262 Chapter 9 VPs and verbal marking
(40) Sajan peggel, sajan peggel, sampe' lo' tao entar-an pole dha' kraton
more angry more angry until not know go-IRR again to palace
kaangguy a-seba.
for AV-face.
‘He got more and more angry until he didn’t ever go to the palace again
because he didn’t want to face her.’
(41) Se ng-ako-wa rang-terrang-an a-rassa todhus dha' iya rato jiya.
REL AV-admit-IRR RED-clear-AN AV-feel embarrassed like.this king this
‘The king was embarrassed and did not want to admit this, to explain
this.’
In (40), only the irrealis marking on ngako ‘admit’ signals negation, and in this
instance clearly it is not a failed attempt, as in (38) and (39).
The irrealis occurs on predicates in complements of verbs of desire rein-
forcing that the state of affairs in the complement has not yet been realized.
(42) Engko' terro andhi'-a ana'.
I want have-IRR child
‘I want to have a child.’
(43) Aba'na ngarep Edi dhapa'-a are Sennen.
he AV.hope Edi arrive-IRR day Monday
‘He hopes Edi arrives on Monday.’
The semantics of terro ‘want’ and arep ‘hope’ include the proposition that the
state of affairs in their complements has not yet come to pass, thus, irrealis
marking. Other predicates in this set include endha' ‘willing’, parlo ‘need’,
kasoka'an ‘want to’, ngagna' ‘be about to’, janji ‘promise’, and others. Much of
the time, however, apart from terro and ngarap, irrealis marking is treated as
optional in these complements.
The irrealis can generally be used in any instance of any unrealized action
in embedding environments. It frequently occurs on purpose clauses with the
subordinators sopaja ‘so that’ (44) and kaangguy ‘for’ (45).
(44) Ale' a-berri' buku ka Ebu' sopaja maca'-a.
yngr.sibling AV-give book to mother so that AV.read-IRR
‘Little brother gave the book to Mother so that she would read it.’
(45) Parlo-na dha'-adha’-eng keng kaangguy koca'-eng a-dagang-a.
need-DEF RED-front-DEF only for say-DEF AV-business-IRR
‘In the beginning they said it was only to do business.’