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33-429: As in most Ethiopian languages, noun qualifiers generally follow the noun. The definite article is expressed by the suffix -i , e.g.: goš "boy" > goš-i "the boy"; ätit "sister" > ätiti "the sister"; bayyočč "children" > bayyočč-i . If the noun ends in -a or -ä , it normally loses this vowel when -i is suffixed: angačča "cat" > angačč-i "the cat". A noun ending in -i usually stays

66-428: A modifier is an optional element in phrase structure or clause structure which modifies the meaning of another element in the structure. For instance, the adjective "red" acts as a modifier in the noun phrase "red ball", providing extra details about which particular ball is being referred to. Similarly, the adverb "quickly" acts as a modifier in the verb phrase "run quickly". Modification can be considered

99-409: A high-level domain of the functions of language, on par with predication and reference . Modifiers may come either before or after the modified element (the head ), depending on the type of modifier and the rules of syntax for the language in question. A modifier placed before the head is called a premodifier ; one placed after the head is called a postmodifier . For example, in land mines ,

132-442: A house"; banätäw k'ən awänna-m bämida tonnaw "having put butter on the top of his head, he sat outside". Like the perfect, the subordinate forms can take the suffix -m to express a series of non-past actions. This can be combined with näbbär to express a habitual past action. Examples: ahoññ gäbäya nalfu "today we shall go to the market"; yəgädəl məss "the man who kills"; mas tənäsa-m yibara wawt'a tək'ärsi "she picks up

165-425: A language determines which morpho-syntactic forms are used for which function, as it varies from language to language. The functions of modification can be grouped into five such types: Sometimes it is not clear which element of the sentence a modifier is intended to modify. In many cases this is not important, but in some cases it can lead to genuine ambiguity . For example: Here the participial phrase sitting on

198-692: A modifier when used attributively , but not when used predicatively – compare the examples with the adjective red at the start of this article. Another type of modifier in some languages, including English, is the noun adjunct , which is a noun modifying another noun (or occasionally another part of speech). An example is land in the phrase land mines given above. Examples of the above types of modifiers, in English, are given below. In some cases, noun phrases or quantifiers can act as modifiers: Modifiers of all types of forms may be used for certain function with different semantic features. The grammar of

231-632: A simple perfective nor imperfective aspect; see imperfective for some basic English equivalents of this distinction. When translating into English from a language that has these aspects, the translator sometimes uses separate English verbs. For example, in Spanish , the imperfective sabía can be translated "I knew" vs. the perfective supe "I found out", podía "I was able to" vs. pude "I succeeded", quería "I wanted to" vs. quise "I tried to", no quería "I did not want to" vs. no quise "I refused". The Polish perfective aspect

264-701: Is a grammatical form used to describe a past event with present relevance, or a present state resulting from a past situation. For example, "I have put it on the table" implies both that I put the object on the table and that it is still there; "I have been to France" conveys that this is a part of my experience as of now; and "I have lost my wallet" implies that this loss is troublesome at the present moment. A perfect tense does not necessarily have to be perfective in aspect. For example, "I have been waiting here for an hour" and "I have been going to that doctor all my life" are perfect but also imperfective in aspect. There are some languages, however, such as Modern Greek, in which

297-420: Is expressed by the imperfect of hono : yəhonu "he will be", etc. The negative future tense is likewise expressed by tihon . The present copula in subordinate clauses is expressed by the subordinate perfect of honä , e.g.: däffär yähonä tädi-goy yalfu "he who is courageous will go with me. "It is he", etc. can be expressed by adding an element -tt between the pronoun and the copula: e.g. kʷa-ttə-n "it

330-406: Is he". The existential verb "be at", "exist" in the present is: In the past and future, it is expressed just like the copula, with näbbärä and honä . In subordinate clauses the present is expressed with -allä conjugated in the perfect (negative -lellä ), e.g.: bämeda yalləmi säbočč araš näm "the people who are in the field are farmers". The possessive verb "he has" etc. is expressed with

363-453: Is more important in some languages than others. In Slavic languages , it is central to the verb system. In other languages such as German , the same form such as ich ging ("I went", "I was going") can be used perfectively or imperfectively without grammatical distinction. In other languages such as Latin , the distinction between perfective and imperfective is made only in the past tense (e.g., Latin veni "I came" vs. veniebam "I

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396-499: Is no real indefinite article , though indefiniteness can be expressed by preposing the word attə or k'una , meaning "one". Nouns have two genders , masculine and feminine, which affect verb concord. Nouns which are definite objects ( direct or indirect ) are both marked with the prefix yä- or nä- : e.g. yä-geʸi ažžo "he saw the house"; yä-zämmihʷan abännət "he gave it to his brother" (lit. "to-his-brother he-gave-him"). Direct objects may additionally be marked by adding

429-412: Is not in an appropriate position to be associated with that modifier. This is often considered a grammatical or stylistic error. For example: Here whoever was "walking along the road" is not mentioned in the sentence, so the modifier ( walking along the road ) has nothing to modify, except a vulture , which is clearly not the intention. Such a case is called a "dangling modifier", or more specifically, in

462-515: Is translated into English as a simple tense and the imperfective as a continuous; for example the imperfective oglądałem is translated into "I was watching", while the perfective obejrzałem is translated into "I watched". Such distinctions are often language-specific. Languages may mark perfective aspect with morphology, syntactic construction, lexemes/particles, or other means. The terms perfective and perfect should not be confused. A perfect tense (abbreviated PERF or PRF )

495-460: Is used in subordinate clauses to connect verbs not otherwise connected, in a way analogous to Japanese -te ; it can be translated as "and", as a gerund , or as a resultative . The perfect in -m followed by näbbär forms the pluperfect . The negative perfect is formed by prefixing al- , with vowel change; for the conjugations mentioned above, the resulting forms are al-säfärä , al-täkkälä , and al-č'afärä . Examples: ge aräššo "he built

528-619: The Proud reigned for 25 years." It simply "presents an occurrence in summary, viewed as a whole from the outside, without regard for the internal make-up of the occurrence." The perfective is also sometimes described as referring to a "completed" action, but it would be more accurate to say that it refers to an action or situation that is seen as a complete whole; e.g., the Russian perfective future я убью тебя "I shall kill you" refers to an event that has not yet been completed. The essence of

561-635: The common case where (as here) the modifier is a participial phrase, a "dangling participle". Perfective The perfective aspect ( abbreviated PFV ), sometimes called the aoristic aspect , is a grammatical aspect that describes an action viewed as a simple whole, i.e., a unit without interior composition. The perfective aspect is distinguished from the imperfective aspect , which presents an event as having internal structure (such as ongoing, continuous, or habitual actions). The term perfective should be distinguished from perfect (see below ). The distinction between perfective and imperfective

594-404: The default auxiliary verb honā (to be), hence forming sub-aspects that combine the nuance of two aspects. The auxiliary rêhnā (to stay) gives a nuance of continuity of the perfective state, jānā (to go) is used to construct the passive voice (in its habitual subaspect) and also shows that the action is completed (in its perfective subaspect), karnā (to do) gives the nuance that

627-746: The existential verb yino "it is" (agreeing with the object possessed) plus object suffix pronouns (i.e. "it is to him" etc.) A Soddo verb may have anywhere from one to four consonants, or may be a compound with balo "say" (e.g. bək'k' balo "appear".) In the former case, they fall into three " conjugations " differing in their vowels and in gemination of the imperfect, illustrated for a three-consonant verb: Derived stems can be formed in several ways: There are two tenses/aspects, perfective (past) and imperfective (non-past); each has distinct forms for main versus subordinate clauses , and positive versus negative. There are also distinct jussive , imperative , and impersonal forms. The form with suffixed -m

660-576: The head, such as in split infinitives ( to boldly go ) or infixation , most commonly expletive infixation ( in-fucking-credible ). Two common parts of speech used for modification are adjectives (and adjectival phrases and adjectival clauses ), which modify nouns; and adverbs (and adverbial phrases and adverbial clauses ), which modify other parts of speech, particularly verbs, adjectives and other adverbs, as well as whole phrases or clauses. Not all adjectives and adverbs are necessarily modifiers, however; an adjective will normally be considered

693-413: The modifier here . In some other languages, words other than modifiers may occur in between; this type of situation is especially likely in languages with free word order , and often agreement between the grammatical gender, number or other feature of the modifier and its head is used to indicate the relationship. In English, modifiers may sometimes even be interposed between component words or syllables of

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726-408: The noun); kulləm-u , bä-mollaw = "whole". yät'oma = "only, alone". "Each, every" is expressed by noun reduplication . The copula (positive and negative) is irregular in the present tense : Example: zämmidi nähä "you are my brother". The past tense ("he was", etc.) is expressed by the verb näbbär conjugated regularly in the perfect; "he was not" etc. is with annäbär . The future tense

759-399: The noun, coming from Irish in which most adjectives are postmodifiers) or the adjectives immemorial and martial in the phrases time immemorial and court martial (the latter comes from French , where most adjectives are postmodifiers). Sometimes placement of the adjective after the noun entails a change of meaning: compare a responsible person and the person responsible , or

792-506: The object suffix pronouns to the verb: e.g. yabiddi täšakkunnət "I asked my father" (lit. "my-father-obj. I-asked-him".) A possessed noun is marked by the prefix yä- , and the possessor precedes the possessed: yä-šum-i ge "the house of the official" (lit. "of-official-the house"). If the possessed noun has a preposition prefixed to it, this yä- is omitted: babiddi färäz rather than * bä-yä-abiddi färäz for "on my father's horse". Possessives can also be formed by simply adding yä- to

825-492: The perfect tense is always perfective. Hindustani (aka Hindi - Urdu ) has 3 grammatical aspects: Habitual , Perfective and Progressive . Each aspect is constructed from its participle and a number of auxiliary verbs can be used with the aspectual participles such as: honā (to be, to happen), rêhnā (to stay, to remain), jānā (to go), ānā (to come), and karnā (to do). These verbs themselves can be made into aspectual participles and can be used with

858-443: The perfective is an event seen as a whole. However, most languages that have a perfective use it for various similar semantic roles—such as momentary events and the onsets or completions of events, all of which are single points in time and thus have no internal structure. Other languages instead have separate momentane , inchoative , or cessative aspects for those roles, with or without a general perfective. English has neither

891-447: The proper town (the appropriate town) and the town proper (the area of the town as properly defined). In English (and other languages) a modifier can be separated from its head by other modifiers, making the phrase discontinuous , as in The man here whom you bumped into in the street yesterday , where the relative clause whom...yesterday is separated from the word it modifies ( man ) by

924-477: The same: abi "(the) father, proprietor". A noun ending in -e, -o, -u adds a y before the suffix: ge "house" > geʸi "the house"; wälläho "neighbor" > wällähoʸi "the neighbor". If the noun has a qualifier, the article is used with the first element: maläk' ge "big house" > maläk'-i ge "the big house"; yä-šum-i ge "the house of the official" (lit. "of-official-the house"); yä-mät't'-i məss "the man who came" (lit. "who-came-the man".) There

957-492: The sleeping mats and begins to remove the dung." It can be augmented by -ən , with no obvious change in meaning. Examples: ahoññ yəmät'a timäsəl "it does not seem that he will come today"; ädahʷan t-aykäfəl alläfo "he left without paying his debt". These are negated by the prefix ay- : ayəsfär , ayšäkkət , aygalb . The 2nd person forms then change to conform to the others: attəsfär , attəsfer , attəsfärəm , attəsfärma . E.g.: Qualifier In linguistics ,

990-523: The standalone pronouns, e.g.: yädähəm t'əb "your clan". Reflexive pronouns are formed by äras- , gubba- , k'um- plus the possessive suffixes, e.g. ädi äras-əddi mät'afi t'afkunnət "I myself wrote the book". Proximal: zi "this, these"; zini "this one". E.g.: zi məss "this man", zi məšt "this woman", zi säbočč "these men". Distal: za "that, those, that one, those ones"; zani "that one there". E.g. tä-za məss goy mät't'ahi "I came with that man". kulləm = "all" (placed before or after

1023-399: The step may be intended to modify her (meaning that the painting's subject was sitting on the step), or it may be intended to modify the verb phrase painted her or the whole clause he painted her (or just he ), meaning in effect that it was the painter who was sitting on the step. Sometimes the element which the modifier is intended to modify does not in fact appear in the sentence, or

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1056-525: The word land is a premodifier of mines , whereas in the phrase mines in wartime , the phrase in wartime is a postmodifier of mines . A head may have a number of modifiers, and these may include both premodifiers and postmodifiers. For example: In this noun phrase, man is the head, nice and tall are premodifiers, and from Canada and whom you met are postmodifiers. In English, simple adjectives are usually used as premodifiers, with occasional exceptions such as galore (which always appears after

1089-478: Was coming", "I used to come"). However, perfective should not be confused with tense —perfective aspect can apply to events in the past, present, or future. The perfective is often thought of as for events of short duration (e.g., "John killed the wasp"). However, this is not necessarily true—a perfective verb is equally right for a long-lasting event, provided that it is a complete whole; e.g., Tarquinius Superbus regnavit annos quinque et viginti (Livy) "Tarquin

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