chapter 9 Types of Predicate

This chapter deals with the types of predicates. The predicate of a sentence can be expressed by almost any word classes, not only through a verb. How- ever, verbal predicates are most common, about 87% of all predicates are verbs. They can be simple, containing only one verb or complex with more than one verbal element. The following figure shows the occurrence of predicates in an annotated sub-corpus. In the following sections, first the verbal predicates are discussed.

1 Verbal Predication

The most common distinction between verbal predicates is their simplicity. The verbal predicate usually is simple. Complex predicates consist of an aux- iliary and a lexical verb. There are only few auxiliary verbs, one of these aux- iliaries is the negation auxiliary, which serves to form standard negation and appears most often in complex verbal predicates. Other auxiliaries are seman- tically not empty, but they have an additional, mostly modal meaning. In this section, only examples for the usage of auxiliary konɨďi ‘go away’ are given. For a detailed description of auxiliaries see Section 3.3 in Chapter 3, for negation see Chapter 12. The auxiliary verb konɨďi ‘go away’ appears only in essive or resultative- translative constructions. In these constructions an NP is followed by the infini- tive form (converb1) of the BE-verb (isʲa) and the conjugated form of the aux- iliary. Word order variations are not allowed. Contrary to Enets and Nenets, the infinitive/converb construction wasn’t grammaticalized as the essive case. This form has word stress of its own, and it never undergoes cliticization. The following examples show this construction. Not only a noun (1a), but also an adjective (or participle), a numeral (1c) can appear as the nominal element. (For a detailed description on essive construction see Szeverényi & Wagner- Nagy 2017a.)

1 The converb and the infinitive are formally identical for infinitive forms see Section 6.1 in Chapter 5.

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figure 9.1 Types of predicates

(1) a. tə baaðə təti turku tahari͡a ńim-ti i-sʲa this.gen from this sea well name-3sgposs be-inf kona-Ɂa Ban-ə turku. go-aor.3sg dog-ep.gen sea ‘Since this time, the name of the lake has been Dog Lake.’ MACh_96_DogLake.019

b. … maa-raa bənsə i-sʲa konɨ-sɨðə-m. … what-lim all be-inf go-fut-1sg ‘… I can become anything.’ KES_080721_Lemming_flkd.086

c. ou, kai, sʲimiəďə sʲajbə i-sʲa kona-Ɂa, sʲajbə i-sʲa excl excl ash seven be-inf go-aor.3sg seven be-inf kona-Ɂa. go-aor.3sg ‘Oh, with the ash they became seven, they became seven.’ KES_080721_Lemming_flkd.063

1.1 Predicate with Subjective Conjugation Subjective conjugation applies to all verbs. Some intransitive verbs, as ńilɨďi ‘live’, isʲa ‘be’ can be encoded only with subjective conjugation (cf. Section 3.1 in Chapter 5). Transitive verbs take a subjective suffix only in cases where the sentence has an overt object as in the following sentence.