A Grammar of Miya - UCLA Department of Linguistics

154 A Grammar of Miya
PASSAGE 2
... (i) kw'a oanga duw 'am rna na luw-fa k'-w, t60 ... (ii) kwaa oam(a) aacamazo ka, 000
naka 160kaciy ka (1) a bala suw niy baa-zay akiln njo rna neal aaluw jffo naaza-w. (iii)
Kwaa oam(a) aacamazo ka, ... (iv) do guw(a) aa tlilhiy-aza (v) do baa-zeal aakanbajifo baa
njo d-aaluw-aso.
' ... (i) if it turns out that (your) wife doesn't love you, well ... (ii) when it is nighttime
at that time (1) she will have told her family that she does not love her husband. (iii)
When it is nighttime, ... (iv) she will just get up and (v) go to the house of the man that
she loves.'
PASSAGE I is from a procedural text on how to prepare beer; the overall interpretation
could be habitual or future but not simple past. Clause (i), a cohesive clause
(14:§2.1.1.1), and clause (ii), a Subjunctive clause, are part of the temporal sequence.
Clause (iii), a nominalized 'before' phrase (14:§4), represents the next event in the
sequence (the arrival of the next dawn). Clause (1), in italics, is in the Perfective. Though
it is uttered after the event of (iii), it represents an event which took place anterior to (iii)
and hence calls for a Future Perfect translation. Clause (iv) is in the Conditional Future
(S:§2.2.5). This TAM seems to be used because (iv) represents a comment on the events
of the text rather than being the actual next event of the beer brewing process, which would
take Subjunctive.
PASSAGE 2 is also a "procedural" text of sorts. Clause (i) is a scene-setting conditional
clause. Clauses (ii, iii) are cohesive clauses-actually the same clause, since it seems like
the narrator began a thought, added a clarifying point, then returned to the first thought.
Clauses (iv, v) are sequential clauses in the Subjunctive. The italicized clause (1) is in the
Perfective. Context indicates that the event of informing the family took place before the
sequence represented by clauses (ii-v), but since the whole passage is in habitual rather
than purely past time mode, a future perfect translation is most appropriate.
One might argue that the TAM which I am calling "Perfective" is really just a "Past
Tense", different from English past only in that it is past relative to a time of reference
rather than an absolute past, where the time of reference would always be the present. I
consider the (relative) past sense of the Perfective TAM with active verbs to be derivative
on its fundamental sense of perfectivity. An interpretation of this TAM as being fundamentally
a (relative) past tense would not account for its use with stative verbs, where the interpretation
is translatable as present tense in the absence of context to the contrary.
2.1.2. States. Stativity is essentially a semantic rather than a lexical notion in Miya.
Thus, most concepts which represent a continuing state or entry into a state which persists
will be expressed in Miya by a verb in the Perfective. We can further divide such verbs
into various groups (the letters in small caps indicate verb tone class-4:§ 1.2.3):
"True" stative verbs
?camHH
?dokaYHH
oamIlL
?hiyaL
'love'
'hear, feel'
'be equal to'
'dislike'
Performative verbs
njaL
tsgma lUI
yardaL
'refuse
'swear, take an oath'
'agree'
kwaH
nayHL
ra L
solaHH
S::ln L
zaL
6. TAM Functions in Discourse Structure (§2)
'lack'
'see'
'exceed'
'remain, be left over'
'know'
'(intr.) be up to, be enough;
(tr.) be enough, suffice'
Entry into a state
'gsa HL 'be sated'
5alHH 'be(come) broken [rope]'
5uwya IlL 'be(come) broken [stick],
gharL 'grow old'
komayHH 'spoil'
laL 'get well'
mbaL 'be finished, be all gone'
miyL 'die'
naL 'ripen; be done (cooking)'
ndzaL 'be(come) impoverished'
ravgza L 'bee come) fat'
ra5" HH 'get wet'
tsofo IlL 'dry up'
wanL 'be(come) full'
wasgL 'swell'
The difference between the "true" stative verbs on the one hand and the performatives
and "entry into state" verbs on the other has to do with their interpretation in past context.
True statives in past context would be interpreted as representing a continuing state without
change of phase, i.e. min siJn-ya say could mean 'I know him' (present context) or 'I
knew him' (past context), but not 'I came to know him'.2 Potentially, performatives and
"entry into state" verbs could have such an interpretation in a past context, but the more
likely interpretation would be entry into the state implied by the verb, e.g. a miy-ta say
could mean 'he was dead', but the more likely interpretation would be 'he (had) died'.
This can be seen in narrative, where the Subjunctive is used to signal discrete events in the
narrative sequence (§3) but the Perfective signals a past tense background event with
respect to the event line. In the first example below, 'die' is in the Subjunctive, being one
event in the sequence. In the second example, 'know' is in the Perfective since it signals a
state which now exists because of the preceding events.
Too, mly buwaa-ma miy jfy zaa-ma wasom, dzanihiy-wun 'Maa gwalfg ta wutlo bazam aa
tir vaatla, buwun dil miyuw-s-dy.
'Well, we came and entered upon the rainy season, my departure from the leadership of
the youth (having taken place) five months (ago), (and then) myfatherdied.
Daga (LIma mikyakyi naatlon, da dzara-tlon-ay, son n-aaMangili\ do buw-so huws-ay. A
'iykA kooweeneekz san sUw ndarda wly-dy.
'After having a chat [after doing their chatting], they dispersed and the man from
Mangila went home. Thereupon each one knew there was someone else (in the area).'
21 do not know how 'I came to know him' would be expressed in Miya. By analogy with Rausa, I would
guess that one would probably say 'I entered into knowing him' or the like.
ISS
1 i