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.