This form of pronoun is anenclitic that must directly follow the word it modifies. Its meaning depends on its context:
When it follows a verb, it indicates theobject of the verb.
In the second and third person when it follows an adjective, it forms thesubject of an adjectival sentence.
When it follows a relative adjective, such asntj,ntt, orjsṯ, it indicates thesubject of the relative clause (usually only in the first person singular and third person common).
When it follows an imperative, it indicates thesubjector theobject of the verb.
When it follows a particle likem.k, it indicates thesubject of the clause.
When attached to a preposition, it indicates theobject of the preposition.
1 Only when attached to a dual noun or prospective participle. 2 Only in formal texts, especially religious texts. 3 Only in postclassical (Neo-Middle Egyptian) texts.
The Finnish orthography using the Latin script was based on those of Swedish, German and Latin, and was first used in the mid-16th century. No earlier script is known. Seethe Wikipedia article on Finnish for more information, andn for information on the development of the glyph itself.
1837, Louis Viardot,L’Ingénieux Hidalgo Don Quichotte de la Manchefr.Wikisource, translation ofEl ingenioso hidalgo Don Quijote de la Mancha by Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra, Chapter I:
Avec ces propos et d’autres semblables, le pauvre gentilhomme perdait le jugement. Il passait lesnuits et se donnait la torture pour les comprendre, pour les approfondir, pour leur tirer le sens des entrailles, ce qu’Aristote lui-mêmen’aurait pu faire, s’il fût ressuscité tout exprès pour cela.
With these passages and other similar ones, the poor gentleman lost his judgement. He spent his nights and tortured himself to understand them, to consider them more deeply, to take from them their deepest meaning, which Aristotle himself would not have been able to do, had he been resurrected for that very purpose.
„Hat uns vorhin son Mensch von der Dingsbums gebracht.“ „Von der Kultusgemeinde.“ Avrom hebt zwinkernd die Augen vom Buch; er lächelt. Muß ne anrührende Stelle gewesen sein, was er da grade liest. „Was heißt ‚son Mensch‘.“
1999, Regula Schmidlin,Wie Deutschschweizer Kinder schreiben und erzählen lernen:
[…] also die Geschichte hab ich genannt (äh) die Froschsuche weil da war son Junge und mit em Hund und die haben dauernd ihren Frosch immer angeguckt im Wasser und dann einmal in der Nacht is er weggehüpft[…]
2012, Gustav Falke,Die Kinder Aus Ohlsens Gang, page92:
»Wenn ick de jungen Lüd nich harr und de Kinner – son Mann, Herr Lehrer, son Mann! aber ick hev en nu. He schall mi mol Muck seggn. Rut smiet ick em.« »Das lassen Sie nur lieber nach, Frau Krahnstöver.[…]«
Jef Verschueren,Pragmatics at Issue: Selected Papers (1991,→ISBN
Bernard Comrie, Maria Polinsky,Causatives and Transitivity (1993,→ISBN, page 317: Haruai has a serial verb construction, in which all verbs but the last take no inflections whatsoever (the only instance in Haruai where a verb can appear inflectionless), as in (3):n dw röbö p-n-a I go water get-FUT(-1SG)-DEC
n 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.
The Kashubian orthography is based on the Latin alphabet. No earlier script is known. See theKashubian alphabet article on Wikipedia for more, andn for development of the glyph itself.
Proposed in 1908 as part of the new Latvian spelling by the scientific commission headed byK. Mīlenbahs, which was accepted and began to be taught in schools in 1909. Prior to that, Latvian had been written in GermanFraktur, and sporadically inCyrillic.
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.
As in German, the unstressed syllable ⟨en⟩ usually becomessyllabic[n̩], which further assimilates to precedingstop consonants as[kŋ̍],[ɡŋ̍],[pm̩],[bm̩].
The Polish orthography is based on the Latin alphabet. No earlier script is known. See thehistory of Polish orthography article on Wikipedia for more, andn for development of the glyph itself.
The Silesian orthography is based on the Latin alphabet. No earlier script is known. See theSilesian language article on Wikipedia for more, andn for development of the glyph itself.
R. J. Thomas, G. A. Bevan, P. J. Donovan, A. Hawke et al., editors (1950–present), “n”, inGeiriadur Prifysgol Cymru Online (in Welsh), University of Wales Centre for Advanced Welsh & Celtic Studies
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
