unmarked sentence also (by
courtesy as it were) on being in a certain mood and the traditional
term for this ‘unmarked’ mood is ‘indicative or declarative"1.
In short, the modals relate the verbal action to such conditions as :
certainty, obligation, necessity, possibility etc. The modals like the
aspect, also impinge on the tenses. Like most of the other known
languages, this language also has a few modals. A brief discussion of
the modals available in this language follows.
|
The modals in this language
show a seven-way opposition. These are : imperative, obligatory,
indicative, potential, permissive, conditional and infinitive. Of
these, injunctive and potential modals are formed by postposing the
auxiliaries to the verb concerned and the rest are formed on
paradigmatic axis. The conditional and the infinitive modals, however,
occur in subordinate clauses. A paradigm of the verb bohi ‘sit’ is
given below for illustrating the opposition within the modals in this
language.
|
| moy bohise |
‘I sat’ (indicative
past) |
| moy bohibo |
‘I will sit’ (indicative
future) |
| bohibi |
‘sit’ (imp) |
| bohibo lage |
‘has to sit’
(obligatory : present) |
| bohibo lagise |
‘had to sit’
(obligatory : past) |
| bohibo lagibo |
‘will have to sit’ ( "
: future) |
| bohibo pare |
‘can/may sit’
(potential non-past) |
| bohibo parise |
‘could sit’ ( " past) |
| bohibode |
‘please allow. . . .to
sit’ (permissive) |
tay jayle moy tay l got
jabo |
‘if he/she goes, I will go with him/her (conditional) |
| 1 2
3 4 5
6 7 8 |
3
1 2
4 8 7 6
5 |
| moy otu gorot jabole se |
‘I am to
go to that house’ (inf.) |
| 1
2 3 4 5 6
7 |
(lit. I that house at
go to is) |
| |
1 2 3
4 5 6 7 |
|
From the illustrative examples given above, the under mentioned modal
markders can be abstracted.
|
| indicative |
(unmarked) |
| imperative |
bi |
| obligatory |
vf lage ±
(past)2 |
| |
± (future) |
| potential |
vf pare ± past |
| permissive |
vfde |
| conditional |
le |
| infinitive |
vfle |
|
|
1John Lyons : Introduction to theoretical
Linguistics, 307 : 1974.
2vf future tense form of the verb.
|
The modal markers listed above show that whereas the imperative, and
conditional modal markers are suffixed directly to the verb stem, in the
case of the four other modals, viz., obligatory, potential, permissive and
infinitive the modal markers are postposed to the future tense form of the
verb. Of these three, the auxiliary verbs lager and pare function
respectively as the modal markers for obligatory and potential. The
indicative mood is unmarked. Only the obligatory and potential modals show
opposition in tense. The postponing of the modal markers to the future tense
form of the verb given clue to the theoretical assumption that modals are
basically part of the future tense system. Even the modal markers for the
imperative, and conditional that are suffixed directly to the verb root,
also refer at the semantic level to non-past verbal action. A description of
the individual modal follows.
|
Indicatives:
|
It expresses simple verbal action without conveying about the attitude of
the speaker towards the verbal action involved. This modal is unmarked and
is available with different tenses and aspects, as in :
|
moy mo so khabo
‘I will eat meat’
moy moso khayse
‘I ate meat’
moy moso khay se ‘I am eating meat’ etc.
|
Imperative :
|
It expresses a command or instruction to the addressee but with politeness.
It is formed with the imperative marker -bi suffixed directly to the verbal
root, as in :
|
jabi
‘please go (imp)’
bohibi ‘please sit (imp)’
moso khabi ‘please
eat meat (imp)’
|
Obligatory:
|
It expresses a clear determination on the part of the speaker for the
performance of the action specified by the verb. It closely resembles the
imperative, in its command or instruction to the addressee. The obligatory
modal, however, differs from the imperative on three major counts. These are
: (i) the imperative is applicable only to the II person, whereas the
obligatory is applicable to all the persons including the speaker himself.
(ii) a verb in the imperative can stunt alone as a subject less sentence
whereas as verb in the obligatory mood must necessarily have a subject and
(iii) the addressee (including the I person) to whom the verb in the
obligatory refers to/addressed has/had no choice in the performance of the
action denoted by the verb in the obligatory whereas a verb in the
imperative is just a command
|
