2005-06-08

The clitics of Anyi Creole

Anyi Creole (I made it up, don't bother looking for more information) uses clitics to express its six verbal aspects. There is also a clitic 3rd-person agreement marker-cum-pronoun, and a clitic transitivity marker. Here is how it's done:

Realis perfective: no marker:
wo go 'I went, I have gone'
Realis imperfective: enclitic in:
wo go-in 'I am going, I was going'
Irrealis perfective: proclitic wu:
wo wu-go 'I might have gone, I will have gone'
Irrealis imperfective: both wu and in:
wo wu-go-in 'I might go, I will go'
Negative perfective: proclitic en:
wo en-go 'I didn't go, I haven't gone'
Negative imperfective: proclitic don:
wo don-go 'I'm not going, I won't go'

The 1st and 2nd pronouns wo (exclusive plural women, inclusive plural woyu) and yu (pl. yumen) are not clitics. The 3rd person pronoun i- (pl. e-) is proclitic to the verb, and is used even if a non-pronoun appears as subject:

i-go 'He/she/it went'
men i-go 'The man went'

The transitivity marker is enclitic im:

men e-go-im Nguyok 'The men went to New York'

That's all I have so far, except the verb tsu 'come'.

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