Verb Individual discussion of word classes

3 WORDS AND WORD CLASSES 45 kabhawo mountain , ka-kabha-kabhawo hill b. ko- + N havepossess N 10.2.21 ana child, ko-ana have a childchildren Syntactically, nouns show the following properties: a. they can be modified by other elements, such as the article o, possessive suffixes and demonstrative pronouns; b. they are negated by suano not; c. they can fill the position after a preposition; d. they can function as subject, direct object and indirect object in a clause. Examples of nouns are lambu house, kampufu youngest child both simple nouns, ka-pindalo desire and ka-lente-ha place of birth both complex nouns. Within the set of nouns a number of subsets can be distinguished, such as: 1. proper nouns names 2. classifying nouns classifiers 3. measure nouns 4. the reflexive-emphatic noun wuto. Nouns are further discussed and illustrated in Chapter 5. The derivational possibilities of nouns are treated in 5.2 and in Chapter 10.

3.3.2. Verb

Morphologically the most conspicuous aspect of the verb is the obligatory presence of the prefixes marking subject inflection subject markers, see Chapter 4. For example, in no-kala he goes, the root kala go is prefixed with a bound morpheme no- that refers to a third person singular. Every word that shows this kind of inflection is a verb. In this chapter verbs will be given in their bound root form. On the basis of the subject markers, three verb classes can be distinguished: a-verbs, ae-verbs and ao-verbs see 4.3. Another important division, which cuts across the previous division, is that between transitive and intransitive verbs. Transitive verbs can be distin- guished from intransitive verbs by means of the following processes: 1. a transitive verb can receive direct object inflection, an intransitive verb cannot; 2. from a transitive verb a passive participle can be derived; this is not possible with intransitive verbs. Intransitive verbs can be further subdivided into stative and dynamic in- transitive verbs. They are distinguished morphologically in that stative intransitive verbs can form the basis of derivations with mba- + reduplication, meaning rather, and with feka-, a factitive prefix. Examples follow. Transitive: rabu ae-verb make 2 a. ne-rabu he makes 3sR-make b. no-rabu-e he makes it 3sR-make-it c. ni-rabu-no what he has made P.PART-make-his 46 A GRAMMAR OF THE MUNA LANGUAGE d. no-mba-rabu-rabu e. no-feka-rabu-e Stative intransitive: ghosa ao-verb strong 3 a. no-ghosa he is strong 3sR-strong b. no-ghosa-e c. ni-ghosa-no d. no-mba-ghosa-ghosa he is rather strong 3sR-RATHER-RED-strong e. no-feka-ghosa-e he makes it strong 3sR-FACT-strong-it Dynamic intransitive: kala a-verb go 4 a. no-kala he goes b. no-kala-e c. ni-kala-no d. no-mba-kala-kala e. no-feka-kala-e On the relationship between the verb classes a-, ae- and ao- and the transitive and stativedynamic intransitive classes, see 4.4. Stative intransitive verbs are usually translated as adjectives in English. To use the term adjective for these words obscures the important fact that in Muna these words behave in every respect as verbs. Both predicatively and attributively these putative adjectives are marked in exactly the same way as verbs, that is, with subject inflection and as active participles, as illus- trated by the following two pairs both verbs are ao-verbs: 5 a. no-ghae he cries 3sR-cry b. no-kesa it is beautiful 3sR-beautiful 6 a. anahi mo-ghae-no a crying child a child that child -cry-A.PART cries b. kalambe mo-kesa-no a beautiful girl a girl girl -beautiful-A.PART that is beautiful Because of their structural similarity, ghae and kesa are grouped together as verbs: they differ in their derivational possibilities, as illustrated above 3 WORDS AND WORD CLASSES 47 by ghosa and kala, hence the categorization into stative and dynamic in- transitive verbs.

3.3.3. Pronoun