85 a. Ø
-ailo b. ye
Ø -ailolo
men 2s-call
you 2s-call.
CNT
what Call out.
What are you yelling about? c.
k-alpopo omkele
1s-pierce.3m.
CNT
armband I weave an armband.
For a technical treatment of the reduplication process, see Staley 1994c, 1994d . Some of the verbs reduplicate in other ways, as shown in 86 and 87. Example 87 is highly unusual in that the prefix
is included in the reduplicated form. 86 a.
l-itipi Wol
tisi b. w-ititipi
wof 3m-go.down Wol
path 1d-go.down.
CNT
river He went down the Wol path.
We two were going down the river. 87 a.
p-ratei b. p-ra-pratei
3p-liveremain 3p-liveremain.
CNT
They live. They are living.
2.3.5.3 Realisirrealis
A key distinction in Olo is the difference between
REALIS
and
IRREALIS
. A. McGregor 1983 called irrealis “future tense” and realis “narrative tense.” The use of realis for the flow of narratives is clear.
This is not surprising as realis mood reflects the certainty that a given event has happened. Realis in Olo is the unmarked form; there is no morphological marker or lexical item that shows it. It is shown
only by the absence of any other marker.
Irrealis is indicated by the word ma. This word occurs preverbally. It normally occurs between the subject and the verb. It can also occur before the subject, 88b.
88 a. pe
ma p-e
b. ma pe
p-e they
IR
3p-go
IR
they 3p-go
They will go. They will go.
The distinction between the two forms in 88 is very small, and seems to indicate the level of uncer- tainty. The irrealis marker in the initial position is the most uncertain.
While ma shows a high correlation with future events, it is incorrect to think of it as a future tense. There are future events which do not get marked with ma as shown by the last translation of 84, and
there are past events which do get ma, as in 89. 89
woso Otei
weisi-ne pultoser
kolo, nempis
l-iye ma
tisi SBD
Otei turn-3f
bulldozer
NEG
today-2+ 3m-dst
IR
road l-ato
malfem ku
lepei. 3m-remain
near us
here.close If Otei had not turned the bulldozer convinced the driver to work in a different place, then a
long time ago the road would have been here very close to us.
30 The Olo Language
2.3.5.4 Aptative
Olo uses a morpheme, miso, to indicate the ability of the Agent to accomplish an event. This is what I call
APTATIVE
. It occurs in the same positions as ma. The use of the aptative implies not only ability but also willingness to perform the action.
90 a. ki
miso k-elele
nimpe le-iye
I can
1s-fell.3m tree
3m-2s I can cut down your tree.
b. le miso l-eila
nimpe kolo, olo
le wala
kumpu. he
can 3m-lift
log
NEG
no he
DUR
small He cannot lift the log, he is still small.
2.3.5.5 Durative
Olo has a morpheme that shows duration of an event. This word, wala, shows a very similar distribu- tion to ma irrealis and miso aptative. It is used in slightly different circumstances than the continu-
ous. It is used in command forms 91, and in places where the duration is contraexpectational 92, or involving adjectival predications 93.
91 wala
Ø -ile
DUR
2s-stand Keep standing.Don’t move.
92 le
l-ale wefe
lom? olo
wala l-unwei
wom. he
3m-pick coconuts
QUES
no
DUR
3m-go.up coconut
Has he picked the coconuts? No, he is still going up the coconut tree.
93 ningio
pe-iki ma n-e
kolo, ne
wala kumpu-ne,
ine so
n-e. daughter
f-1s
IR
3f-go
NEG
she
DUR
small-3f big.f
ISQ
3f-go My daughter can not go, she is still too small, when she is big she can go.
The distinctions between durative and continuous are two-fold. First, the durative cannot encode re- peated action for punctiliar events. Second, the durative implies a nonvolitional state, while the con-
tinuous implies volitional action. The continuous can also shift a state to an action 94a, b. 94 a.
le wala
l-ile b. le
l-ilele he
DUR
3m-stand he
3m-stand.
CNT
He still stands. He is walking.
This particular morpheme is not as bleached semantically as the irrealis or aptative, but it is more bleached than most other lexical items. There is a sense about it that can be translated into English as
“still” or “wait”. There is another device which marks durationiteration of events, the verb e ‘go’. This verb can be
used to show that an event or sequence of events lasted for a long time. It is used in its normal sense of motion through space away from the deictic center. Multiple uses of the verb indicate that the motion
lasted for an extended amount of time.
95 a. ku
m-e Abrau
we 1p-go
Abrau We went to Abrau.
2.3 Grammatical Characterization 31
b. ku m-e
m-e m-e
m-e fale
uf we
1p-go 1p-go
1p-go 1p-go
arrive village We went and went and went and went, then we arrive at the village.
This type of construction can also be used to mark durationiteration when there is no motion di- rectly involved. In 96 the iterative sequence is set up by repetition of the individual verbs and the
verb e ‘go’ marks the repetition of the cycle over time. 96
ki k-e
k-esi lou.
I 1s-go
1s-work sago
k-esi yapopi
k-esi yapopi
k-e k-e
k-e, fei,
mulpou. 1s-work
squeeze 1s-work
squeeze 1s-go
1s-go 1s-go
now night
I went and worked sago. I chipped and squeezed, chipped and squeezed, I went and went and went, now it was night.
This type of duration is not yet a grammaticalization of the verb into an aspect marker but is a meta- phorical use of the motion verb. In this case it indicates not distance through space, but rather distance
through time. Each iteration involves two separate events, chipping and squeezing. The use of the mo- tion verb indicates that the iterations occur over an extended amount of time.
2.3.5.6 Event closure