Affixation 107
A small number of speakers have innovated and have regularized the sequence
of -e + -a, thus producing the forms in (34) in place of those in (33). However,
this is a very small minority of speakers and does not represent the standard of
any dialect. (The fact that some speakers but not others accept a particular form
or sentence is marked by ‘%’ throughout.)
(34) %keremeya ‘will send to’
%balaiya ‘will say to’
%busenneya ‘will be bored with’
Perhaps best considered a separate affix, when affixed to some adjectival
stems, -e derives transitive verbs with a causative meaning, ‘make something
have the quality of the adjective’, accompanied by the actor voice morpheme in
the actor voice.
(35) pote ‘white’ apote'e ‘make white’
mate ‘dead’ mate'e ‘kill’
tako’ ‘afraid’ nako'e ‘scare’
kene’ ‘small’ ngene'e ‘make small’
Related to this causative form of -e, with a few adjectival predicates and
noun roots suffixation of -e results in a verb that means to ‘act like X’ or ‘look
like X’.
(36) penter ‘smart’ menterre ‘act like an intelligent person’
towa ‘old’ nowae ‘look older than one is’
disa ‘village’ nisane ‘look like someone from the village’
kottha ‘city’ ngotthai ‘look like someone from the city’
rato ‘king’ ngratone ‘act like a king’
1.1.12. ‘Benefactive’ -agi, /akɛ/
When suffixed to a transitive verb stem, -agi largely derives verbs in which the
direct or primary object is understood as the beneficiary of the action.
(37) giba ‘carry’ ngeba'agi ‘carry for’
belli ‘buy’ melleyagi ‘buy for’
kerra' ‘slice’ ngerra'agi slice for’
toles ‘write’ nolessagi ‘write for’
kerem ‘send’ ngeremmagi ‘send for’