d. ka-polata-n ATTR-money-SUB
‘to be rich’ 2.4.2.2.2 Postpositions as Stative Verbs
Arawak postpositions may be used as two-argument stative verbs.
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93 a. Bahy loko-ka
no. house
in-PERF it
‘It is in the house.’ b. Hala
diako-fa-i bench
on-FUT-he ‘He will be on the bench.’
Unlike other stative verbs, however, for a postposition to occur as the main verb of a stative sentence, it must receive one of the stative tenseaspect suffixes.
94 Bahy loko
no. house in
it ‘It is in the house.’
When postpositions are used as the main verb of a sentence, the noun phrase preceding the postposition is its object, and the one following is the subject.
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2.4.3 Other Verbs
There are two other verbs in Arawak which deserve special attention. One of these is a semantically empty verb a which I gloss as ‘dummy’. The other is the copula to ‘is’, used in
equative sentences.
2.4.3.1 The Dummy Verb
The semantically empty dummy verb i.e. pro-verb in Arawak behaves in some ways like the English AUX.
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It is found in sentences with preposed manner-adverbials or pre- posed verbs with the privative prefix ma- ‘not be, not have.’
95 a. Abare l-a
simaka-n li
d-orebithi. suddenly
he-dummy yell-SUB
the my-brother.in.law
‘Suddenly my brother-in-law yelled.’ 42
Phonology and Morphology
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See sections on postpositions 2.5, and discussions of stative verb structure 2.4.2.1 and postposition stranding 4.4.4.1, 4.4.4.2 for more details.
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See sections on stative sentence structure 3.2.3 and relativization of objects of postpositions 4.4.4.1, 4.4.4.2 in support of this claim.
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See the discussion on dummy verb sentences 3.2.2 where this topic is treated in detail.
b. M-andy-n l-a-bo
akharoho. PRIV-arrive-SUB
he-dummy-CONT now
‘Isn’t he arriving now?’ or ‘He isn’t arriving now.’ As can be seen in the above examples, the dummy verb is the main verb of the sentence.
It carries most of the verb affixes, and all other verbs in the sentence receive the subordi- nation suffix -n.
The dummy verb behaves morphologically like an event verb, taking subject pronoun prefixes and event verb suffixes. Semantically, the sentences in which it is found relate
events occurring at some specific time and place. Like other event verbs, it has two stem forms: o basic-stem form, and a a-stem form.
96 M-osy-n th-o-fa
forto-nro mothi.
PRIV-go-SUB she-dummy-FUT
town-to tomorrow
‘She isn’t going to town tomorrow.’ or ‘Isn’t she going to town tomorrow?’
2.4.3.2 The Copula
The second verb that needs to be mentioned is the copular verb to ‘to be’. It is used only in equative constructions connecting two noun phrases.
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97 a. Ama to
to toho?
what is
the this
‘What is this?’ b. Toho
to aba
kakosiro. this
is one
deer ‘This is a deer.’
c. Tora hiaro
to da-retho.
that female
is my-wife
‘That woman is my wife.’ Although the verb to ‘to be’ is identical in form to the definite article to ‘the’, the verb is
not the same as the article. They can co-occur in the same sentence see example 97a, and the verb does not change form according to the gender of the referents in the rest of the
sentence, whereas the article does.
98 a. Lira wadili
to da-rethi.
that man
is my-husband
‘That man is my husband.’ b. Li
da-rethi andy-fa
mothi. the
my-husband arrive-FUT
tomorrow ‘My husband will arrive tomorrow.’
2.4 Verbs 43
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See also sections on equative sentence structure 3.2.3.1.
