| |
| (c)
ikìlo úlò |
`go
to my house’ |
|
tile ulò |
`go
there’ etc. |
|
|
It
might be noted that these derived adverbs substitute only adverbs of location
and not the adverbs of time and manner. |
The
nouns/pronouns having other case relationships are not considered as derived
adverbs, as they co-occur with all the three sub-types of adverbs, rather
than substituting them as in : |
| (a) |
ino li ithulu
|
`I
saw her’ |
| |
ino
isi tile li ithulu |
`I
saw her there today’ |
|
|
| (b) |
ino isi li sas
asi cúwà |
| |
`I
ate meat with her today’ |
|
|
| ino
tile isi ppasi
lisas |
`today I ate meat there |
asi cúwà.
|
quickly with her’ |
|
|
|
The
intensifiers have the function of giving force or emphasis to the item
with which they occur. The intensifiers in Sema were defined as a closed
class of indeclinables that are capable of occurring in attributive construction
with both the adjectives and adverbs. Therefore, there are two intensifiers
in Sema. These are : yöFono1 and kötö. There are certain
restrictions in their occurences, in that yöFono occurs with adverbs
and qualitative adjectives whereas kötö ordinarily occurs only
with the quantitative adjectives and never with the adverbs. The intensifier
kötö also occurs with the particle for superlative degree, ú
and the combined form occurs with a qualitative adjective. Another restriction
in their occurrences is that the intensifier yöFono is pre-posed
to the adjective/adverb with which it occurs, whereas kötö is
invariably post-posed to the adjective with which it occurs. A few illustrtive
examples are given below. |
y ono
anyue yono
ppasi
powe |
`the child ran very quickly’ |
| anuye
yono
yono
ppasi
powe |
`the
child ran very very quickly’ |
asbo
yono
kize lakhì
|
`a
very big tree’ |
anu kutumo kt
|
`too
little water’ |
awiye amekuso ktú
|
`mithun
is the costliest animal’ |
|
|
|
1.
Yono
`very’ has another form, viz., iono
which is in free variation with Yono. |
ekiliye azukiwi ktú
|
`Ekili
is the most beautiful girl’ etc. |
|
|
Having
discussed the intensifiers, we move over to the last of the invariables
in Sema, viz. Particles, which is discussed in the next section. |
|
A particle was defined earlier as that part of speech which formed a sub-group
of invariables not falling under the grammatical classes of adjectives,
adverbs, intensifiers, postpositions including the case relation markers.
The particles in Sema would thus include the function words like eno `and’,
mu `neither’ etc. No attempt is made to sub-group the particles
further into emphatic particles, interrogative particles etc. A few particles
along with their meanings are listed below. |
qó
|
(plural
marker) |
ai
~ i
|
`also’ |
| hu
|
(emphatic
particle) |
pe
|
(causative marker) |
|
ma, kyá, kyè, a |
(interrogative particles) |
|
mú, ku |
(nominalizing
particles) |
|
eno |
`and’ |
|
mu |
`neither’ |
|
momu |
`or’ etc. |
|
|
| 3.5.
Phrases |
Traditionally
a phrase was defined as a group of words occuring often without a finite
verb. For the purpose of this grammar, a phrase is defined as a sequence
of words belonging either to just one grammatical class or to two or more
grammatical classes having the relationship of satellites and nucleus.
A phrase may also be realized by the nucleus alone without any satellite.
The four classes of phrases set up for this language are : adjective phrase,
adverb phrase, noun phrase and verb phrase. A brief discussion of the
constituents of these phrases follows : |
| 3.5.1
Adjective phrases |
| An adjective
phrase is a phrase with an adjective as its head as in : |
(ilimì) kiwi kutumo
|
‘many
good (dames)’ |
|
(ilimì) kiwi kini |
‘two
good (dames)’ |
|
|
