Minor contexts involving NFCs 77
Just as in English and other languages, there are MC verbs in Jarawara that can occur either in the context of raising or control. When used in the context of control, such
verbs have their normal meaning, but when used as raising verbs, they have an aspectual meaning.
NFCs may also occur as complement clauses without either raising or control being involved. Speciically, NFCs may occur as transitive subjects, and they may occur as
objects of transitive MC verbs when the respective subjects of the NFC and the MC do not coincide. In some examples the respective subjects of the NFC and the MC do in
fact coincide, and these examples show that control is not involved, since the subject pronominal is overt in both clauses. There seem to be semantic divisions among the
verbs used in this general syntactic context, suggesting that, although the surface syntax is apparently the same, there are probably syntactic diferences at some level.
3 Minor contexts involving NFCs
3.1 In conjunction with inalienably possessed nouns
There are several minor syntactic contexts where NFCs occur, which have not been listed in table 2. One of these, in NPs headed by inalienably possessed nouns, has been men-
tioned above in the introduction. In the subsections which follow, I mention several other minor syntactic contexts. Before proceeding, however, I give additional evidence in favor
of a diferential analysis of adjectives and inalienably possessed nouns as mentioned in the introduction.
The main reason that adjectives, but not inalienably possessed nouns, should be an- alyzed as modiiers in Jarawara is that NFCs with adjectives participate in control and
raising, whereas NFCs in conjunction with inalienably possessed nouns do not. The idea is that since an inalienably possessed noun is the head of the phrase and not the NFC, the
possessed noun is a barrier to control or raising. But since an adjective is not the head of the phrase with which is occurs, but is a modiier, it is not a barrier to control or raising.
36
We have already seen one example of raising out of a clause containing the adjective yokana in the discussion of raising in section 2.1 above, i.e. 63. In this example, the MC
is intransitive, and the NFC is a transitive Oc. The raising is very clear, as the pronominal A of the NFC irst person singular o- is overt in the MC. The adjective yokana ‘true’ is a
modiier of the NFC. Example 190 below is similar, except that the NFC is an Ac clause. 190 Yama
yama thing.
f hani
hani writing
+f wato
wato. nfin
know yokana
yokana true
oha o-to-ha
1sg.s-ch-be okere.
o-ke-re 1sg.s-decl+f-neg+f
‘I dont know how to write well [lit., my knowing of written things is not true].’
36
In section 2.2 above, I proposed that there is control involving the possessor of the inalienably pos- sessed noun ati ‘voice’, in examples involving wato ‘know’ and nofa ‘want’. The diference between this
phenomenon and the examples with adjectives in this section is that in the case of ati, the possessor must always be overt; that is the controller is always the possessor of ati, and cannot be in the verb. In contrast,
the examples in this section show that the controller is not overt in the clause containing an adjective, but rather in the MC verb.
78 Jarawara Complement Clauses
The next example 191 shows that control is also possible with NFCs that have adjec- tives as modiiers. In this example, both the MC and the NFC are transitive Oc clauses.
The control is clear because again, the pronominal A of the NFC irst person singular o- is overt in the MC but not in the NFC. In this case the adjective is bite ‘small’.
191 namosami na-amosa-ma.nfin
caus-be good-back bite
bite small+f
owatoaaro. o-wato-haaro
1sg.a-know-rp.e+f ‘I know a little how to ix them [gill nets].’
In 192 there is likewise control, but there is no pronominal, since the shared subject is third person singular, and is therefore null. In this case the MC is intransitive, and the
NFC is a transitive Ac. 192 Name
name mans name.
m yama
yama thing.
f namosi
na-amosa. nfin
caus-be good bite
bite small
+f wai
waa stand
nofare nofa-ra
+m recently-
neg amaka.
ama-ka sec-decl+m
‘He just stands around, not clearing brush even a little.’
37
We have also seen an example with yokana ‘true’ 15 in the introduction above in which there is neither raising nor control. It appears that NFCs with adjectives as modiiers can
occur pretty much in the same syntactic environments in which NFCs without adjectives occur, as is expected if adjectives are modiiers.
The adjectives yokana and bite are the most common with NFCs, but I have seen ex- amples also with bokato ‘fair amount’ 193, ehebotee ‘big’ 194, and mati ‘a lot’ 195.
The class of adjectives in Jarawara is very small, and it is probably the case that all the adjectives may be used in these ways with NFCs.
193 Faya faya
so mee
mee 3pl.s
aabi ahaba.nfin
die bokato
bokato fair amount
toemetemone to-ha-hemete-mone
ch-be-fp.n+f-rep+f ahi.
ahi then
‘A good number of them died.’ 194 faa
faha water.f
kaki ka-kI.nfin
gocome-coming eebotee
ehebotee big
bara bara
stop tona
to-na+f ch-aux
‘The hard rain ended.’ 195 Kori
kori be afraid
kasi ka-na-kosa.
nfin comit-aux-middle
mati mati
a lot ohawaamaro
o-to-ha-waha-hamaro 1sg.s-ch-be-change-fp.e+f
oke o-ke
1sg.s-decl+f ‘Then I got really scared.’
The facts for contexts involving NFCs with inalienably possessed nouns are quite difer- ent. There is never either control or raising; in fact, it is extremely rare for such NFCs to
even be transitive. There are no sentences like 190 and 191, in which a pronominal
37
The original has the name of the man, but this has been omitted.
In conjunction with inalienably possessed nouns 79
from the NFC is overt in the MC. Nor are there any cases where there are two pronominals in the NFC i.e. referencing the A and the O, which we would expect to ind if it were
just a matter of overt control and raising not being allowed. Whenever a transitive verb appears in the NFC, it is almost always detransitivized by the operation described above
in connection with example 43.
38
When one looks at a sentence like 196, at irst glance it looks like control. In the complex clause yobe kaniki ino mee hiri ni yaa ‘if they want to buy a house’, the NFC yobe
kaniki is followed by the inalienably possessed noun ino ‘name’, and the MC verb is hiri na ‘say’.
196 yobe yobe
house.m kaniki
ka-nika.nfin comit-buy
ino ino
name+m mee
mee 3pl.a
hiri hiri
say ni
na.nom+f aux
yaa yaa
adjnct yobe
yobe house.m
mee mee
3pl.a kanika
ka-nika.list comit-buy
naboneke. na-habone-ke
aux-int+f-decl+f ‘If they want to buy a house, they should buy a house.’
It looks like the pronominal A of the MC, mee, is also the semantic A of the NFC. But this is just a possible implication of the discourse context, and is not actually in the syntax.
This is clear when we compare 197. In the context of the story, the people who were speaking were accusing the narrator of having a knife. If control were involved, they
would have been speaking about their own having a knife. The non-inite verb tama ni is detransitivized. I assign the same analysis to 196, i.e. that grammatically, the verb
kaniki is detransitivized, and the phrase is about the buying of a house. The subject mee is not grammatically in the NFC, even though this is the implication of the discourse context.
38
I have seen one example in which the NFC is unequivocally transitive, and the NFC is in a phrase that has as its head an inalienably possessed noun. In i, the possessed noun ino is masculine, and it refers to
the same person who is the A of the MC verb. The whole NP tiwa narii ino is the O of the MC, and according to my analysis, ino is the head of the NP. Whereas the NFC in such a case is almost always
detransitivized, this does not seem to be the case here. The NFC tiwa narii, if it were detransitivized, would have to have tiwa as its S. But if this were the case, then the possessed noun would have to be
feminine ini, to agree with the second person S. The fact that it is masculine ino means that there is a masculine A in the NFC which is phonologically null.
i tiwa
tiwa 2sg.o
narifi narifa.
nfin help
ino ino
name +m
hiri hiri
say nane.
na. cont+m-ne
aux-bkg+m ‘He said he had helped you.’
So apparently it is possible to have a transitive NFC in conjunction with an inalienably possessed noun head; but in any case, this does not represent either control or raising.
80 Jarawara Complement Clauses
197 Faya faya
so mee
mee 3pl.poss
ati ati
voice yana
yana start
nete na-hete
aux-rp.n+f mee
mee 3pl.poss
awineke awine-ke
seem+f-decl+f yimawa
yimawa knife.f
tama tama
hold onto ni
na.nfin aux
ini ini
name+f mee
mee 3pl.a
hiri hiri
say na
na+f aux
mati. mati
3pl.a ‘They spoke, speaking about having a knife.’
In conclusion, although it is certainly true that NFCs can occur along with both inalien- ably possessed nouns and adjectives, as I see it the possessed nouns and adjectives in these
cases should receive very diferent analyses. In the next subsections I consider several other syntactic contexts in which NFCs occur
outside of the central contexts listed in table 2.
3.2 Copular clauses