On 4/12/06, Jeff Jones <jsjonesmiami@...> wrote:
> 1. fokan Hwan mamakwe
> Juan saw his mother.
kan: root "see".
fo-, based on this, #7 and #8 is some kind
of past tense prefix. Not sure if this is "mama"+"kwe" with
"kwe" being a personal suffix, or if "mamakwe" is the root
with "his" inferred from context. In later sentences -kwe
seems to be an infinitive verb suffix.
> 2. kanko pasuna tuperu
> I see the dog sleeping.
"suna" : root "to sleep", pa- probably a participial prefix?
-ko: maybe 1SG verb suffix.
tuperu of course "dog".
> 3. kopisuna
> I'll sleep (sometime).
pi- future tense? #9 and #6 suggest so.
Not sure about ko-, perhaps an indefiniteness
marker. Would
kofosuna
mean "I slept (at some unspecified period)"?
> 4. etxa Hwan pakankwe tuperu
> Juan wants to see the dog.
Maybe pa-~-kwe forms the infinitive.
etxa - to want.
> 5. Hwan tuadetxa pakankwe tuperu
> It's Juan that wants to see the dog.
Not sure what this tuad- prefix is about.
> 6. appikantotz Hwan
> Juan will see us here.
ap- a 1PL object marker?
-totz a 3SG subject marker? But most other
3SG verbs aren't so marked.
> 7. tzifosuna
> We slept.
tzi- 1PL subject prefix?
> 8. fokantzi mama Huan
> We saw Juan's mother.
Here -tzi seems to be a 1PL subject *suffix*.
Need to see a larger corpus to figure out when and
why it prefixes or suffixes. And the use of "mama"
by itself suggests that indeed "-kwe" in the first
sentence is a personal suffix. Is it mere homophony
that it looks like the "-kwe" in infinitives or are they
really the same underlying word?
> 9. pikantok tuperu suna
> You'll see the sleeping dog.
-tok : 2SG or 2PL subject suffix.
Are NOUN VERB and PARTICIPLE-VERB NOUN
in free variation or is there something about
the contexts of #2 and #9 that requires a
particular form in each case? Must wait
for a larger corpus to decide.
--
Jim Henry
http://www.pobox.com/~jimhenry