154 Chapter 6 Clause types
(27) Atin andhi' tello ana'.
Atin have three offspring
‘Atin has three children.’
(28) Siti andhi' sagame' mored.
Siti have twenty-five student
‘Siti has twenty-five students.’
(29) Bengko rowa andhi' bannya' jendela.
house that have many window
‘That house has a lot of windows.’
Again, the possession relation denoted by the verb andhi' ‘have’ does not re-
quire an animate possessor, as in (29), where bengko ‘house’ is ascribed the
property of having many windows.
3. Existential clauses
Clauses that simply assert the existence of an entity (concrete or abstract) are
frequently used to introduce an entity into the discourse. Here the predicate
badha ‘exist’ is used. The standard order with this type of existential clause is
badha - NP, as in (30-33). Locative expressions can occur following the NP, as
neng lapangan ‘in the yard’ in (30), or clause initially, as does neng disa ‘at the
village’ in (31).
(30) Badha embi' neng lapang-an.
exist goat at wide-NOM
‘There is a goat in the yard.’
(31) Neng disa badha gunong.
at village exist mountain
‘At the village there was a mountain.’
(32) Badha ka-daddi-yan ane.
exist NOM-become strange
‘Strange things happened.’
lit. ‘There were strange happenings.’
(33) Badha reng lake' se andhi' ana' settong nyama-na Bang Pote.
exist person male DEF have child one name-DEF garlic
‘There was a man who had a child named Bang Pote (garlic).’