408 Chapter 12 Adverbs and adverbial clauses
(88) Ali ngetek e bakto a-caca ka Siti.
Ali AV.shaky at time AV-talk to Siti
‘Ali gets nervous whenever he talks to Siti.’
The sentence in (88) indicates that the two states of affairs described regularly
cooccur. This notion can also be expressed when bila ‘when’ introduces the
adverbial clause.
(89) Bila Ali a-caca ka Siti,Marlena tamburuwan.
when Ali AV-talk to Siti Marlena jealous
‘Whenever Ali talks to Siti, Marlena gets jealous.’
There are a number of options for indicating that one event takes place
before another. Frequently, two independent clauses conjoined either paratacti-
cally or with the coordinating conjunction ban ‘and’ are interpreted such that
the state of affairs in the first antedates that in the second (90) and (91), or the
second of two clauses can take the conjunction pas ‘then’ (92) or the adverbial
such as laju ‘directly’.
(90) Deni ma-becce' komputer, sateya la becce'.
Deni AV.CS-good computer now already good
‘Deni fixed the computer and now it works.’
(91) Paman manceng juko' ban Bibbi' a-massa'.
uncle AV.pole fish and aunt AV-cook
‘Uncle caught fish and auntie cooked them.’
(92) Koceng-nga ngkan juko',pas a-jilat badhan-na.
cat-DEF AV.eat fish then AV-lick body-DEF
‘The cat ate the fish and then washed itself.’
With subordinate structures, when the main clause event occurs prior to
the event described in the adverbial clause, the conjunction sabellunna ‘before’
(or a variant such as bellunna) is used. The form consists of the adverbial aux-
iliary bellun ‘not yet’ with the sa- prefix and the definite suffix -na. This is illu-
strated in (93) and (94).
(93) Sabellunna mate ebu'-eng messen, “Mon engko' mate,kobur neng
before die mother-DEF AV.instruct if I die bury at
budhi-na roma-na ba'eng ya.”
back-DEF house-DEF you yes
‘Before she died, the mother said, “When I die, bury me behind your
house, OK?”’