In this lesson, you’ll learn one way to refer to future events in Valley Zapotec. Sections §10.1–§10.3 introduce the way to form the irrealis stems of the verb, including spelling changes and irregular irrealis forms. Section §10.4 presents formal and polite commands and section §10.5 plural commands, all of which use irrealis forms. Section §10.6 describes another way cuan phrases can be interpreted. The last three sections concern negatives and the irrealis form: negative irrealis sentences in section §10.7; negative irrealis questions in section §10.8; and negative commands in section §10.9.

_{Fot Teiby xte Lecsyony Tsë. An overhead view of San Lucas.}

^{Lecsyony 10, Video 1. (With Geraldina López Curiel.)}

Xiëru Rzalo Ra Dizh

1. Rdeidy “crosses” is pronounced just the same as rdeidy “gives”, but as you’ll learn in this lesson, some forms of these two verbs are different.

The expression rdeidy lo liny “crosses the border” is used with the subject following the verb rdeidy, as in Rdeidya lo liny “I cross the border”.

2. As you can see from the Ra Dizh, camyuny can refer to either a bus, a truck, a car, or a van, depending on the situation in which it is used, and carr can mean “car”, “bus”, or “truck”. When learning a new word in Zapotec (or in any language), it’s important to keep in mind that there may not be a one-to-one correspondences with a word in English. As always, pay attention to how these words are used in Zapotec and you’ll quickly become accustomed to their range of meanings.

3. Ladi is used to refer to the country on the other side of the border between the United States and Mexico from where the speaker is (in Mexico, ladi means “the United States”; in the United States, it means “Mexico”).

4. Rdily means “fights someone, scolds someone” or, with a plural subject, “fight each other”. To mention who someone fights with, use cuan “with”, as in Rdilya cuan mniny “I fight with the boy”.

§10.1 Talking about the future

Listen as your teacher reads the following sentences referring to the future:

As you can see, the verbs of these sentences begin with a prefix y– (which may sound like [i] to you when it comes before a consonant, as explained in Unida Teiby). This IRREALIS (“irr.”) prefix replaces the habitual prefix r– on a verb base, as in the diagram. An irrealis verb refers to an event that’s not real. Sometimes irrealis verbs suggest in addition that the subject wants to perform the future action. You’ll learn several other uses of irrealis verbs in this and later lessons.

Irrealis verbs in Zapotec sentences referring to the future correspond to English will or be going to verbs: the best translation may vary with the context. (It’s important to realize that most English sentences using future expressions like is going to or are going to – such as the translations of the examples above – have nothing to do with actual going or movement.) Irrealis verbs can be used in the same types of sentences you’ve already learned – statements, questions, sentences with objects, sentences with focus, sentences with subject pronouns.

Zhi “tomorrow” and other adverbs (words that tell where, when, or how an event takes place) very often come at the beginning of a Zapotec sentence:

Usually it’s not possible to focus another word in a sentence beginning with an adverb. The other place that an adverb may occur (for instance, when another item in the sentence is focused) is at the end of a sentence, as in

The pronunciation of the base of an irrealis verb may change when a bound subject pronoun is added, just the way other verb bases do. Irrealis stems have combination forms just like other verb stems:

All the regular combination form changes that you learned about in Lecsyony Gaz occur with irrealis stems as well. For example, the vowel pattern in the independent forms of the irrealis stems ysudieby and ydeidy is KKC, but this pattern changes to KC when the bound subject pronouns -i and -ëng are added.

Similarly, the informal “you” and “I” forms of verbs with KKC vowel patterns (and many others) are pronounced with a CP vowel pattern in their base:

Listen as your teacher pronounces each of these examples, and, if you need to, review these regular pronunciation changes in Lecsyony Xon.

§10.2. Spelling and pronunciation changes in independent irrealis stem forms

Verbs whose base starts with y have an irrealis stem starting with gy:

(Remember, the stem gyac (habitual ryac) becomes gyaqu before the bound pronoun -i.)

Verbs with KC, KCP, KP, KKC, and CP vowel patterns have the same vowel pattern in the irrealis stem as in other stems, but for most verbs with B, BB, and CB vowel patterns in their habitual, perfective, or progressive stems, the irrealis stem has a C vowel pattern:

Normally, verbs whose irrealis stem has a C pattern do not change when a pronoun subject is added:

Verbs with diphthongs in a BB or CB vowel pattern change to a CP pattern in the irrealis. Thus, for example, the irrealis stem of rduax [rdu’ahx] “barks” is yduax [ydu’ax].

§10.3. Irregular irrealis stems

In Lecsyony Xop you learned that some verbs may have irregular stems. Some verbs have irregular irrealis stems. Look at these forms of rbeb “rides”:

The perfective and progressive stems of rbeb are formed normally. (Since the base of this verb starts with b, we expect that the perfective prefix will be w-, not b-.) However, the irrealis stem, cweb [cwèe’b] does not start with y-, and does not even have a base beginning with b! (Notice, though, that the end of the irrealis base is just the same as in the other forms, and that it also is pronounced with a KC vowel pattern.)

Here are two other examples of irregular irrealis stems, this time for rdily “fights someone; fight each other” and rdeidy “crosses”:

The perfective and progressive stems of rdily “fights someone” and rdeidy “crosses” are again formed normally, but the irrealis stems, tily and teidy, do not start with y-, and do not have bases starting with d. Once again, the vowel pattern of the irrealis stem, KC or KKC, is just the same as that of the habitual. (You might also note that these irrealis stems begin with t, a consonant related to d, as you learned in Lecsyony Tap.) In the irrealis stems of these verbs, you can’t easily separate a prefix from the base.

An interesting thing about rdeidy “crosses” is that this verb is pronounced just the same as the verb rdeidy “gives to”. All the forms of these two verbs are the same, except for the irrealis. Rdeidy “gives to” has a regular irrealis stem, ydeidy (as you saw earlier in this lesson), while rdeidy “crosses” has the irregular irrealis stem teidy.

Valley Zapotec has many verbs that do not work exactly as you’d expect. You’ll learn more about these in the next few lessons, and all of them are listed in the vocabulary at the end of this book.

§10.4. Formal and polite commands

As you’ve learned, imperatives use the perfective stem of the verb, without any subject ending.

Imperatives are only used when you are giving a COMMAND to one person who you would address with informal liu.

To give a formal command, addressed to one person to whom you would use formal yu, you use an irrealis verb with a -yu subject:

If you think about it, these commands are just future sentences with formal “you” subjects. Thus, the first sentence could also be translated as “You (form.) will teach him Zapotec.”

Of course, giving an order to anyone you should address formally might seem very impolite or even inappropriate, so it is almost always best to use the polite extender -la when you give a formal command. The following are more suitable for use as formal commands:

As you know, the polite extender -la is added to the verb stem before the subject pronoun. In this book, we will translate commands containing -la with “please”.

An even more polite command can be formed with the irrealis form of the verb rsaguel [rsaguehll], which means “is so good as to” and is mainly used in the irrealis form to express polite commands or requests, corresponding roughly to English Would you be so good as to… The type of “you” pronoun added to ysaguel shows whether the command is formal or informal. Ysaguel commands are almost always used with the -la extender on the following verb.

An informal polite command starts with ysaguelu “you (inf.) would be so good as to…”, followed by an informal imperative:

There are two ways to express a formal polite command using ysaguelyu, with the -yu formal pronoun. You can use a regular formal command, with an irrealis verb followed by the bound pronoun –yu, or you can use an informal imperative (which of course has no subject pronoun). Even though this type of imperative normally is informal, the command is formal if it begins with ysaguelyu:

_{Fot Tyop xte Lecsyony Tsë. Preparing for an Easter morning procession in Tlacolula.}

§10.5. Plural commands

Here are some plural commands:

Plural commands are like formal commands, because they use irrealis verb forms. However, their verbs do not have subject pronouns. A plural command always starts with the word ual [u’all] (some people say gual [gu’all]).

Unlike imperatives and formal singular commands, plural commands are not marked for formality – you can use a plural command beginning with ual to anyone, whether you would address them with laad or with yuad. Of course, in many circumstances it would not seem appropriate to give any order to a person you would address with yu. You can make a plural command more polite by adding the -la ending to the verb stem:

You can make plural commands even more polite by using ysaguel. In this case, ysaguel and the following verb must both have a formal plural subject, as in

These examples with ysaguelyuad don’t use ual. In this type of sentence, it’s also okay not to use -la on the verb after ysaguel.

§10.6. A second interpretation for sentences with cuan phrases

Look at these sentences with cuan phrases:

These sentences all contain plural pronoun subjects and cuan “with” phrases with singular objects. The translations given above are all correct, but each of these sentences also can be used to express a very different meaning, as follows:

These translations seem very odd to English speakers, because their verbs all have plural subjects, so it seems (to English speakers) that the translations of these sentences should also have plural subjects. Thus, the English sentence They are going to run with the boy means that at least three people were talking: they must refer to at least two, and then there’s the boy. The English sentence He is going to run with the boy, however, means that only two people ran. Zapotec works differently from English here, however. When a Zapotec speaker uses a sentence with a plural pronoun subject and a cuan phrase, that cuan phrase may specify someone who is included in the plural subject.

§10.7. Negative irrealis sentences

When the verb of a negative sentence is irrealis, a different pattern is used, as in the following sentences:

As before, the sentence begins with queity. But when the verb is irrealis, -di follows queity. Again, the subject follows -di (or, if the subject is a bound pronoun beginning with a vowel, -dy). Next comes the irrealis verb, followed by another occurrence of the subject, as in the pattern shown below.

When the subject is a noun phrase (and not a pronoun), a variant pattern may be used, as in examples like

In this pattern, the subject only appears once, after the negative word queitydi, and before the irrealis verb:

§10.8. Negative irrrealis questions

Negative irrealis questions work differently from other negative irrealis sentences that you have seen. Like other negative questions, they usually do not use the ending -di following the negative word queity. Here are two examples that follow pattern 1 of section §10.7, with pronoun subjects used both following queity (without -di) and also after the irrealis verb:

With a noun or name subject, either pattern 1 or pattern 2 can be used, with the subject repeated after the irrealis verb, or not — but with no -di ending:

§10.9. Negative commands

Here are some examples of negative commands:

These sentences show that a negative command begins with queity, followed by an irrealis verb and the appropriate “you” subject pronoun (informal or formal, singular or plural). Unlike imperatives (Lecsyony Xop), negative commands do not use perfective verbs, and they always include a “you” subject. However, negative commands do not include the negative ending -di used in ordinary negative sentences, and plural negative commands do not include ual.

The negative commands above are used to tell someone not to begin doing something. If you want to tell someone to stop doing something they are already doing, the negative command is different — it uses the habitual form of the verb.

Prefixes and Endings

y- [y] (irrealis verb prefix)

g- [g] (irrealis verb prefix for verb bases that start with y)

Abbreviations

irr. irrealis

_{Fot Chon xte Lecsyony Tsë. A marching band in Tlacolula.}