Beyond Time - Linguistics - University of California, Berkeley

f. luleme
‘straight’ (Fowler 2000:851)
Examples (401c) and (401d) are clearly stage-level statives; it is not clear whether the
other examples in (401) represent enduring or temporary states, although, as noted above,
an individual-level reading seems quite likely for states such as being round (401b) or being
different (401a). If this is correct, and if Collins (1962:51) is accurate in his assessment of
-ide in Tonga (in example (391) above), there may be a pragmatic difference in the suffix’s
use in the two languages. If this is the case, then Totela patterns more like Ila, allowing both
stage-level and individual-level states. However, relevance effects are so strong in (391) that
they might alone account for the temporary state associated with -ide (e.g. ‘he is dusty’
rather than ‘he is white’) and no pragmatic difference need be posited.
Although the examples available in the literature do not allow for a full analysis of -ile in
Ila, they do suggest that -ile, like its counterparts in Tonga and Totela, has rich and complex
usage possibilities that merit serious investigation.
6.7.3.3 Subiya, Linyanti (Mbalangwe), and Fwe
In his grammar of Subiya (K42), Jacottet (1896-1901) describes the -ite suffix purely as a
perfect, with present meaning for verbs such as -ikuta (‘become full’; with -ite: -ikusi ‘be
full’) and -zaka (‘build’; with -ite: -zakite ‘live [at a place]’):
C’est que dans ces verbes le présent signifie: entrer dans un certain état, commencer
à faire quelque chose.
A perfect (anterior) use is still evident today in at least some Subiya varieties. In 2007,
my young consultant (aged twenty-one at the time of our interview) characterized its use in
anterior contexts as “deep” Subiya, as spoken by older people. In general, Subiya speakers
appear to pattern their temporal interpretations of the -ite suffix similarly to Namibian
Totela speakers and speakers of other varieties of that dialect continuum, such as Fwe (K402)
and Linyanti (K401). 39
In my brief 2007 survey of production and interpretation of -ite suffixes in the Caprivi
languages, in which I interviewed one or two speakers each of Subiya, Linyanti (Mbalangwe),
and Fwe, speakers’ temporal judgments of context-free -ite forms was identical for eight of
the ten verbs tested; ‘to write’ and ‘to read’ had varying responses (see above for discussion
of -ite with these, and similar, verb roots.) 40 Table 6.5 shows speaker interpretations for
the verbs tested. While the table displays a rough correlation with telicity, the examples
in (402)-(404) show that, like Totela, other Caprivi languages have much more complex
conditions for the use and interpretation of -ite.
39Maho (2009) includes Linyanti (often called “Mbalangwe”) as a variety of Subiya within his “Subiya-
Totela” group.
40 ‘To read’ was tested in both telic (‘to read two books’) and atelic (‘to read’) contexts; both situation
types received both present and anterior interpretations from different speakers, presumably dependent on
the contexts they constructed for themselves.
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