Nankôre: Difference between revisions

The Irrealis ''-hi'' is suffixed to the copula.  It is obligatory for all Future tenses.  It also surfaces in imperatives, yes-no questions which are marked with the ''-yo'' marker cliticizing to the first or second word of a sentence, as in ''Cire-yo tā'itá'-hi?'' "Did he die?", and in WH-questions when the event actually happening has not yet been established as having occurred; for example, ''Enket cire tā'itá'?'', "Where did he die?" implies that the person's death is a fact, and it is only the location that is being inquired, versus ''Enket cire tā'itá'-hi?'' implies that not only is the location unknown, but the person's actual death happening still remains to be established.  An interesting structure, called the "double interrogative", is a combination of a WH-word followed by a word bearing the ''-yo'' clitic, which also turns the question into yes-no question: ''Enket cire-yo tā'itá'-hi?'', "Did he die, and if so, where?"  The ''-hi'' suffix is believed to be cognate with the Minhast Irrealis clitic ''=š''.

The Positional/Motion verbs appear at the beginning of the VP.  They appear in two forms, an independent form, and a shortened form, called a coverb.  Coverbs serve to provide additional syntactic information to the following verb, usually the main verb itself.  Clitics that otherwise attach to the main verb, such as the Inverse marker and and aspect markers, move to and attach to the first occurring coverb of the VP.  Morphophonemic alternations may take place when the Inverse marker ''ta='' cliticizes to the coverb, such as in the Subessive ''cor-''.