Benefactive construction Serial verb constructions

Table 18.5. Summary of completive aspect in serial verb constructions Con-verb Main verb Auxiliary Suffixes it combines with Vpast root-na khur-a khur-soŋ khur-tuk bet NMLZ;Q AUX PST.VIS PRF.VIS Vpast root-nar-a Vpast root-nar-tuk bet COMPL-NMLZ;Q AUX COMPL-PRF.VIS

18.10.5 Benefactive construction

Lhomi has no benefactive case to mark the beneficiary. It is the serial verb construction which is used for benefactivemalefactive. The medial verb, marked as usual by -na, can be almost any volitional verb and the final verb is always the verb ‘to give’. It is this final verb that governs the case marking of the subject and object arguments. When the benefactive construction is negated it is the latter verb that gets the prefix. There are no restrictions as to the inflection of the final verb. Consider the following examples benefactive constructions are underlined. 18.179 atɕi di-ki tɕhopu di thaŋ atɕi di-la e.sister DEF-GEN husband DEF and elder.sister DEF-DAT ɕet-na bim-pa bet nuk tɕhi-na. TE45 speak-NFNT1 give-NMLZ;Q AUX this.way do;VBZR-NFNT1 ‘The younger sister spoke that way to her elder sister and elder sister’s husband.’ This is an advice and hence benefactive. The speech is meant to benefit the hearer. 18.180 hi-ni hi-ni ɕa lam-na bin-tɕuŋ. TE3 this-ABL this-ABL meat fry-NFNT1 give-PST.EXP ‘Then he fried some meat for me.’ A benefactive chain is negated by negating the final verb ‘to give’ see more about backwards spreading of negation in section 13.4. The next example shows how it works. 18.181 roo-s-ø hatɕa-raŋ-la tɕhaa 3SG-PL1-ERG 1PL.INCL-self-DAT manure ne-na mit-tik-køʈ-ʈo. TE46 give.manure-NFNT1 NEG-give-PROG;EXP-PROB ‘Perhaps they will not fertilize our fields.’ The referents are sheep shepherds who come with their flocks and the villagers benefit from the sheep manure. The following example illustrates how benefactive combines with imperative. 18.182 jak mikma ɕuŋmara u-ko set-na tir-ro tɕhi SAP ‘mikma shungmara that-head kill-NFNT1 give-AID do;VBZR[IMP] waɕɕi kuttɕi. TE17 please please ‘Please do kill that Mikma Shungmara for me’

18.10.6 Serial chaining and imperative finite verb