/mérí
à hú
ìnhnù, án n :?/
|
(mary)(she)(come)(late)
(did not she) |
‘Mary
came late, did n’t she?’ |
| |
In
recent times, there are tendencies for lengthening tag
questions by addition of /a/ or /m / |
/mérí
a hú
ìnhnu, ánn h
á?/ |
ánnm :?/
|
/Mary
came late, did n’t she?’ |
Such
interrogative sentences only intend to confirm an impression
already formed by the speaker about a particular thing,
person or occation. |
| |
| 4.5.2.4 |
Counter
Echo Questions |
|
Hmar
forms another type of questions which consists of two
coordinate clauses, the first one being an affirmative
question and the second one a negative question both
being connected by a question indicator /am/. In other
words, the second clause is a counter echo or the first
clause and it carries interrogative intonation. Such
questions could thus be subscribed as counter echo equations.
Unlike English, there is no grapping in such interrogative
sentences consisting of two coordinate clauses. Given
below are a few sentences. |
| |
|
(you)(come)
(will) (or) (you)(come)(not) (will) |
‘will
you come or (you will) not?’ |
| |
/á
hrìl dí
ám á hrìl n
dí?/
|
(he)(tell)
(will) (or) (he) (tell) (not) (will) |
‘will
he tell or (he will) not?’ |
| |
|
| |
ín
ùm n
dí?/
|
(you)(pl)(stay)(will)(or)(you)(stay)(not)(will)
|
‘you
will stay or (you will) not?’ |
| |
/à
hú
tàh ám à hú
tàh n:/
|
(he)(come)(+past)(or)(he)(come)(+past)(not)
|
‘did
he come or (he did) not?’ |
|
In
such constructions the negative element /n h/
changes to /n/
and the clause-connector function is peformed by /am/
meaning ‘or’ or /s/.
|
| |
| 4.5.2.5
|
Important
Feature or Interrogative Sentences |
|
What
is more significant in the use of interrogative transformation
in Hmar is the use of interrogative intonation. Neither
word order nor the use of any interrogative particle
is a signaling factor of any interrogative sentence.
In wh- type questions, the wh- element, of course, gives
a hint that the sentence could be interrogative; but
here too, the presence of an interrogative intonation
is essential. The highly flexible word-order or Hmar
sentences makes the interrogative transformation highly
dependent on intonation. |
| 4.5.3 |
Passive
Transformation |
|
4.5.3.1 |
Hmar,
in the strict sense, does not manifest passive
proper. This is precisely because there is no
change in the verb forms for the realisation of
active as well as passive. Whether the sentence
is an actor-action sentence or undergoer-action
between an active sentence and its corresponding
passive could be realised only from the context. |
|
An
active (= actor-action) sentence could be transformed
into a passive one first by treating the object as subject
and then restructuring the sentence by preferably adding
a statement marker /a nìh/ ‘it is’, and secondly by
suffixing /-tu/ ‘by’ to the the element representing
‘by’ in English is attached to the agent-turned-object
noun. |
4.5.3.2 |
It
may be noted that Hmar manifests two alternate
types of passive transformations for each active
sentence. It still remains an |
|
