608 A-’g e-mol-molla
mak-wuri-mak-galma la
mel plin-niohora
a-’u e-molla-molla maka-wuri-maka-galma
la mela
plinu-nohora I
DUR-RDP-like REL-sneak-REL-steal at
night do not know-about ‘I am like one who comes to steal secretly in the night.’
609 E-mol-molla petu
maka-loha ma
udi maka-di’na
DUR-RDP-like bamboo REL-spreads and banana REL-grows?
‘May they be fertile and have children like a bamboo tree and a banana tree which are fertile and grow.’
6.4.7 Progressive action clause
In the progressive action clause the predicate is formed by the use of the verb tepartarlia ‘in the process of’ and a nominalized verb which it modifies. This type of clause appears to be more stylistically pleasing
and formal than using the more regular verbal predicates such as active transitive and active intransitive. It has been observed that a native speaker, when editing a story and making it more proper, will change
the more basic transitive intransitive to this type of progressive action clause.
610 Ir-wotelu tepar-tar-lia krita
w-ni-a-hak-ni
ir-wo-telu tepra-taru-la krita ni-wa-haka-ni
three sink-DUR-to octopus
NOM-MULT-search-POS ‘The three of them were engrossed in the process of octopus searching.’
611 Tepar-tar-lia ya-la’a tepra-taru-la ya-la’a
sink-DUR-to
NOM-go ‘They were in the process of walking.’
6.4.8 Equative clause
The non-verbal equative clause was described in §6.3.1 above. There are also two types of equative clauses which are semi-verbal clauses, those which use hi’a or la, and those which use ed or er.
Two verbs can function as predicate in the semi-verbal equative clause. One which is normally considered transitive hi’a ‘makedo’ and one normally considered active intransitive la ‘go’. However in
this clause both of these words have essentially the same meaning that of: ‘isbe’. The subject NP is coreferentially equal to the object NP with the predicate filled by either of these verbs meaning ‘is, be’ in
this context.
612 N-hi’ o’ta-mata la
krei
3s-is head-eye
of church
‘He was the leader of the church.’
613 N-la’ am la
it-honnon-ita
3s-is father
to 1pi-all-1pi
‘He is a father to all of us.’ The predicate of this clause is identical to the verb used in the location clause above see §6.4.5.
The only difference is that it is not modified by the locative enclitic la as in the locative clause above. 614 Hare
de Maran
Wetgai Ili era re
They that Title
Wetgai Ili are those
‘Those ones are high class Wetgai Ili.’ 615 Wawi a’na-ni
yanulu eda di
pig child-POS
eldest is
this ‘He is the oldest piglet.’
6.4.9 Adverbal predicates
