Kinds of Postpositions Abbreviations, Compounds, and Suffixes

b. bahy ninro bahy-nro ‘toward home’ kaboja ninro kaboja-nro ‘to the planting ground’ Another of the locational postpositions, waria ‘away from’, can also be reduced to -aria; but as a suffix, it only seems to occur as a directional on other postpositions see below, not on nouns. LOCATIONAL POSTPOSITIONS abon ‘under’ amyn ‘by, at’ boloko ‘at the side, end’ diako ‘on the surface of’ dikhi ‘behind, following’ inabo ‘behind, following’ khiradi ‘near, next to’ khona ‘on not on top of’ koboroko ‘among, in a living body’ koloko ‘in fire, sunshine, etc.’ kosan ‘next to’ loko ‘in in a hollow or solid object’ maja, maria ‘general vicinity, to the side of’ makhana ‘between’ nakanrokon ‘in the midst of’ nin ‘at any location, belonging to’ ninro ‘toward’ olaboan ‘opposite side’ rakon ‘in in a fluid’ rokon ‘in on the inside surface of’ waria ‘away from’ TEMPORAL POSTPOSITIONS bena ‘after’ bora ‘before’ kha ‘while’ OTHER POSTPOSITIONS abo ‘with instrumental’ adi ‘greater than, above’ doma ‘because, on account of’ farokha ‘if’ some dialects: harokha khonan ‘about, concerning’ myn ‘to, for benefactive, IO’ oma ‘with accompaniment’ Figure 9. Selected Arawak Postpositions 46 Phonology and Morphology Most of the locational postpositions in Figure 9 are generally concerned with static situa- tions. If motion is involved, they are combined with either -nro ‘toward’ 105c or -aria ‘away from’ 105d. If the location is one in which an activity is occurring i.e. an adver- bial, the postposition receives the suffix -di ‘ADV’ 105b. 54 This means that, if one disre- gards their internal structure, most locational postpositions have four forms: the basic one and three others, with -di, -nro, and -aria see Figure 10. 105 a. Da-dykha no hala diako. I-see it bench on ‘I saw it on a bench.’ b. Da-bina-bo hala diakho-di. I-dance-CONT bench on-ADV ‘I am dancing on a bench.’ c. D-osa bahy loko-nro. I-go house in-to ‘I went into the house.’ d. Da-dalhida bahy loko-aria. I-run house in-away.from ‘I ran out of the house.’ STATIC ACTION MOTION TO MOTION FROM loko lokhodi lokonro lokoaria ‘in’ ‘in’ ‘into’ ‘out of’ diako diakhodi diakonro diakoaria ‘on’ ‘on’ ‘onto’ ‘off of’ kosan kosadi kosanro kosaria ‘next to’ ‘next to’ ‘toward’ ‘away from’ Figure 10. Forms of Locational Postpositions The benefactive postposition myn 55 is used with any person or thing other than the grammatical subject or object which is a recipient or benefits from an action. 56 It is also used to indicate the in- direct object of ditransitive verbs and may therefore occur more than once in a sentence. 106 Bi-sika no tho-myn da-myn. you-give it her-BEN me-BEN ‘Give it to her for me.’ In reporting direct quotations, the person being spoken to is also indicated with this postposition. 2.5 Postpositions 47 54 Postpositions ending in ko change that ko to kho before -di. 55 When pronoun prefixes are added to this postposition, the forms are sometimes contracted: da-myn becomes dan ‘for me’, by-myn becomes bon ‘for you’, thy-myn becomes thon ‘for her’, ly-myn becomes lon ‘for him’, and wa-myn becomes wan ‘for us’. I have not found contracted forms of na-myn ‘for them’ or hy-myn ‘for you-PL’. 56 It cannot be used as a malefactive. 107 “Ehe” l-a tha da-myn. “Yes” he-dummy reportative me-BEN ‘Yes, he said to me.’

2.6 Functors

The label “Functors” is used here purely as a means of grouping together a number of small, miscellaneous lexical classes. This is a diverse group; and, syntactically, its members have in common only that they cannot take pronominal affixes which verbs, nominals, and postposi- tions all can take. With the exception of the numbers, the functor classes are all closed.

2.6.1 Question Words and Relative Pronouns

Arawak has a number of question words, many of which also serve as relative pronouns. 57 108 ama ‘what’ amabia ‘why for what purpose’ amadoma ‘why what is the cause’ halika ‘how’ halikan ‘who’ halikadin ‘in what manner exactly’ halon, anon ‘where’ halikha ‘when’ fata ‘how many’ Both relative pronouns and question words occur at the left periphery of their clauses see Chapter 4. 109 a. Alo-nro b-osa-bo? where-toward you-go-CONT ‘Where are you going?’ b. Ama b-ani-bo? what you-do-CONT ‘What are you doing?’ c. M-eithi-n d-a alo-nro d-osa-bo. PRIV-know-SUB I-dummy where-toward I-go-CONT ‘I don’t know where I’m going to.’

2.6.2 Conjunctions

Arawak conjunctions consist of three words for ‘and’ and one word for ‘or’. The most general form used for the coordinating conjunction ‘and’ is ken. It is used to join both inde- pendent clauses and constituents within clauses. 48 Phonology and Morphology 57 It is possible to decompose these question words. For example, amadoma consists of ama ‘what’ plus the postposition doma ‘because’, and amabia consists of ama ‘what’ plus the inchoative suffix -bia. However, these combinations have become so conventionalized that they are, for all practical purposes, single lexemes. 110 a. Ly-kanaba to firobero ken ly-dykha no dimana-n. he-hear the tapir and he-see it stand-SUB ‘He heard the tapir and he saw it standing.’ b. De ken da-retho osy-fa. I and my-wife go-FUT ‘I and my wife will go.’ Unlike ken, the conjunctions mathi ‘andwith’ and matho ‘andwith’ are used only to con- join nominal constituents. Mathi is used when the constituent following it has the feature [+male] see the discussion of gender features in Section 2.3.1.2, and matho is used when the following constituent is [–human] or [+human –male]. Both of these words are proba- bly derived from oma ‘with’ plus the relativization suffixes -thi and -tho see discussion of event verb suffixes in Section 2.4.1.3. 111 a. De matho da-retho osy-fa. I andwith my-wife go-FUT ‘My wife and I will go.’ b. Balhin da-retho mathi th-aithi osy-n foto-nro ... although my-wife and her-son go-SUB town-toward ‘Although my wife and her son went to town ...’ Manthan ‘or’ may be used only to join clauses and usually precedes each of the clauses conjoined. 112 Manthan l-osy-n manthan th-osy-n, kia kho d-eitha. or he-go-SUB or she-go-SUB, that not I-know ‘Whether he or she is going, that I don’t know.’

2.6.3 Numerals

The traditional Arawak counting system in Suriname uses a combination of base-five, base-ten, and base-twenty numbers. The numbers one through four, aba, bian, kabyn, and bithi, are primitives. ‘Five’ abadakhabo is a combination of aba ‘one’ and da-khabo ‘my hand.’ ‘Six’ through ‘nine’ are built using the first four numbers plus thian no known meaning. ‘Ten’ is bian-da-khabo ‘two-my-hand’. 58 ‘Twenty’ is aba loko ‘one man’. All other numbers are composed of combinations of these terms see Figure 11. Although this counting system exists, it is used mostly for the numbers one through nineteen, at least in Suriname; the Dutch numbers are rapidly replacing the Arawak numbers for counting beyond nineteen. 59 2.6 Functors 49