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<p class="western" style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0cm"
lang="en-US">
Allow me to show you another syntactic construction of Cabecar
which
I find difficult to conceptualize.</p>
<ol>
<li>
<p
style="line-height: 100%; page-break-inside: avoid; margin-top: 0.21cm; margin-bottom: 0cm; page-break-after: avoid"
lang="zxx"><a name="__RefNumPara__5500847_208095759"></a> <font
color="#008000">¿Bá kt-ä́ ta ijé ra?</font></p>
</li>
</ol>
<p
style="line-height: 100%; page-break-inside: avoid; margin-left: 1.27cm; margin-bottom: 0cm; page-break-before: auto; page-break-after: avoid"
lang="zxx">
<font style="font-size: 11pt" size="2">2.<span
style="font-variant: small-caps">sg</span> speak-<span
style="font-variant: small-caps">ipfv</span> <span
style="font-variant: small-caps">exist0</span> 3.<span
style="font-variant: small-caps">ps</span> <span
style="font-variant: small-caps">com</span></font></p>
<p class="ex-translation" lang="en-US"> ‘Does it happen
that you
speak with him?’</p>
<ol start="2">
<li>
<p
style="line-height: 100%; page-break-inside: avoid; margin-top: 0.21cm; margin-bottom: 0cm; page-break-after: avoid"
lang="zxx"><a name="__RefNumPara__412611_1487916878"></a> <font
color="#008000">...jé-wá (rö) ji̱-á̱ ta jémi̱ kö́yí-r ta.</font></p>
</li>
</ol>
<p
style="line-height: 100%; page-break-inside: avoid; margin-left: 1.27cm; margin-bottom: 0cm; page-break-before: auto; page-break-after: avoid"
lang="zxx">
<font style="font-size: 11pt" size="2"><span
style="font-variant: small-caps">d.med-pl</span> <span
style="font-variant: small-caps">tsa</span> weep-<span
style="font-variant: small-caps">ipfv</span> <span
style="font-variant: small-caps">exist0</span> and howl-<span
style="font-variant: small-caps">mid(ipfv)</span> <span
style="font-variant: small-caps">
</span><span style="font-variant: small-caps">exist0</span></font></p>
<p class="ex-translation" lang="en-US"> ‘… they [animals]
have
weeping and howling.’</p>
<ol start="3">
<li>
<p
style="line-height: 100%; page-break-inside: avoid; margin-top: 0.21cm; margin-bottom: 0cm; page-break-after: avoid"
lang="zxx"><a name="__RefNumPara__401433_3278973001"></a> <font
color="#008000">Satala rä jé̠k iá-w-<font
face="Cambria, serif">á̱</font> ta ditsä́ yë́.</font></p>
</li>
</ol>
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style="line-height: 100%; page-break-inside: avoid; margin-left: 1.27cm; margin-bottom: 0cm; page-break-before: auto; page-break-after: avoid"
lang="zxx">
<font style="font-size: 11pt" size="2">tiger <span
style="font-variant: small-caps">tsa</span> <span
style="font-variant: small-caps">rfl</span> transform-<span
style="font-variant: small-caps">caus-ipfv</span> <span
style="font-variant: small-caps">exist0</span> native <span
style="font-variant: small-caps">trl</span></font></p>
<p class="ex-translation" lang="en-US"> ‘It happens that
the tiger transforms itself into a person.’</p>
<ol start="4">
<li>
<p
style="line-height: 100%; page-break-inside: avoid; margin-top: 0.21cm; margin-bottom: 0cm; page-break-after: avoid"
lang="zxx"><a name="__RefNumPara__5206212_208095759"></a> <font
color="#008000">¿Bá yö́-r ta ditsë́-i ?</font></p>
</li>
</ol>
<p
style="line-height: 100%; page-break-inside: avoid; margin-left: 1.27cm; margin-bottom: 0cm; page-break-before: auto; page-break-after: avoid"
lang="zxx">
<font style="font-size: 11pt" size="2">2.<span
style="font-variant: small-caps">sg</span> form-<span
style="font-variant: small-caps">mid(ipfv)</span> <span
style="font-variant: small-caps">exist0</span> native-<span
style="font-variant: small-caps">advr</span></font></p>
<p class="ex-translation" lang="en-US"> ‘Have you managed
to learn
Cabecar ?’</p>
<p class="paragraph-w-lead" lang="en-US"><font size="2">(TSA is
'thematic structure articulator'.)</font><br>
</p>
<p class="paragraph-w-lead" lang="en-US">For reasons that yet escape
me, such sentences mostly – though obviously not necessarily –
have interrogative force. The construction has syntactic
peculiarities which I will not expound because on the one hand
they
are complicated and on the other they do not seem to touch my
conceptual question.</p>
<p class="paragraph-w-tab" lang="en-US">Although the aspect is the
same in the examples, ex. 1 – 3 have timeless reference while ex.
4 refers to
something achieved. This difference appears to be conditioned by
the
verb voice (which in itself I find inexplicable).</p>
<p class="paragraph-w-tab" lang="en-US">All of this is not my
question. My question concerns the sentence-semantic function of
the
particle <i>ta</i> <span style="font-variant: small-caps">exist0</span>.
The (preliminary) gloss is supposed to remind the decipherer that
this is grammaticalized from an erstwhile <span
style="font-variant: small-caps">existential</span>
verboid. In the present construction, it follows a verbal clause
core
S and says: ‘S is the case’, ‘S does happen’, ‘there are
occasions where S’; or with past time reference (ex. 4): ‘S did
happen
/ has happened’, ‘S did materialize’. Although my analysis implies
that <i>ta</i> once was the main predicate in this construction,
it is now an optional particle.<br>
</p>
<p class="paragraph-w-tab" lang="en-US">The language has a validator
(in fact, a whole paradigm of them) in addition. The validator
emphasizes that I am serious about S, that S does matter. <i>Ta</i>
is not a validator. It does not appear to be in a
paradigm with anything else. Its closest counterpart in languages
closer to home would be a modal particle of the kind known from
Ancient Greek, Russian and German. However, I ignore the relevant
conceptual framework: Is this sentence modality? Or aktionsart?
And what would be an
appropriate term for this function of <i>ta</i>?</p>
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