Coined by English music educatorSarah Anna Glover in 1812 as an alteration ofsi for hersolmization, made so that every note ofsolfège would begin with a different letter, fromMiddle Englishsi(“seventh degree or note of Guido of Arezzo's hexachordal scales”),Italiansi in the solmization of Guido of Arezzo, from the initials ofLatinSāncte Iohannēs(“Saint John (the Baptist)”) in the lyrics of the scale-ascending hymnUt queant laxis by Paulus Deacon.
Tłįįchǫ yati Enįhtł'è (1996; published by the Dogrib Divisional Board of Education, Dogrib Language Centre)
Thomas Sebeok,Native Languages of the Americas, volume 1, page 292: [Howren] notes u > i in Dogrib (ti 'water', Hare-Bearlake tu; this shift occurs also in Ingalik and Tanaina in Alaska)
Conklin, Harold C. (1953),Hanunóo-English Vocabulary (University of California Publications in Linguistics), volume 9, London, England: University of California Press,→OCLC,page273
(you guys):ti in Géza Bárczi,László Országh,et al., editors,A magyar nyelv értelmező szótára [The Explanatory Dictionary of the Hungarian Language] (ÉrtSz.), Budapest: Akadémiai Kiadó, 1959–1962.Fifth ed., 1992:→ISBN.
(ti [solfège sign]):ti in Géza Bárczi,László Országh,et al., editors,A magyar nyelv értelmező szótára [The Explanatory Dictionary of the Hungarian Language] (ÉrtSz.), Budapest: Akadémiai Kiadó, 1959–1962.Fifth ed., 1992:→ISBN.
Third person pronominal forms used as formal terms of address to refer to second person subjects (with the first letter frequently capitalised as a sign of respect, and to distinguish them from third person subjects). Unlike the singular forms, the plural forms are mostly antiquated terms of formal address in the modern language, and second person plural pronouns are almost always used instead.
2
Also used as indefinite pronoun meaning “one”, and to form the passive.
1910, Reuben Eliyahu Israel,Traducsion libera de las poezias ebraicas de Roş Aşana i Kipur[2], Craiova: Institutul Grafic, I. Samitca şi D. Baraş, Socieatate in Comandita,→OCLC,page10:
Delantre deti io mi orgolio abato I mi corason lo razgo con kevranto¹)
I suppress my pride beforeyou, and my heart tears it with despair.
Transcriptions of Mandarin into the Latin script often do not distinguish between the criticaltonal differences employed in the Mandarin language, using words such as this one without indication of tone.
Dixo nr̃o ſẽnor amoyſen ſub aq̃ tu e el pueblo que ſaq̃ſt de egipto ala tierra q̃ iure aabraã á yſaac a iacob ẽ dix ato liñaie la dare trametre mio angel delanteti e detroyra tos eñemigos[…]
[Then] Our Lord said to Moses, “Go up from here, you and the people whom you brought out of Egypt, to the land I swore to Abraham, to Isaac and to Jacob when I said ‘I will give it to your descendants.’ I will send my angel beforeyou and he will destroy your enemies.[…]”
Like other masculine words, masculine pronouns can be used when the gender of the subject is unknown or when the subject is plural and of mixed gender.
Treated as if it were third person for purposes of conjugation and reflexivity.
Ifle orles precedeslo,la,los, orlas in a clause, it is replaced withse (e.g.se lo dije instead of*le lo dije).
abantu bakorabati ―people dothis; people worklike this
Used to introduce direct speech or writing.
2008,Ekitabu Ekirukwera N'Ebitabu Ebyeetwa Deturokanoniko/Apokurifa [Bible in Runyoro/Rutooro Interconfessional Translation], Bible Society of Uganda,Yohaana19:19:
Pilate had a notice prepared and fastened to the cross. It read: Jesus of Nazareth, the king of the Jews.
2008,Ekitabu Ekirukwera N'Ebitabu Ebyeetwa Deturokanoniko/Apokurifa [Bible in Runyoro/Rutooro Interconfessional Translation], Bible Society of Uganda,Yohaana19:21-22:
The chief priests of the Jews protested to Pilate, “Do not write ‘The King of the Jews,’ but that this man claimed to be king of the Jews.” Pilate answered, “What I have written, I have written.”
The pronounti can be used by itself colloquially where the affirmative second-person singular present tense of the verb ‘to be’ (rwyt) would be expected, e.g.Ti’n edrych yn union fel dy dad (‘You look just like your father’) instead ofRwyt ti’n edrych....
The soft mutationdi is used after verb forms ending in a vowel, and as an emphatic afterdy(“your”) (except withdy(“bod”) when introducing a content clause. The nasal mutation does not occur, and the aspirate mutation is often ignored more so than is the case in normal colloquial language.
Marks the relational aspect (see table below). By itself, it may refer to an action that has alreadyoccurred, but it implies that therelevance or effect of said action is stillongoing.
Moti ṣe é tán. ―Ihave completed it.
Wọn òtí ì ka ìwé tí olùkọ́ fún wọn. ―Theyhave not read the book that the teacher gave them.
The unmarked form of a verb “indicates a completed action”, e.g.mo lọ sí ilé-ìwé (“I went to school”), though withstative verbs likemọ́(“to know”) andwà(“to exist”), the action is expressed without particularization, e.g., as “a statement of a general character or universal truth” (Ogunbọwale, 1970), or without any notion of past tense. Take for example,oorú mú (“it is hot”)and mo ní ilé (“I have a house”).
Progressive
Termed theincompletive by Ajani (2001), this describes an action in progress, “either in the present or before the present”. The sentencewọ́n ń ṣiṣẹ́ could be translated as “they are busy working” or “they were busy working”.
Relational
This aspect “describes an event or activity that is not complete, with reference to an ongoing event”. Though it may represent an action that has already taken place, the suggestion is that the relevance or effect of said action is still ongoing. The sentenceẹ ti jẹun translates to “you have eaten” or “you ate” — Ajani (2001) notes that “although the activity of eating has taken place sometime before the moment of speech, its effect is still being felt and is still considered incomplete with reference to [an]other activity or event at the moment of utterance”. Previous studies have inaccurately characterisedti as a marker ofperfective aspect. Adéwọlé (1991) demonstrates thatti, as a relational marker, can be strung together with other markers to express a sequential relationship between events.
Wọ́n òtí ì jí.
They haven’t woken up.
Anticipative
This aspect describes an activity “that is non-existent but likely to take place”, and can be used in “predicting, planning, or speculation”. It can be translated as “will”, “might” or “have plans to”, expressing anticipation of a possible future event or action.
Intentional
Like the anticipative,yóò is mainly used to refer to actions in the future, though it differs frommáa in that it expresses an intention to do something. It “denotes that the speaker has control over the performance of the activity in question, and has weighed all the options before making the decision”. Note thatyóò cannot be used after regular pronouns, the subject must be an emphatic pronoun likeèmi oròun.
Ẹ̀yinyóò wá kí wa lọ́la.
You intend to come and visit us tomorrow.
Backgrounder
Provides “a background to another action that is yet to take place.[…] the backgrounder aspect operates within the main clause to provide a background to the event described in the subordinate clause that is introduced by 'kí' (before).”
Àwayóò ti lọ kí ẹ tó padà.
We will have left before you return.
Inceptive
Describes “an activity that is yet to begin but which the speaker has decided to embark upon shortly[…] There is an anticipation, informed by a decision, to embark upon the process of leaving the place of utterance”. This aspect is somewhat similar to the intentionalyóò, but it suggests that the subject of the sentence has made a decision to do something in the near future.
Èmiyóò máa lọ.
I will be leaving any time from now.
Manifestive
This sequence “describes an activity that would have started prior to another one”. In the manifestive, “the activity is expected to have begun and be ongoing before the second event takes place”. There is also an intention or expectation, by the speaker, to have already started doing something “by the time the subject of the second clause arrives on the scene”.
Ati máa lọ kí o tó dé.
We will have left before you arrive.
Relevant–inceptive
This “describes an activity that has or had just started but is or was still on-going before another one”. The activity, “though begun prior to the moment of speech, still has relevance and effect at the moment of speech”.
Wọ́nti ń sùn kí a tó dé ilé.
They had already gone to bed and were sleeping before we got home.
In this sentence, the “act of sleeping carried on into the moment of speech” and “probably was interrupted with the arrival of the persons in the second clause”.
Habitual
Thehabitual aspect in Yoruba “describes an activity that was performed on a regular basis prior to the present or is continually performed on a regular basis. It refers to a habitual event or activity, either in a timeless frame or in a past frame”. It may be analysed as the habitual aspect in the past tense, or without any “specific time frame of reference”.
Expective
This “describes an activity that will have begun and still be ongoing before another one takes place”, and may be analysed as a combination of the backgrounder and anticipative aspects. While “the backgrounder deals with an event that would have begun and have been completed before another event, the expective deals with an event that would have begun and would still be ongoing before a second event takes place”. This aspect is similar to the manifestive, but there is a “sense of certainty” that the manifestive lacks.
Ìwọyóò ti máa kàwé kí a tó jí.
You will have been reading before we wake up.
Antecedent completion
This aspect “describes an action that used to have been completed, on a regular basis, prior to another activity”, and may be seen as the addition of incompleteness (ń) to the manifestive aspect (ti máa), or relationality (ti) to the habitual aspect (máa ń). While “the manifestive describes an activity that would have started prior to another one, the antecedent completion describes an activity or event that took place regularly before another one over a period of time prior to the moment of utterance”.
yóó,yíò andyíó are alternative forms ofyóò. Note that if a pronoun comes beforeyóò, that pronoun must be emphatic.
ò is an alternative form ofkò, often used after personal pronouns.
Treated as representations of the “perfective unmarked” aspect in Bamgboṣe (2000) and completive aspect in Ogunbọwale (1970). This aspect is termed “relational” by Adéwọlé (1991) and Ajani (2010) in their analyses.
According to Ogunbọwale (1970), these are used to “describe a habitual action in the past but one which has ceased to exist”. This is analogous to the aspect of “antecedent completion” in the analysis by Ajani (2010).
kì í andtí ì are sometimes written without spaces:kìí andtíì.
References
Adebayo, T. A. (2021), “Yorùbá Sentential Negative Markers”, inStudies in African Linguistics, volume50, number 1,→DOI, pages140–166
Adéwọlé, L. O. (1991), “Aspect and Phase Systems in Yoruba”, inCalgary Working Papers in Linguistics, volume14, pages1–20
Ajani, Timothy Temilọla (2001),Aspect in Yoruba and Nigerian English, University of Florida dissertation
Bamgboṣe, Ayọ (2000),A Grammar of Yoruba, Cambridge University Press,→ISBN
Ogunbọwale, P. O. (1970),The Essentials of the Yoruba Language, London: University of London Press,→ISBN,→OCLC
Awoyale, Yiwola (19 December 2008), “tì1”, inGlobal Yoruba Lexical Database v. 1.0[6] (in Yoruba), volumeLDC2008L03, Philadelphia: Linguistic Data Consortium,→DOI,→ISBN
