Derived Event Verbs Event Verbs

82 a. D-alekhebe-ty-fa no. I-be.happy-verbalizer-FUT her ‘I will cheer her up.’ b. Da-there-ta no. I-be.hot-verbalizer it ‘I heated it.’ c. Da-there-toa-bo. I-hot-verbalizer.passrefl-CONT ‘I am warming myself up.’ or ‘I am getting warm.’ 2.4.1.4.3 Noun + -da Intransitive event verbs may be derived from many nouns with the suffix -da: 83 a. Da-bode-da-bo. I-fishhook-verbalizer-CONT ‘I am fishing with a line and hook.’ b. L-itotolhi-da-bo. he-nail-verbalizer-CONT ‘He is nailing.’ These constructions are very similar to English ones such as: 84 a. He is hammering. b. He is building.

2.4.2 Stative Verbs

Stative verbs are the second large class of verbs in Arawak. Unlike Arawak event verbs, stative verbs connote a state of being or an attribute of the subject. They never involve physical motion, or physical or mental activities. Syntactically, they are clearly distinct from event verbs. Whereas event verbs occur in SVO and SV sentences, stative verbs occur in VS sentences. 42 85 a. Seme-ka to kasiri. sweet-PERF the cassava.beer ‘The cassava beer is sweet unfermented.’ 38 Phonology and Morphology 42 The syntax of stative sentences is discussed in sections dealing with stative clauses 3.2.3. Also discussed there is some evidence for assuming that the noun phrase following the stative verb is truly the subject of the sentence. This evidence rests in part on the observation that the subject-relativization suffixes -thi and -tho appear when such a noun phrase is relativized. b. Fonasia-ka de. hungry-PERF I ‘I am hungry.’ Almost all words which are non-derived stative verbs in Arawak would, in English, tend to be adjectives. For example, note the words in the following list: 43 86 sa-n be.good-SUB ‘to be good’ hehe-n be.yellow-SUB ‘to be yellow’ firo-n be.big-SUB ‘to be big’ mimi-n be.cold-SUB ‘to be cold’ nykamy-n be.sad-SUB ‘to be sad’ thonolisia-n have.a.cold-SUB ‘to have a cold’ kawa-n be.absent-SUB ‘to be absent’ alokosia-n be.thirsty-SUB ‘to be thirsty’ However, in Arawak, these words cannot be used as noun modifiers in a noun phrase unless they receive one of the subject-relativizing suffixes see Section 3.1 on noun phrase structure. 87 a. aba sioko kakosiro one small deer ‘a small deer’ b. aba sioko-tho kakosiro one small-WH.SUBJ deer ‘a small deer’ 88 a. aba somole wadili one drunken man ‘a drunk man’ b. aba somole-thi wadili one drunken-WH.SUBJ man ‘a drunk man’

2.4.2.1 Stative Verb Structure

Stative verbs are less richly inflected than event verbs. In particular, stative verbs cannot receive modality or directional suffixes. This may be because these notions seem to apply to events and are therefore semantically incompatible with stative verbs. One other differ- ence between stative verbs and event verbs is that, because they occur in Verb-Subject sen- tences, stative verbs cannot receive pronoun prefixes, 44 and the pronoun suffixes which occur on them correspond to subjects rather than objects. 2.4 Verbs 39 43 As was the case with event verbs, the citation forms for stative verbs receive the subordinating or nominalizing suffix -n. 44 Pronoun prefixes and suffixes always occur in the same position relative to the verb that their corresponding morphologically free forms do.