Friday, 21 May 2010

Sentence 1.4

The next exchange is between two men in the house.

A tí ta chomú?, who is it?

is the normal word for 'is', when 'is' means something exists rather than at a place. Compare it with the earlier sentence.

Ta here is being used as a pronoun meaning 'it' or 'he'.

The other man replies:

Bodú úwedshim, I don't know.

Bodú is the normal word for 'I'. It is used between people of equal status or strangers talking to each other. Originally it meant something like 'your servant' and is quite humble. Now it is more common than the me-pronoun.

Úwedshim is a combination of two different words or morphemes. Úwed is a verb for 'I know'. It is a definite verb, used for a single action of 'coming, or getting, to know'. The ending -shim is a negative suffix and means 'not or do not'.

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