Béu : Chapter 4

..... Some valency changing operations

THE 37 SPECIAL VERBS MUST COME BEFORE THIS.

... Valency ... 2 => 1

..

The passive is normally formed by infixing -w- just before the final vowel. For example ...

kó = to see

(pás) kár gì = I see you

pás kár gì = I myself see you

(pà) kowar = I am seen

(pà) kowar hí gì = I am seen by you

pà kowara = I myself am being seen

kowari = I have been seen

kowaru = I have not yet been seen

taiku kowar = I was seen

jauku kowar = I will be seen

etc. etc.

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

the infinitive		perfect		infinitive of passive		perfect of passive		passive participle
kludau	to write	kludori	he has written	kludwau	to be written	kludwori	it has been written	kludwai	written
kó	to see	kori	she has seen	kowa	to be seen	kowori	she has been seen	kowai	seen
timpa	to hit	timpori	he has hit	timpwa	to be hit	timpwori	he has been hit	timpwai	hit
poʔau	to cook	poʔori	she has cooked	poʔawa	to be cooked	poʔawori	it has been cooked	poʔawai	cooked

..

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

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

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

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

..

... Valency ... 1 => 2

..

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

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

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

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

The above words are all about internal feelings.

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

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

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

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

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

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

There is one other word that follows the same paradigm as the 10 words above.

jùa

to know

jor

he knows

juya

to tell

juyori

she has told

..

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

doika = to walk

doikor = he walk

ós doikor the pulp mill = he runs the pulp mill

doikyana = management ???

..

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

..

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

..

ʔoime

= to be happy

ʔoimye

= to make happy

ʔoimyewa

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

..

fàu

= to know

fa??

= to tell

fa ??

=

..

timpa

= to hit

timpawa

= to be hit

timpawaya

= to cause to be hit

..

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

..

..... A bit about adverbs

If an adjective comes immediately after a verb (which it normally would) it is known to be an adverb. For example saco means "slow" but if it came immediately after a verb it would be translated as "slowly". However if we add -we to it so we get the form sacowe the adverb can move around the utterance ... wherever it wants to go. ..... SIMILAR TO "To come and go" + "to give" ... LIGHT GREEN HI-LIGHT

-we can also be affixed to a noun and also produce an adverb. For example ;-

deuta means "soldier"

deutawe means "in the manner of a soldier"

as in doikora deutawe = he is walking like a soldier

Now going back to the 6 "co-ordinate" particles máu gòi cè dùa bene komo in the previous section. Basically a word ending in one of these particles, is an adjective. For example

However sometimes TABLEmau is an adverb. When it is, it must come directly after the verb (that is ... we can not add -we and move it from its position immediately behind the verb, as can be done with other adjectives active as adverbs). For example ...

The monkey eats an apple on the table ... ambiguous in English ... not ambiguous in béu

MONKEY EATS TABLEmau APPLE

MONKEY EATS APPLE TABLEmau

So that is basically all there is to adverbs. In the Western linguistic tradition many other words are classified as adverbs. Words such as "often" and "tomorrow" etc. etc.

In the béu linguistic tradition all these words are classified as particles, a hodge podge collection of words that do not fit into the usual word classes.

..

... Parenthesis

..

béu has two particles that indicate the start of some sort of parenthesis. In a similar way to a mathematical formula, where brackets mean that the arguments within the brackets should be evaluated first, the two béu particles indicate that the immediately following clause should be processed (by the brain) before arguments outside of the parenthesis are considered.

..

. tà ... the full clause particle

..

This is basically the same as "that" in English, when "that" introduces a complement clause. For example ...

"He said THAT he was not feeling well"

Notice that "he was not feeling well" is complete in itself, it is a self-contained clause.

..

. ʔà ... the gap clause particle

..

This is basically the same as "what" in English, in such sentences as ...

"WHAT you see is WHAT you get"^*

Notice that "you see" and "you get" are not complete clauses, there is a "gap" in them.

The phase "WHAT you see", (to return to the mathematical analogy again) may be thought of as a "variable". in this case, the motivation for using a "variable", is to make the expression "general" rather than "specific". (Being general it is of course more worthy of our consideration). Other motivations for using a "variable" is that the actual argument is not known. Yet another is that even though the particular argument is known, it is really awkward to specify satisfactorily.

EXAMPLE

Another way to think about the ʔà construction, is to think of it as a "nominaliser", a particle that turns a whole clause into a noun. To use the example from just above ....

"see" is an intransitive verb with two arguments. To replace one of these arguments by ʔà is like defining the missing argument in terms of the rest of the clause i.e. it changes a clause into a constuction that refers to one argument of that clause.

. Gap clause particles in other languages

There is no generally agreed upon term for the type of construction which I am calling "gap clause" here. Dixon calls it a "fused relative", Greenberg calls it a "headless relative clause". I don't like either term. A fused relative implies that a generic noun (i.e. "thing" or "person") somehow got fused with a relativizer. This certainly never happened although this type of clause can be rewritten as a generic noun followed by a relativizer. As for "headless" relative clause ... well I think the type of clause that we are dealing with is in fact more fundamental then a relative clause, so I would not like to define it in terms of a relative clause.

My thoughts on this type of clause are ...

Well "what" was firstly a question word. So you have expressions like "Who fed the cat"

Then of course it is natural to have an answer like "I don't know who fed the cat"

Now the above sentence is similar to "I don't know French" or "I don't know Johnny".

Now you see the expression "who fed the cat" fills the slot usually occupied by a noun in an "I don't know" sentences.

So "who fed the cat" started to be thought of as a sort of noun.

Now from the "know (neg)" beachhead^*, the usage would have spread to "know" and also the such words that have "knowing" as an essential part of their meaning. Words such as "remember", "report" etc. etc.

^*I call "know (neg)" a "beachhead"^**. A beachhead is a usage(and/or the act or situation behind that usage) that facilitates the meaning of a word to spread. Or the meaning of an expression to spread. A beachhead can be defined simply as an expression, but sometimes some background as to the speakers environment has to be given. For example suppose that one dialect of a language was using a word to mean "under", but this same word meant "between/among" in all other dialects. Now suppose you did some investigating and found that all other dialects of this language was spoken on the steppes and their speakers made a living by animal husbandry. However the group which diverged from the others had given up the nomadic life and settled down in a lush river valley. In this valley their main occupation was tending their fruit orchards.

It could be deduced that the change in meaning came about by people saying ... "Johnny is among the trees". Now as the trees were thick on the ground and had overspreading branches, this was reanalysed to mean "Johnny is under the trees". Hence I would say ...

The beachhead of word "x" = "between" to word "x" = "under" was the expression "among the trees" (and in this case a bit of background as to the "culture" of the speakers would be appropriate). ... OK ? ... understood ?

For an expressing to become a beachhead, it must, of course, be used regularly.

ASIDE ... I have thought about counting rosary beads as a possible beachhead that changed the meaning of "have", in Western Europe, from purely "possession" to a perfect marker. This is just (fairly ?) wild conjecture of course. (The beachhead expression being "I have x beads counted" with "counted" originally being a passive participle)

I am digressing here ... well to get back to "who fed the cat". We had it being considered a sort of noun. Presumably it was at one time put directly after a noun in apposition (presumably with a period of silence between the two) and qualified the noun. Then presumably they got bound closer together, the gap was lost, and this is the history of one form of relative clause in English.

^**Actually I would have liked to use the term pivot here. However this term has already been taken.

From the dictionary

Beachhead (dictionary definition) = 1. A position on an enemy shoreline captured by troops in advance of an invading force

Beachhead (dictionary definition) = 2. A first achievement that opens the way for further developments.

There are 4 relativizers ... ʔá, ʔái, ʔáu and ʔaja. (relativizer = ʔasemo-marker)

ʔasemo = relative clause.

It works in pretty much the same way as the English relative clause construction. The béu relativisers is ʔá. Though ʔái, ʔáu and ʔaja also have roles as relativisers.

The main relativiser is ʔá and all the pilana can occur with it (well all the pilana except ʔe. ʔaí is used instead of * ʔaʔe).

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 suffixed to the relativizer. For example ;-

glà ʔá bwás timpori rà hauʔe = The woman that the man hit, is beautiful.

bwá ʔás timpori glà rà ʔaiho = The man that hit the woman is ugly.

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

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 ʔaʔe she lives is the biggest in town.

báu ʔaho ò is going to market is her husband.

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

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

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

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

^*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.

As you see in above, ʔa in the form * ʔaʔe is not allowed. Instead you must use ʔaí.

The use of ʔái and ʔàu as relativizers are basically the same as the use of "where" and "when" in English. These two can combine with two of the pilana.

?aifi = from where, whence

?aiye = to where, hence

?aufi = from when, since

?auye = to when, until

The use of ʔaja basically is a relativizer for an entire clause instead of just the noun which it follows.

For example ???????

WITH SPACE AND TIME

PLURAL FORM

..

... the NP with the present participle core ??

..

Now the phrase jono kludala toili is a noun phrase (NP) in which the adjective phrase (AP) qualifies the noun jono

(Notice that in the clause that corresponds to the above NP, jonos kludora toili (John is writing the book), jono has the ergative suffix and the 3 words can occur in any order : with the NP, jono does not take the ergative suffix and the 3 words must occur in the order shown.)

glói = to see

polo = Paul

timpa = to hit

jene = Jenny

glori polo timpala é = He saw paul hitting something

glori pà timpala ò = He saw me hitting her

glori hà (pás) timparwi ò = He saw that I had hit her

glori jene timpwala = He saw Jenny being hit

Now the question is where is this special NP used. Well it is used in situations where English would use a complement clause. For example with algo meaning "to think about",^*

1) algara jono = I am thinking about John.

2) algara jono kludala toili = I am thinking about John writing a book.

Note ... According to Dixon, the standard English translation of 2) would be "I am thinking about John's writing a book" which I find quite strange even though English is my mother tongue. I have decided to call this sort of construction in béu a special kind of NP, while Dixon has called the equivalent expression in English the "-ing" type of complement clause. I think this is just a naming thing and doesn't really matter.

^*"to think (that)" is alhu in béu. alhu also translates "to believe".

..

Béu : Chapter 4

Contents

..... Some valency changing operations

... Valency ... 2 => 1

... Valency ... 1 => 2

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

..... A bit about adverbs

... Parenthesis

. tà ... the full clause particle

. ʔà ... the gap clause particle

. Gap clause particles in other languages

... the NP with the present participle core ??

Index

Navigation menu

Page actions

Page actions

Personal tools

Navigation

Search

Tools