Re: MNCL5

Modal Auxiliaries

The modal auxiliaries are used with subjunctive complement clauses in the
thematic case.

Debe gil Jonak zo horsa mexus varok dok.
"John should give the horse water."

There's also a patientive case argument denoting the entity judging possibility,
capability, necessity, etc.

Debe Toma gil Jonak zo horsa mexus varok dok.
"According to Tom, John should give the horse water."

What I haven't figured out is how to translate all the tense and aspect
combinations (debe can take a different tense and mexus a different aspect).

An alternative I was considering was to use a medial suffix for the modal (used
with the indicative):

Jonak zo horsa mexebe varok.

The personal version would require a second auxiliary:

Youfe Toma gil Jonak zo horsa mexebe varok dok.


For reference, the final suffixes and the aspect and voice suffixes are at:

http://listserv.brown.edu/archives/cgi-bin/wa?
A2=ind0709c&L=conlang&T=0&F=&S=&P=11836