are considered transitive. Quite often one or both arguments are dropped, but of course are known through context. If the O argument is dropped it could be known because it was the previously declared topic (however more often the A argument is the topic tho', and hence dropped, represented by swe tho' as its case marking can not be dropped), it could be because the verb is from the top end of the continuum and the action is the important thing and the O argument or arguments just not important, or the dropped argument could be interpreted as "something" or "somebody", or it could be a definite thing that can be identified by the discouse that the clause is buried in.

^* In béu "She kicks" would be ò (rà) lugaʃi from luga = "to kick" and the suffix ʃi, meaning "to tend to", "to be liable to" . .

Introduction to the PILANA

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These are what in LINGUISTIC JARGON are called "cases". The classical languages, Greek and Latin had 5 or 6 of these. Modern-day Finnish has about 15 (it depends on how you count them, 1 or 2 are slowly fading away). Present day English still has a relic of a once more extensive case system : most pronouns have two forms. For example ;- the third-person:singular:male pronoun is "he" if it represents "the doer", but "him" if it represents "the done to".

The word pilana is built up from ;-

pila = to place, to position

pilana <= (pila + ana), in LINGUISTIC JARGON it is called a "present participle". It is an adjective which means "putting (something) in position".

As béu adjectives freely convert to nouns^*, it also means "that which puts (something) in position" or "the positioner".

Actually only a few of them live up to this name ... nevertheless the whole set of 14 are called pilana in the béu linguistic tradition.

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The pilana are suffixed to nouns and specify the roll these nouns play in the clause^**.

The pilana are abbreviated to a single consonant in the béu writing system. That is, in the béu writing system, the final vowel of all pilana is invisible^***.

The pilana are partly an aid to quicker writing. However they also demarcate a set of 14 affixes and make quite a neat system.

You could call these 14 plus the unmarked noun a case system of 15 cases. Well you could if you wanted to (up to you).

Note that -lya and -lfe are represented by a special amalgamated symbols which do not occur elsewhere.

Notice that by a addition of pilana, you might expect to get the forms alye and alfi. As you can see this is not the case. Perhaps the amalgamated form has the final vowel changed under the pull of the initial vowel, a.

^* You can tell if pilana is being an adjective or a noun by the environment that you find it in.

^** Well actually that is not true of pilana number 12 : "-n" modifies a noun in a noun phrase.

^***Maybe a corollary of the béu habit of dropping verbal arguments, when it is at all possible :-)

Now one quirk of the pilana, something that I think would not happen in a natural language, is that if the noun receiving the pilana is more than one word long, then the pilana changes from a suffix to a preposition. The prepositional forms of the pilana are given on the above chart to the right. These free-standing particles are also written just using the symbols given on the above chart to the left. That is in writing they are shorn of their vowels as their affixed counter-parts are.

The letters m, b, k, g and d are free to be used as abbreviations. Perhaps m <= mò, two particles for joining clauses etc. etc.

The relative clause

béu has a relative clause construction which works in pretty much the same way as the English relative clause construction. A relative clause is a clause that qualifies a noun. It is introduced by a special particle, tà in béu. In English it is usually "that" but a number of other words can also be used. The noun that is being qualified is dropped from the relative clause, but the roll which it would play is shown by its pilana on the relativizer tà. For example ;-

glá tà bwàs timpori rà hauʔe = The woman that the man hit, is beautiful. ... If the clause that is qualifying the noun appeared in isolation, it would be - bwàs timpori glá ... glá is the O argument and hence is unmarked.

glá tà flompori rà hauʔe = The woman that tripped is beautiful. ... If the clause that is qualifying the noun appeared in isolation, it would be - glá flompori ... glá is the S argument and hence is unmarked.

bwà tàs timpori glá rà ʔaiho = The man that hit the woman is ugly. ... If the clause that is qualifying the noun appeared in isolation, it would be - bwàs timpori glá ... bwà is the A argument and hence has pilana number 7 "-s", which is transferred to the relativized tà when bwà disappears.

The same thing happens with all the pilana^*. For example ;-

the basket tapi the cat shat was cleaned by John.

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

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

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

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

the boat talfe you have just jumped is unsound

bwà tàs timpori glá rà ʔaiho = The man that hit the woman is ugly.

nambo taʔe she lives is the biggest in town.

bwà taho ò is going to market is her husband.

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

the man tan dog I shot, reported me to the police = the man whose dog I shot, reported me to the police^**

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

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

^* Well all the pilana except -wa. This pilana sets the noun it qualifies to the status of "topic". The time for which a noun will retain its "topicality" is usually much longer than a clause.

^**Altho' this has the same form as all the rest, underneath there is a difference. n marks a noun as part of a noun phrase, not as to its roll in a clause.

The topic marker "wa" and the discourse strategy of dropping the topic.

English has what Dixon calls a S/A pivot construction. What that means is you can drop the A argument or the S argument if it is the same as the A argument or S argument in the previous clause. For example ;-

1) You can drop the A if it is the same as the S in the previous clause ... John saw Mary: John laughed => John saw Mary and laughed

2) You can drop the A if it is the same as the A in the previous clause ... John saw Mary : John hit Bill => John saw Mary and hit Bill

3) You can drop the S if it is the same as the S in the previous clause ... John entered : John sat down => John entered and sat down

4) You can drop the S if it is the same as the A in the previous clause ... John entered : John saw Mary => John entered and saw Mary

A small number of languages have a S/O pivot. That is you can drop the S argument or the O argument if it is the same as the S argument or O argument in the previous clause. (the Australian language Dyirbal is one example of this type of language).

Anyway, the above is just some side-information that I am giving you. béu has what I call a declared pivot construction. The "pivot" (or topic) in a discourse must be stated and from that point on all reference to that "pivot" is dropped, until a new "pivot" is declared.

You declare the topic by affixing wa to it when it is in S, A or O function. If it is in A function that the topic is declared then the s (ergative marker) is dropped. (However in the clause in which you declare a pivot can not have any dropped arguments ... if it is a transitive verb in the clause, and there in no argument with the ergative marker, then you can work out that it must be the argument marked by wa which is the A argument). From then on the topic is dropped until a new topic is declared. For example;-

1) giant.wa destroyed the castle on the hill

2) Then ø came down into the valley

3) There ø met a dwarf doing good works

4) The dwarf turned ø to stone

5) Dwarf.wa then climbed the mountain

6) ø gave succour to the people from the castle ...

It is the rule that the topic must be dropped. if the topic appears in a peripheral roll (pilana 1-> 14) then that pilana is attached to the verb.

For example ;-

1) Last night I saw Thomas

2) Thomas.wa (or o.wa) was very drunk

3) Mary had given.ye a bottle of Chevas Regal

How does this system mesh in with passives ? Particles that appear between clauses ? Particles that change the subject ?

You can see from 4) above, that this just doesn't work if you have labile verbs. In English "turned" is called a labile verb (ambitransitive is another name for this). That means it can be used in a transitive clause and in an intransitive clause. Foer example ;-

1) The dwarf turned the giant to stone ... transitive

2) The dwarf turned to stone ... intransitive

Changing transitivity

béu has 2 morphological ways to make all these type of verbs into transitive verbs ( see -at- and -az- causatives).

-AT- and -AZ-

tonzai = to awaken

tonzatai = to wake up somebody (directly) i.e. by shaking them

tonzazai = to wake up somebody (indirectly) i.e. by calling out to them

henda = to put on clothes

hendata = to dress somebody (for example, how you would dress a child)

hendaza = to get somebody to dress (for example, you would get an older child to dress by calling out to them)

The above methods of making a causative only apply to intransitive verbs. To make an transitive clause onto a causative the same method is used as English used. That is the entire transitive clause becomes a complement clause of the verb "to make".

In addition to the causative infixes shown above, there are many verb pairs such as poi = to enter, ploi = to put in, gau = to rise, glau = to raise, sai = to descend, slai = to lower

and in multisyllable words ... laudo = to wash (oneself), lauldo = to wash (something). The above are not really considered causatives. The infixing of the l is by no means productive. In fact you can not call it "infixing". Also in many cases the transitive verb out of the pair is more common than the intransitive one.

Note;- The way you say "allow" or "let" in béu is to use the gambe along with the hái "give".

I let her go => hari liʔa oye

The copula's

The 2 verbs sàu and gaza are special verbs. (LINGUISTIC JARGON ... They are called copulas... in Latin "copulare" meant "to tie", so a copula is a verb that ties. In béu they differ from normal verbs, in that they require a specific word order. Also s (the ergative case) is never suffixed to a noun, as normally happens when a verb is associated with two nouns.

GAZA .... a copula of existence

The copula complement of gaza ia always a noun or a noun phrase. It is how you say "there is ... "

gaza is similar to sàu in that it takes the 9 verb modifiers but 3 of them are wildly irregular. It is the same 3 tense/aspect forms that are irregularin the sàu copula. Namely ;-

*gazora => ʕá meaning "there is"

*gazori => ʕái meaning "there was"

*gazoru => ʔáu meaning "there will be"

Actually while theoretically gaza can have the full range of modifiers enjoyed by a normal verb, in reality all forms other than ʕá, ʕái, ʔáu are extremely rare. Occasionally you come across the "infinitive" gaza.

There is no word that corresponds to "have". The usual way to say "I have a coat" is "there exists a coat mine" = ʕá kaunu nà pà

Internal possessives are not allowed in the nouns introduced with gaza. That is, you can not say *ʔá kaunapu, but must say ʔá kaunu nà pà (I have a coat)

As I said above, gaza always comes with one noun. If it comes with an adjective, then that adjective can be considered a noun (well this is one way to look at it)

Also note that when the noun is a noun as opposed to an adjective, ??? , it is always indefinite.

pona = cold (an adjective), ponama = coldness (a noun)

ʔá pona = "it is cold" ... not *ʔá ponama

ʔá pona paye meaning "I feel cold" (word for word ... "there is coldness to me")

There is fixed word order : it is always gaza followed by the noun or NP.

The three irregular forms have their own negative marker. ya is stuck on to the end of the copula.

ʔaya pona = "it is not cold"

Note that the word ʔaya (there is not) and ʔaiya (there was not) are very close to each other phonetically. However the middle part of the second word takes twice as long as the middle part in the first word : they are phonetically quite distinct.

The particles lói (probably) and màs (maybe) normally, come before the verb that they qualify. However the 3 irregular forms of gaza really like to come clause initially. Hence lói and màs immediately follow the verb.

ʔáu lói pona = It will probably be cold

Also the evidentials are affixed to the wild forms, just as normal.

ʔaunya lói pona = They say it will probably not be cold

ʔaunya.foi lói pona = Do they say it will probably not be cold ?

SAU ....... the main copula

sàu is the béu copula. That is it is the equivalent of "to be" in English, whish has such forms as "be", "is", "was", "were" and "are".

This verb is slightly irregular in béu as well. The three forms *sari, *saru and *sara which you would expect to see, are replaced with rì, rù and rà

Notice that person and number is not included in these three irregular forms, so it is sometimes necessary to have a pronoun in situations where it would normally be dropped.

Actually rà is usually missed out completely.

It is mostly used for emphasis; like when you are refuting a claim

Person A) ... gì mò rà moltai = You aren't a doctor

Person b) ... pà rà moltai = I am a doctor

Notice that rà is always used when you have mò the negative particle. This particle must always be directly in front of a verb, so rà must be expressed.

Another situation where rà tends to be used is when the subject or the copula complement are long trains of words. For example ????????

The evidentials are appended to the wild forms as normal. So we have ràn, ràs, rìn, rià, rìs, rùn and rùs.

LAU ....... the copula of change

láu = to become, to get, recieve

lí = became

lá = becomes

lú = will become

hái = to give

láu hauʔe = to become beautiful OR to become a beautiful woman

jene lái timporu jono.vi = Jane will be hit by John

hái tí (sàu) haiʔe = to make yourself (to be) beautiful

hái jene flompe = to make Jane trip

hái jono.ye timpa jene = to make John trip Jane ... note that the A argument takes the pilana -ye.

-pi or pì : pilana naja ... (the first pilana)

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 : pilana nauva ... (the second pilana)

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

ʔá mat floorla => there is a mat on the floor ... notice "a mat"

meu (rà) top.la nambo.n => The cat is on top of the house

ʔaya "money" nà pà => I don't have any money ... notice that "money" is indefinite ...

Do I need the three copula's ? ... how quickly would they collapse to two or one ?

-ye or yè : pilana naiba ... (the third pilana)

xxx yyy oye = give the book to her

xxx yyy paye = tell me about it

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 => nambye = "to the house"

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ye "distance" nà nambo = "as far as the house"

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

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"direction" nà nambo = towards the house i.e. you don't know if this is his destination but he is going in that direction

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