Talking Rock in Kenda Soro 4

Continuing from previously, the final two sentences in Soronen Kidi.

Liya kidenda soronda likehes piŋiranda ebeves sama dimidimi ira.

Because the rock’s words put pain in my belly, I threw it into the sea.

This sentence consists of a single clause starting with a rational animate agent, then an embedded clause with multiple uses of =nda. The embedded clause is kidenda soronda likehes piŋira ‘the rock’s words put pain in my belly’. The first=nda, on rock, marks alienable possession, so ‘the words of the rock’. The second=nda marks an inanimate cause or agent, ‘the words of the rock cause…’. My belly (likehe, actually li=kahi with vowel decay) is the attained destination of the subject, piŋi ‘pain’. And the verb is ra GO, so ‘the words of the rock cause pain to be put into my belly’. And all that is suffixed with another =nda to indicate the origin of the action of the main verb.

This is followed by the attained destination ‘into the sea’ and then the main subject and verb: sama dimidimi ira. Ignoring dimidimi for the moment, this is sama ira, indicating a third person singular rational animate (the rock) acting non-volitionally, in this case being acted upon by the =ya argument. Dimidimi is an adverb conveying the use of force. Adverbs come right before a verb, between the subject and the verb, and thus trigger the use of a pronoun for the verb to attach to. Without the adverb, this would still be sama ira due to the non-volitionality. The equivalent volitional phrase would be sara (sa=ra) and with the adverb sama dimidimi sara. I have no doubt that there are some speakers who would shorten that to sama dimidimera.

Zovalas lirunos kidi venala sapeye.

I never saw the rock at any time again.

In the final sentence, we start with another time phrase, this time the indefinite ‘some time’. This is followed by another attained destination: ‘my eye’. Using an eye as an attained destination is the standard way to convey experiencing by seeing. The scene is usually the subject of =no COME. Here it is the subject of =pe FAIL, as the scene has failed to come to the eye. Furthermore, =pe is followed by continuative aspect marker =yi indicating an ongoing situation. This sentence also contains another adverb venala ‘never’ as indicated by its position between the subject kidi and the verb with repeated pronominal subject sapeye. Without the adverb, this would be kidipeyi.

Next text will be the Eye-Juggler, Dirk Elzinga’s version mostly.