Re: Personal Conjugation based on Closeness

Teoh wrote:
(format edited)
> > > > >        He was walking with his father and another man, and he told
him
> > > > >        that he will visit him again.
>
> >(KASH) senda yaharansa yam amañi i kaçun liya, i ne yakotasa re ne
yatolito cis.
> > PROG 3/walk/Past with his-father/acc and man/acc other, (and) 3/dat
> > 3/say/Past CONJ 3/dat 3/visit/Fut again.
> >> Care to provide a legend for your abbreviations? I'm having trouble
> deciphering some part of this.
PROG progressive (be...ing)
3/(verb) third pers. sing. subject marker
3/dat third person sing. pronoun, dative case (functions in both IO and DO
roles)
acc - accusative case, required after _yam_ 'with'
CONJ conjunction-- for lack of a better term.  _re_ marks subordinate
clauses, like "that" in the Engl. version.
Past, Fut - self explanatory?

> > In the clause following yakotasa, _re_ definitely indicates change of
subj.
> > Again, if re is omitted, then the subj. of yatolito = subj. of yakotasa
(a
> > sort of serial verb construction), (and may/maynot = subj.yaharan,
depending
> > on the preceding paragraph).
>
> Cool. How does _re_ indicate a change of subject though?
Based on analogy with verbs of wanting/asking/hoping etc:
mamelo marinju 'I want to sing" (lit. I want I sing)
mamelo re yarinju 'I want him to sing' (I want that he sing)
(*mamelo re marinju)
ne matovar matikas 'I hope to see him ~I hope I'll see him'
matovar re ne hatikas 'I hope (that) you (will) see him' (however in this
case, if the second clause had a lot of modifiers or was otherwise complex,
it would be stylistically permitted to use a re-clause, "matovar re....ne
matikas.....".  This is a matter of more formal vs. colloquial usage)

Alas, however, it's a bit of a grey area with kota 'to say'; the serial verb
construction works best with a following intransitive verb:  makotasa
macosato 'I said I would go' (colloq. just makota (ma)cosa) vs. makotasa re
yacosato 'I said (that) he would go'.

If the main verb is transitive, then any preposed pronoun clitics (like ne)
will be interpreted as the object (IO or DO) of that verb.

So:  'I said that I saw him' has to be makotasa re ne matikassa, because in
the serial construction (*makotasa ne matikassa) _ne_ can't go between the
two verbs, and _ne makotasa matikassa_ would only mean "I told him (that) I
saw (s.t. unspecified)'
So it's back to the drawing board...........

> (snip)
> > (Let A be the subj. of walk, B=father, C=other man)
> > 1.(first clause unchanged), [no i 'and'] yakotasa amayeni re kaçut ya
liya
> > ne yatolito cis.
> > ........and A told B that C would visit A again.
>
> Is there a reflexive in there that refers back to A again, or is it just
> assumed by default?
Oops I think you're right-- A is the speaker, so it should be _netu (refl.)
yatolito_.  As written, it means "A told B that C would visit B again" (see
also ex. #4 below)
>
> > 2. (first clause unch.), _i_ amani ne yakotasa (no RE'that') yatolito
kaçute
> > ya liya cis.
> > ....and B told A that B would visit C again.
>
> I'm not sure I understand how _re_ would imply a change in subject?
Because two verbs in a row with the same subject marker always have the same
subject.  With re, that may/may not be true. though "different subject" is
the default reading......but as mentioned above,  this is a problem area
>
> > 3. (first clause unch.), i amani ne yakotasa re ya liya ne yatolito cis.
> > ...and B told A that C would visit A again
I got this right! Since B(father) and C(other) are referred to with nouns,
_ne_ can only refer back to the original person (subj. of walk).  Presumably
in a full context, A's name/status would be known/mentioned previously, and
if necessary, that name/status could be used instead of _ne_ to make things
crystal clear.
> >
> > NB this:
> > 4. ..........i amani ne yakotasa re ya liya _netu_ yatolito cis.
> > ...and B told A that C would visit _B_ ('himself') again.
>
> Aha, so _netu_ is a reflexive? Why wasn't it needed in (1)?
Because it refers back to the speaker, in this case B(father), who is saying
in effect "C will visit me again"
>
> > (Uh-oh, this probably needs work-- what if the verb were lolan 'protect'
> > instead of 'toli'-- I see the solution, but this post is getting too
long,
> > and me brain hurts.)
>
> Hehehe, yes, that example was deliberately hyper-ambiguous. :-)
>
Yes but very challenging. Me brain hurts even more.  If only for my own use,
I'll have to write out all the possible versions/interpretations-- and then
contrast them with a sentence using e.g. 'protect' , where "protect himself"
vs "protect him" in indirect speech will definitely have to be
differentiated.  Of course it could be made clear by using quoted rather
than indirect speech; I suppose that's cheating, but it might be the best
solution in Kash.