Minor word classes

Adverbial particles

Adverbial particles are a small class of words that are similar to one an- other in exhibiting proclitic behavior. Notwithstanding certain predictable exceptions discussed in this section, adverbial particles must obligatorily appear before the predicate they modify. We use the term ‘adverbial’ as the group generally behaves like adverbs, i.e., they modify verbs and verbal phrases, other adverbs, or whole sentences, although most Iridian grammars simply refer to them as земо, literally meaning ‘grain’ or ‘particle.’ They also display functions not typically associated with adverbs, such as the ability to express evidentiality or mirativity, among other things. A single particle may also be used in multiple ways, as we will see in the following sections. The full list of adverbial particles is given in Table 5.1.

According to Zwicky and Pullum’s (1983) criteria for clitichood, clitics generally exhibit a low degree of selection with respect to their host while affixes exhibit a high degree of selection with respect to their stems. Adverbial particles can attach to words of virtually any category, as long as they appear in the predicate position. For example (the ‘=’ symbol is used to indicate cliticization):

As proclitics, adverbial particles must appear directly before the verb they are associated with. Thus any other arguments a verb may have will normally appear before any adverbial particle. Consider for example a sentence like То том Янкам купник, ‘This book was bought by Janek.’ Any particle that will be added to modify the sentence will appear after the subject То том and the agent Янкам but immediately before the verb купник:

Moving the particle to any other position in the sentence other than immediately before the verb will result in an ungrammatical sentence, like the following

When two or more particles are proclitic to the same predicate, their relative word order may be described in terms of the following hierarchy, in relation to their distance from the predicate:

Class I: же and по

The two Class I adverbial particles же and по never occur in immediate sequence to each other. In general, же and по carry aspect-related meanings, with же used to indicate the perfective and по the imperfective aspect. This usage, however, does not completely correspond to the true aspectual suffixes on a verb, as we have seen in § 3.4. Же and по can be broadly translated as ‘already’ and ‘still/yet’, respectively, but their usage as we will see below is more complex.

In sentences containing a temporal clause expressing a future event, же and по are used to indicate the attitude of the speaker towards the time described in the predicate. Же ‘extends’ the perceived time between the reference point and the time described by the predicate, while по ‘shortens’ it. Thus a neutral sentence such as Янек соботу щенжах, ‘Janek will arrive on Saturday’ can be modified as Янек соботу же щенжах or as Янек соботу по щенжах. The former indicates that the speaker thinks that there is little time left before Janek’s arrival on Saturday, while the latter indicates that the speaker thinks that there is still a lot of time left before Janek’s arrival on Saturday. In contrast to these two, the original sentence without же or по does not pass any judgment on the time left before Janek’s arrival. With temporal clauses expressing past events, по behaves the same way in ‘extending’ the perceived time between the reference point and the time described by the predicate; же on the other hand cannot be used in this way. Thus Янек соботу щенжах, ‘Janek arrived on Saturday’ can be modified as Янек соботу по щенжах which can be interpreted as ‘Janek arrived on Saturday (and it has been quite some time since then).’ Янек соботу же щенжах is also a valid sentence, but here же merely translates as ‘already’ and does not have the aspectual connotation it has in the future tense.