Verb phrase and auxiliaries

Interrogative 2.person nonpast 13.85 khøt jampu-la ɖo-ken? repeated from 13.79 2SG Kathmandu-DAT go-NMLZ;CONJ.Q ‘Will you go to Kathmandu?’ Or: ‘Do you go to Kathmandu?’ The new gloss for this would be simply ‘Are you the one going to Kathmandu?’ 13 .86 ŋa [nitɕa-raŋ-la tɕham-sim khur-ken] hin. 1SG 2SG[HON]-self-DAT love-mind carry-NMLZ COP.EXP ‘I love you.’ Lit. ‘I am the one who has internal love towards you.’ This illustration comes from the Lhomi Bible and the addressee is God. The verb is agentive though the content is internal attitude. First person is coded in the equative copular verb hin. Square brackets indicate the nominalized clause which is headless relative clause and the predicate nominal of the copular verb. It is obvious that the shorter form khur-ken which I have interpreted as conjunct has come from the longer VP khur- ken hin. To use the latter one is to highlight the speaker. There is another handicap in this new interpretation. If ɖo-ken is a nominalized verb then where is the main verb of the clause? There is none. The grammatically fully developed clause like 13.86 is very rare compared to an ellipsis like 13.84 which is extremely common. There are more examples of copular clauses in section 17.2.2 which talks about headless relative clauses. In the new interpretation, example 13.67 would structurally also be an equative copular clause that has bet as the main verb. The rest of the clause would be a predicate nominal and the new translation would be: ‘Uncle Chiring is the one who sells or will sell a goat to my elder brother.’ Semantically this analysis seems to be OK because the copular verb bet refers to generally known facts see section 14.2.5. This kind of analysis would do away completely with the sub-category conjunctdisjunct or egophoricity in Lhomi grammar. In conclusion I argue that Lhomi does not have fully developed conjunctdisjunct patterns like many other related languages do. Some linguists, such as Erika Sandman from the University of Helsinki, call it egophoricity or egoevidentiality and make it a sub-category of evidentiality Jalava and Sandman 2012. In Lhomi only agentive verbs in nonpast tense have this grammatical sub-system. In chapter 14. on evidentials, I will show conjunctdisjunct type patternings in relation to direct experience but that does not meet the criteria of the definition I have quoted at the beginning of the current section.

13.7 Verb phrase and auxiliaries

The verb phrase in Lhomi includes the grammatical head followed by up to three auxiliaries. If there is an auxiliary the clitics follow that and finally post-verbal particles. As for those elements of a VP that precede the head I have included predicate nominal, predicate adjectival, and ADVPs which modify the head. Those verbal complements that are arguments of the head are treated in section 18.11 on complement clause. Equative copula hinbet may occur as an auxiliary but existential copulas jøt and duk never do. There are some examples which seem to argue against this claim. Consider the following. 13 .87 ŋik-ki khimtsi lit jøʈ-ʈo. from 17.90 1PL.EXCL-GEN neighbour arrive[PST] EXIST-PROB ‘Our neighbour may have arrived.’ Or: ‘Our neighbour probably has arrived.’ I believe that this is a grammaticalized form of the periphrastic perfect lit- na jøʈ-ʈo. Though the non- finite verbal suffix has been dropped it is still periphrastic perfect like in examples 18.88, 90–91. In other words the existential copula is not an auxiliary here but the main verb in serial chaining. Figure 13.1 gives an idea what a Lhomi verb phrase looks like when a copular verb is the head. I have excluded the existential verbs here because at the phrase level this behaves very much the same way as the copula hinbet. Figure 13.1. Finite verb phrase with a copular verb as its head. In figure 13.1 only some suffixes, clitics, and particles are listed. Not all combinations listed in the table are allowed. Only the verb head is obligatory; all other elements are optional. Only one auxiliary may occur. The following examples illustrate this particular kind of Lhomi verb phrase VP is in square brackets. 13.88 ŋit [thaŋmu tɕhi-jaa hin.] 2.15 repeated here 1PL.EXCL thangmu t ɕhi-HUM2 COP.EXP ‘We are people of thaŋmu tɕhi village.’ The pronoun is the subject and the next two words form a predicate nominal, NP. 13.89 ɕi-na khur-ni kantsi tɕik ʈhik-pa bet. die-NFNT1 carry-NFNT2 second.wife INDF marry-NMLZ;Q AUX kantsi di [rimmu hiŋ-køp-pa bet. ] TE41 second.wife DEF cannibal COP-PROG;EXP-NMLZ;Q AUX ‘After his wife died he married a second wife. The second wife washad been a cannibal.’ This example illustrates the copular head with an auxiliary. This sentence gives parenthetical background information about the villain of the story. For more examples of VPs that have copular verb as head see examples 14.39–43, 87, 94–95. Pre-head Head AUX Clitics Particles COP.EXP hin NEG.COP.EXP men COP bet NEG.COP mem-pet +-NEG-hin +- INFER -køppet +- PPRF -køp-pa +- PROB - ʈo +- bet +-NEW.INF =o +- Q =pa +-SHC =ka ŋ +-RSPNS na +-CFP bak +- MIR wa SCP de ek DISCL lo +- NP +- ADJP +- ADVP Figure 13.2. Finite past verb phrase and auxiliaries. The first observation about figure 13.2 is that up to three auxiliaries may occur in a Lhomi VP. This figure basically gives the order of various elements of VP. The past root may occur alone but all other elements are optional. Examples 13.90 and 13.91 illustrate the finite verb phrase which also has past verb root. Example 13.89 illustrates a predicate nominal. The VP is in square brackets in all these examples. The auxiliary toŋ also has all kinds of uses as a main verb see section 13.2. As a main verb it gets the lexical content typically from its object argument and it usually refers to an action of moving a thing from one place to another, e.g. sending a letter or making a phone call etc. There are exceptions. Figure 13.2 has another auxiliary, tshar, which marks completive aspect see also section 16.4.3. As an auxiliary it marks only the completive aspect while the lexical meaning comes from the main verb. When tshar is the main verb it refers to falling unintentionally from a higher place to lower, e.g. from a tree to the ground. 13.90 pemp-ʏ kha-la nen-tɕe sin-na ka headman-GEN mouth-DAT obey-SBJV say-NFNT1 CEP pempu [kø-pa hin-ʈo nani.] TE46 headman appoint-NMLZ;Q AUX-PROB CONFIRM ‘You have probably appointed the leader for the very purpose to be the one whom you should obey, haven’t you?’ This is from a speech in which the village leader speaks to obstinate villagers who do not obey him. This VP has only one auxiliary and one post-verbal particle. 13.91 lama di ni raŋ bet si-kuk lama DEF DM 2SG COP say-PROG;VIS joŋmaa di-ki lama di hi-ko bet sin-na another DEF-ERG lama DEF this-head COP say-NFNT1 +-NEG+ V [PST] +- PST.VIS -soŋ +- PST.EXP -tɕuŋ +- NEG.PST.EXP -moŋ +- NMLZ;Q -pa +- 1PST -pen +- IMMED toŋ +- COMPL tshar +- AUX-INFER hiŋ-køppet +- AUX-PROB hin- ʈ o +- AUX-PPRF hiŋ-køp-pa +- AUX bet +-Q =pa DISCL lo Head 1. AUX 2. AUX 3. AUX Clitics Particles Pre-head +- NP +- ADJP +- ADVP [ ɕep-pa hiŋ-køp-pa bet.] tell-NMLZ;Q AUX-PROG;EXP-NMLZ;Q AUX ɕet-ni pulis mi=raŋ ʈhuk-ki ɖoli-la luk-na tell-NFNT2 police man=FOC six-ERG carrying.chair-DAT put-NFNT1 khur-a bet lo. TE18 carry-NMLZ;Q AUX DISCL ‘“You are the lama,” they said. Someone had told the police earlier saying, “This is the lama.” Then six policemen put him into a carrying chair and took him away.’ This example has two auxiliaries. 13 .92 ŋa gur-na [det toŋ-ken.] TE29 1SG put.up-NFNT1 sit;stay[PST] IMMED-NMLZ;CONJ ‘Putting up with it I’ll sit down.’ This is from a dream in which the speaker is harassed and he decides to put up with it. Note that the tense of the clause is nonpast but the root of the main verb det is past. It is the auxiliary that has the 1.person NPST marking and that marks the immediacy of the action of sitting down. It has no lexical content here. 13.93 u-ki mi u-ko [ ʈhim-si dʑuu-soŋ.] that-GEN man that-head buy.sell-INTNS run[PST]-PST.VIS ‘That man ran really fast.’ Figure 13.3. Finite imperative and hortative verb phrases. Figure 13.3 shows the following: • A NP never occurs in pre-head position because typically it is the object argument of the verb. • There are fewer clitics and particles that combine with imperative finite verb. • NEG prefix is morphologically the same as the one combining with past roots. The following examples which are taken from chapter 18 illustrate figure 13.3 VP is in square brackets. +-NEG+V[ IMP ] IMP V[ IMP ]+- PUNC -lo ŋ V [IMP ]+- SCI -let V[ IMP ] +- IMP2 -t V [PST]+- 1PL.HORT -to ŋ V [PST]+-1SG.HORT -ki +- EMPH =te +- EMPHP ta Pre-head Head Clitics Particles +- ADJP +- ADVP 13.94 aku d ʑentsel-la [enɕuk-la puu-let.] TE4 uncle d ʑentsen-DAT first-DAT offer-SCI ‘Serve uncle Jyentsen first’ Speaker gives an order to one of the servants in the party of his house dedication. 13.95 sa nakpu [mat-tøn-t ɕit] soil black NEG-turn.around-IMP2 ‘Do not do any fieldwork’ Lit.: ‘Do not turn around any black soil’ The village leader is giving his instructions to all villagers for a religious holiday. He shouts it with a loud voice from his own yard. It is a reminder since most people know that on such a day no fieldwork is allowed. 13 .96 duŋ tɕhi-jaa hi-ko [ʈhʏt-toŋ.] TE4 wooden.plank big-COMP2 this-head drag[PST]-1PL.HORT ‘Let us drag this bigger plank’ Speaker tells this to all workmen who are building a house. Large planks are dragged along the ground by several men. 13 .97 ŋ-e aliŋ [taa-ki.] 1SG-ERG corn grind[PST]-1SG.HORT ‘Let me grind some corn’

13.8 Verb phrase and its complements