Monday, July 20, 2015

Ćwarmin: A Detail about the Ćwarmin Infinitive

I have previously given a short overview of the Ćwarmin infinitive, but more details about the use thereof will sporadically appear.

The infinitive is not the same as the verb stem, but has some infinitive suffix on it. There are several infinitive suffixes, and some of them have different implications, cf:
hacam - hacan - haćjul - to think
rigən - ridjel - ridjen - ridjin - to hurry
 The {hacam, hacan, haćjul} triplet shows three different suffixes, all with slightly different connotations: hacam - to believe something, hacan - to think about something, haćjul - to plan. The finite verbs conflate these. The {rigən, ridjul, ridjen, ridjin} four-tuplet distinguishes rigan - to hurry in regards to some thing, to be anxious for something, ridjul - to hurry with the intent to achieve something, ridjen - to be in a hurry so as not to miss a thing, ridjin - to hurry at the expense of the results

Now, these infinitives can appear sentence-initially as a topicalized ~adverb to specify which particular meaning is intended, while a finite form of the verb goes sentence-finally:
hacan bec terəś hacac? - what are you thinking about?
hacam bec terəś hacac? - what do you believe?
haćjul bec terəś hacac? - what do you plan to do?
bec terəś hacac? - what do you ... [any of the above]?
This is not a very common usage, but occurs when confusion is overwhelmingly likely or specifying which meaning is crucial.

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