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(6) Ag'a bi-de �ene-ze-mi. Udihe
brother me-FOC go-SUBJ-1SG
‘Brother, I will also go.’ (Nikolaeva &Tolskaya 2001: 441)
(7) marri-ja ri-ya-ka marri-ja ri-ya-k! Kayardild
listen-IMP east-NOM-FOC listen-IMP east-NOM-FOC
‘Listen to the EAST, listen to the EAST!’ (Evans 1995a: 392)
Closely related to focus clitics are interrogative particles, which also foreground the
questioned constituent. We already saw an example of such a clitic particle in Table 2
with the Finnish interrogative particle kO. Another language which shows this
phenomenon is Tamil. Here, the clitic particle aa marks interrogative as well as
emphasis. (8) gives an example in which the clitic particle has sentential scope with
interrogative meaning and appears in sentence final position as an enclitic on the verb.
(8) avan vantaanaa Tamil
he come-past-3sm-ip
‘Did he come?’ (Asher 1982: 4)
West Greenlandic has a large number of clitic particles with sometimes quite specific
meanings. One such clitic particle is aasiit in (9) whose meaning is rendered in English
as ‘again as usual, the same old story, just like him’.
(9) piuma-nngil-aq=aasiit West Greenlandic
want not 3s.indic. as.usual
‘He doesn't want to again (as usual).’ (Fortescue 1984: 310)
Though information about clitics in this language is scarce, the exclamatory particle ko
in !Xóõ seems to be an enclitic in sentence final position. An example is given in (10).
(10) !gabate /�a: /i ko !Xóõ
mortars broken stative exclamatory
‘The mortars are broken!’ (Traill 1985: 43)
For the vast majority of clitic particles, and particles in general, information on the
diachronic sources of these markers is rare in the descriptive grammars consulted.
Without going into philological details, at least some possible grammaticalization clines
can be reconstructed.
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