Verb + -thi, -tho, or -sia

c. aba [ firo-tho › ] kabadaro ... one [ be.big-WH.SUBJ › ] jaguar ‘a big jaguar or, a jaguar which is big’ The relative clauses formed by the addition of these suffixes -thi and -tho sometimes oc- cur as free relative clauses. 25 When a free relative clause consists of a single word, it takes on the character of a noun, where the noun expresses the subject not necessarily the agent of the verb. 31 malhitan ‘to create’ malhita-thi ‘creator’ kakyn ‘to live’ kaky-tho ‘woman’ dian ‘to speak’ dia-thi ‘speaker’ ajomyn ‘to be high’ ajomyn-thi ‘God’ hehen ‘to be yellow’ hehe-thi ‘yellow one’ There seems to be an on-going process in the language whereby short, free relative clauses such as the above become conventionalized and, apparently, are added to the lexi- con as nouns. When this happens, it becomes possible to pluralize the resulting noun with the noun pluralizing suffixes already mentioned. 32 bian kaky-tho-be two live-WH.SUBJ-PL ‘two women’ An extreme example of this process may be many of the Arawak kinship terms. Most of the [–male] Arawak kinship terms end with -tho and most of the [+male] ones end with -thi , yet no speaker today is able to give meanings for the root forms. The following is but a small sample: 26 33 da-thi ‘my father’ d-aithi ‘my son’ da- erethi ‘my husband’ da- eretho ‘my wife’ d-okithi ‘my=elder bro younger brother’ d-okitho ‘my=elder sis younger sister’ da-bokithi ‘my=younger bro older brother’ In addition to the subject-relativizing suffixes -thi and -tho, Arawak also has a suffix which indicates a relativized direct object: -sia ‘WH.OBJ’. Since relativizing the object still leaves the subject of a clause in place, the -sia suffix does not occur in single-word free rel- ative clauses. Nevertheless, it does enter into the derivation of some nouns: 34 khin ‘to eat’ khesia ‘food’ y thyn ‘to drink’ ythysia ‘beverage’ In spite of the fact that many nouns are transparently combinations of verbs with one of the above relativization suffixes, these suffixes are relativizers and not nominalizers. They 2.3 Nominals 23 25 See Section 4.2 for a the discussion of free relative clauses. 26 See also Hickerson 1953, van Renselaar and Voorhoeve 1962, and de Goeje 1928. form relative clauses, and only some of these relative clauses have become conventional- ized sufficiently to be used as lexical nouns. For example, although ythysia means ‘bever- age’, adding -sia to sikin ‘to give’ does not yield sikisia ‘gift’.

2.3.4.7 Complex Derived Nouns

Not all derived nouns are simple. Many nouns go through a number of steps before reaching their final forms. For example, the attributive prefix ka- ‘to have, to be’ may be added to the noun sikoa ‘house’ to derive from it a stative verb kasikoa meaning ‘to be with house’. This word can, in turn, receive the nominalizing suffix -li ‘he who’ to yield the word kasikoali ‘he who is with house’ i.e. ‘owner’. Similarly, the verb ythyn ‘to drink’ can receive the object-relativizing suffix -sia, yielding ythysia ‘that which is drunk, beverage’. This derived noun can then receive ka- ‘attributive’, giving kathysia ‘to be with drink’, and can then receive the human nominalizer -non, giving kathysianon ‘they who are with drink’ i.e. ‘mildly drunk people’.

2.4 Verbs

Arawak verbs may be divided into two large classes based on their semantics and the structures in which they occur: event verbs and stative or non-event verbs. This latter group consists primarily of words expressing concepts which, in English, would be ex- pressed by adjectives. 35 a. Event Verb: Lirabo soko-fa to ada. he.there chop-FUT the tree ‘That man over there will chop the tree.’ b. Stative verb: Fonasia-ka no. be.hungry-PERF she ‘She is hungry.’ In addition to the verbs in the two major verb classes, Arawak has a copular verb and a se- mantically empty dummy verb which functions somewhat like AUX in English. 27

2.4.1 Event Verbs

Event verbs in Arawak are those words which indicate that some event is, was, or will be happening. They indicate a physical or mental process or action and are found in Subject- Verb-Object SVO and Subject-Verb SV sentences.

2.4.1.1 Event Verb Stem Forms

Almost all event verbs have a “basic-stem” form and an “a-stem” form so-named for the a in its final syllable. Semantically, these stem forms differ from each other with respect to aspect, and often also with respect to voice. Transitive verbs usually also 24 Phonology and Morphology 27 See also Sections 2.4.3, 3.2.2, and 3.2.3. have a third stem form, an “oa-stem,” which seems to be an agentless passive and also functions as a reflexive. 28 2.4.1.1.1 “Basic-stem” and “A-stem” Forms The “basic-stem” forms of verbs all have an e, i, o, or y but not 29 a as the nucleus of their last syllable. They are here named “basic” because the specific vowel found in their last syllable is unpredictable and because they are the forms from which the other stem forms are derived. The “a-stem,” as its name implies, has an a as the nucleus of its final syl- lable. In most, if not all, cases it can be derived from the basic-stem form by replacing the vowel of the final syllable of a basic-stem with an a. 36 a. Basic-stem Forms: osy-n go-SUB ‘to go’ andy-n arrive-SUB ‘to arrive’ morodo-n fly-SUB ‘to fly’ dinamy-n stand.up-SUB ‘to stand up’ b. Corresponding A-stem Forms: osa-n wander-SUB ‘to wander around’ anda-n touch-SUB ‘to touch or feel’ moroda-n fly.around-SUB ‘to fly around’ dinama-n pace.around-SUB ‘to pace up and down’ As can be seen in the preceding examples, the basic-stem and a-stem forms consistently differ in how they present the action of the verb: whether they present an action as what might be called “bounded” or “unbounded” in time. That is, the basic-stem forms view an action as happening at some specifiable point or range in time and as having a starting or ending point, or both. The a-stem forms, on the other hand, emphasize the action of the verb itself as an event with duration, and neither the start nor the terminus of the action seems to be in focus. The preceding examples of the basic-stem and a-stem forms were all of intransitive verbs. However, transitive verbs also have these stem forms. For example, notice the following pairs of sentences: 30 37 a. Li fary-fa aba kabadaro. he kill-FUT one jaguar ‘He will kill a jaguar.’ 2.4 Verbs 25 28 This oa-stem seems to bears a certain resemblance to the Greek “middle” voice which also seems to have both a passive and a reflexive interpretation see Lyons 1968:375ff. See also Taylor 1970a:210ff. for further discussion of the three Arawak stem forms. 29 A number of verbs at first appeared to have only a-stems. In most cases, further investigation yielded basic-stem forms not ending in a. 30 These sentences are presented in the future tense because the phonological difference between the basic- and a -stem forms is most clearly seen in this tense. The tense suffixes in Arawak all also contain an aspect component in their meaning see Chapter 5 on discourse. This interacts with the stem forms such that the difference between the stem forms is often neutralized see discussion in following paragraphs.