123 a. ki
k-ato Lumi
so k-au
I 1s-remain
Lumi
ISQ
1s-come I was in Lumi, now I come.
b. le kolele
nimpe so
oweli fale
he limb.3m.
CNT
tree
ISQ
food come.up
He limbed the tree in the garden so the food would grow. The marker can be used with completed events. The following response was made to an offer of food af-
ter sitting around for an hour talking. This clearly shows that the morpheme does not mark future tense. 124
olo k-aplei
so k-au
no 1s-eat.3p
ISQ
1s-come No, I ate right before I came.
The immediate sequence marker is often phonologically reduced to just an s and attached to the word following it.
125 ki
k-ato Lumi
s-k-au
I 1s-remain Lumi
ISQ
-1s-come I was in Lumi, now I come.
2.3.7.4 Clause listing
Olo can list both nouns and clauses. Listing uses re ‘and’ to mark the items in the list. The re ‘and’ can either be a free morpheme following the item in the list, or as is more common, it is phonologically
bound to the last word which makes up the item as an enclitic. There is variability among speakers as to the inclusion of a re ‘and’ following the last item in the list. Clause listing is distinct from other types
of conjoining in that it uses a different morphological marker re versus le, and different intonation pattern. Both of these parallel the manner of listing nominals. Example 126 shows clauses in a list.
Note that neither the first clause nor the last make up part of the list. This particular speaker always used a final re in a list. The last clause in this example is a recapitulation of the list.
126 k-eifale
k-e liom,
k-ale-re, k-enele
nimpe-re, konene-re,
1s-arise 1s-go
garden 1s-clear-and 1s-cut.3f tree-and
limb.3f.
CNT
-and k-elisisi-re,
tonwi-ne-re, k-esi
winem-re, k-anufulo
1s-burn.3m.
CNT
-and gather-3f-and
1s-build house-and
1s-heap yalu-re,
k-esi towa
ili. firewood.
PL
-and 1s-hold
work big.m
I arose and went to the garden, cleared it, and cut trees, and limbed trees, and burned the gar- den, and clearedheaped the brush, and built a house, and heaped up firewood; I did a lot of
work
2.3.7.5 Complementation
Complementation occurs when a clause is embedded as an argument of another clause. Givón 1990:515 says “sentential complements are ‘propositions functioning in the role of either subject or ob-
ject argument of the verb.’” Given this definition, Olo has clearly only a single complement type, that of cognizance. The other forms are not complements since a clause never replaces the subject, and any post
verbal clause that follows other verbs is never coreferential with any verbal affix which is an essential part of the definition of object in Olo. The case of cognizance is left for the final part in this section.
42 The Olo Language
Quotatives Quotatives in Olo have a standard form. They use an utterance verb, either the more frequent irpei
‘tell’, or the less common eletei ‘ask’. The verb irpei ‘tell’ takes a subject prefix and can take an object suffix. The suffix always refers to the recipient, that is the person or persons to whom the speech is di-
rected. It can never refer to the actual words.
127 a. ki
k-irpei il
pe-le I
1s-tell words p-3m
I speak his words. b. ki
k-irpe-nge il
pe-le I
1s-tell-3md words p-3m
I tell them two males his words. c.
ki k-irpe-pe
Kowi I
1s-tell-3p Kowi
d. ki k-irpe-pe
il pe-le
I 1s-tell-3p
words p-3m
I tell them his words. I speak his words.
The same situation holds for eletei ‘ask’. The only difference is that the object affix is an infix rather than a suffix. But again the infix can only refer to the person, or persons to whom the question is
directed. 128 a.
ki k-epletei
mete wuru
I 1s-ask.3p
men many
I asked many men.
b. ki k-epletei
Kowi I
1s-ask.3p Kowi
A clause can be embedded to replace the nominal referring to the actual communication. This can take two forms, with the quotative introducer olpepei ‘like this’ as in 129a, b or without as in
129c, d. Either form can be used for both direct and indirect quotes. 129 a.
le l-irpe-iki
l-olpepei, “nolowi
ma k-e
Lumi.” he
1s-tell-3m 1s-like.this
tomorrow
IR
1s-go Lumi
He spoke to me this way, “Tomorrow I will go to Lumi.” b. le
l-irpe-iki l-olpepei,
nolowi le
ma l-e
Lumi he
1s-tell-3m 1s-like.this
tomorrow he
IR
1s-go Lumi
He told me that tomorrow he will go to Lumi. c.
le l-irpe-iki
“ma k-au k-ulu-ye.”
he 3m-speak-3m
IR
1s-come 1s-see-2s
He said to me “I should come see you.” d. le
l-irpe-iki ma
k-au k-ulu-ye
he 3m-speak-3m
IR
1s-come 1s-see-2s He told me I should come see you.
2.3 Grammatical Characterization 43
Permission Olo has a verb than can readily be translated usa ‘allow’ or ‘let’. It can just as readily be translated,
‘leave’, ‘throw’, or ‘get rid of’. The central core of the word is best thought of as ‘leave alone’. This gives examples like 130.
130 Ø-
usa-ne. n-inau.
2s-leave.alone-3f 3f-dislike
Leave her alone She doesn’t like it.
This central meaning of leaving alone can be used as part of a serial clause construction to create sit- uations that would relate to when English speakers would use words like ‘let’.
131 le
l-usa-ne n-au
ratei uf
he 3m-let-3f
3f-come live
village He let her come live in the village.
The suffix on usa does not refer to the action of coming, or living, but to the person who comes. The sense of the verb is that he did not interfere with her. This construction is a case of serial clause con-
struction, with the object of the first being the subject of the second. Cognition
Olo has a single verb of cognition, retai ‘know’. While this verb can take a clause as one of its argu- ments, this is a fairly rare occurrence. This verb occurs more often without any object. It occurs more
often without suffixal inflection 61 percent than with 39 percent.
16
The suffixal inflection, when it occurs, refers to the object of cognizance.
132 ki
k-reta-ne ningio
pe-le I
1s-know-3f daughter
f-3m I know his daughter.
The object of cognizance can be a speech act, working much the same way as the quotatives. 133
Abraham l-irpei-ye,
“ye, ma
reta-pe Ø
-olpepei, ye
ma Abraham
3m-tell-
EMP
you.
SG IR
know-3p 2s-like.this
you
IR
nou kesi-Ø
ninge le-iki
Ø -ila-Ø
Ø -e
tef l-epe
kolo, olo.”
again pull-3m
son m-1s
2s-carry-3m 2s-go ground
3m-this
NEG
no Abraham strongly said, “You should know this, you may not take my son back to this land, no.”
2.3.7.6 Clause subordination and relative clauses