jeff_l
(Jeff_L)
#1
8.5 Participles (subject relatives) 481
(495) -m-vs-uku- 'spread'
a. perfective system
PerfP -sm-s-aka-
Reslt -asm-s-aka-
PerfN -Eem-s-aka-
b. short imperfective system
Shlmpf -sm-s-uk (= /-am-s-uki-/)
Imprt m-Ss-uk
c. long imperfective system
LoImpfP -t-lm-s-uku-
LoImpfN -t-am-s-uku-
Prohib -t-am-s-uku-
d. nominalization
VblN a-m-s-uk
8.5 Participles (subject relatives)
Participles can be formed from any indicative verb form (i.e. excluding
imperatives and hortatives) that may occur clause-initially, hence PerfP, Resit,
and LoImpfP. We may therefore speak of PerfP participles and so forth.
Clauses beginning with a preverbal particle (Negative, Future, or Past) can
form participial constructions, often with a Participial affix added directly to
the preverbal particle (with much dialectal variation to be described below).
Participles are the forms taken by verbs in subject relatives ('the man who
hit the dog', 'the donkey that is running', 'the dog that didn't bark'), and in the
closely related subject focalization construction ('it wasX [focus] who saw
me'). In effect, then, participial marking is a kind of subject-extraction index,
from which the listener can deduce that the NP or demonstrative immediately
to the left of the participle is the subject of the participialized verb, but has
been extracted (by relativization or focalization). It is necessary to distinguish
definite from indefinite participial constructions, and the forms of the
participles are different in the two contexts.
Definite subject relatives require a definite demonstrative (or a syntactic
equivalent such as ere 'whoever', §12.1.6.1) preceding the participle itself.
