A Grammar of Miya - UCLA Department of Linguistics

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A Grammar of Miya
• raB' zuw a bay baya kusan bilfuw dgr5itim-ay
Ft moisten sorghum Ft reach reaching almost bag 10-Tot
'they will moisten sorghum (which) will be as much as almost 10 bags'
Hausa has a verb kaasaa 'be less than' which can function in comparative sentences in
the same way as the Miya verb for comparison and equation illustrated above. In eliciting
sentences with Hausa kaasaa, I was given the following, which have a structure that I do
not fully understand. It seems that kaasaa itself (borrowed as such from Hausa) is treated
as intransitive in Miya (the ICP occurs only on intransitive verbs-S:§4.l) and the object
of comparison is in a genitive relation to the cognate complement.
Kasham kaasa-ta kaasaa rna Jaala
Kasham be less-IeP lessening of Jala
rna kaasa-kgn kasa tuwun aa mban
you be-less-IeP lessening of me for beauty
4. Non-verbal Sentences
'Kasham is less (tall) than Jala'
'you (fs) are less beautiful than me'
Typical of Chadic languages, Miya forms certain sentence types without a verb. These
are sentences expressing identification, sentences predicating a property of a subject
(adjectival sentences), sentences expressing possession ("HAVE" sentences), sentences
expressing existence, sentences expressing location, sentences expressing state, and
presentative sentences (,here is ... ' , French voila, Hausa gaa ... ).
4.1. Equational and identificational sentences. By equational sentences, I mean
those whose subject and predicate are both noun phrases. These may state subset
membership of a generic referent in a larger set ('a skink is a [type of] lizard'), membership
of a definite referent in a set ('he/Bi1l1that man is a linguist'), or identity of reference of two
definite noun phrases ('he/Bill/that man is the killer'). Miya makes no grammatical
distinctions among these types. By identificational sentences, I mean sentences which
establish (or question or negate) identity of a referent. Such sentences are expressed in
English by 'it's .. .' or 'they're .. .'. The sections in this chapter discuss only neutral
affirmative and negative non-verbal statements. See 12:§2.3.l for equational and
identificational sentences with questioned or focused elements.
4.1.1. Simple equational and identificational sentences. The neutral form for
equational sentences is simple juxtaposition of the subject and the noun phrase predicated
of that subject without further marking. Pronominal subjects use the independent pronouns
(8:§ 1.1).
Nduwya miy-dzohg
Ndlkay iniy-dzaku
tgmaku dabba t -ankam
tiy miy-dzgho
fly M ktifu
miy s;\b" niy malv;\
'Nduya is a Miya-man'
'Ndikay is a Miya-woman'
'a sheep is a domestic animal (animal of-house)'
'he is a Miya-man'
'you (ms) are a blacksmith'
'we are adherents to (people of) the chief'
Q: Fly s;\n na yilkwa?
A: M;\n sgn na 'iybn.
11. The Syntax of Simplex Clauses (§4)
'Where are you from?' (you person of where)
'I am from here.' (I person of here)
One may express identification by stating the noun phrase alone, e.g. Q: Ti mal
'What is it?', A: Timdku. '(It's) a sheep.' There is a more frequently used construction,
however, which places the identified predicate in sentence initial focus position followed by
jikd (= Hausa kee ndn), e.g. Ndilwya jikd 'it's Nduya', min jikd 'it's me'. This
construction is further discussed in the section on questioned and focused constituents
(12:§2.3.l), though in identificational sentences, this is the preferred construction type
even when no strong pragmatic focus is evident.
4.1.2. Equational sentences with the anxiliary dj and Totality stiw ... -dy. In
elicited data, constructions with simple juxtaposition were the only type volunteered for
equational sentences. In texts, I found other variants. One includes the clitic dil preceding
the predIcate. I refer to thIS as the "Imperfective" use of dil in S:§2.2.9. In this use, dil is
never syntactically required and may co-occur with any person, not just third person as in
some other uses of the same clitic. As noted in S:§2.2.9, there are no obvious pragmatic
or functional factors conditioning the presence or absence of dil in these contexts. The
second variant of equational sentences that appears in texts encloses the predicate in the
discontinuous Totality construction sdw ... dy (7:§2). The clitic dil may be used together
with this construction as well. Equational sentences with the Totality construction usually
are translatable as 'become', i.e. they signal change of identity of some kind. However, I
do not have enough examples to state with confidence that this is a consistent function of
this construction.
(t-aaltiw) mgn dg gyam-uwso '(he wants) me to be his friend'
he-wants I diJ friend-his
shiykeenan njg stiw bazaniy tuws-ay 'well she has become his fiancee'
that's it she Tot fiancee his-Tot
man dg suw w-un t¥¥IIl-ay
I d?J Tot daughter your (fs)-tot
'I (will) become your daughter'
Related to equational sentences or identificational sentences with the Totality
constructIon are clauses consisting of a nominalized verb using the same construction.
These typically represent an action which is a culmination or a climactic spot in a series of
events. "It's just [action]" would often be a reasonable translation. This construction is
syntactically like equational or identificational sentences in that a nominal (in this case,
nominalized) construction alone constitutes a clause. They differ in that the constructions
in question represent an event rather than predication of a property. See 14:§3.2.3 for
further discussion.
kwaa ts(a) aa yuw ka, stiw pglaka thl-ay 'when dawn comes, they (just) mix the beer'
When give PS dawn when Tot mixing beer-Tot
duw stiw kiyahiya-z(a) aagham-uws-ay
Qt Tot taking-her head-bis-Tot
shiykeenan stiw saadtiwaa jiyka-y
that's it Tot meeting it is
'he says he'll (just) take her on his head'
'well it was (just) a meeting'
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