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Irrealis and if-clauses in Rinya

From:daniel andreasson <daniel.andreasson@...>
Date:Sunday, November 19, 2000, 14:52
Hey all.

I've discovered two things in Rinya.

1. Irrealis mood is expressed by nasalizing the last vowel
of the predicate, which is cool, since I've always wanted
nasal vowels in Rinya, but didn't know I had them until now.
It probably comes from an earlier suffix -N, where N is a
nasal. Example:

   secea         seceã
   know.PRES     know.PRES:IRR

2. Discovery one led to discovery two. If-clauses have been
a problem since it's kinda boring to have just a word 'if'
and a word 'then'. But when I discovered the irrealis mood,
I also discovered a better way of doing if-clauses. Like this:

   edor     nenur.enya  im.enya  sec.eã           il.in
   picture  name.DAT    1SG.DAT  want.PRS:IRREAL  2SG.AGT
   'If you want my autograph'

   te      caghië          inin    eðuelinte ilenya   [...]
   3SG:PAT hack.FUT.IRREAL 1SG.AGT back:LOC  2SG.DAT

   deor.umbe   eoqhim.enya
   shoe.INSTR  ice.DAT
   'I will hack it in your back with a skate'

Thus, the if-clause is expressed by present + irrealis and
the then-clause is expressed by future + irrealis. What do
you think?

daniel

PS. If you think the example is weird, it's a part of a
translation I'm doing of a Swedish raptext.