_{Fot Teiby xte Lecsyony Tseinyabtyop. An oxcart on the road to Tlacolula.}

This lesson begins with more facts about question words and question word questions (section §17.1). Section §17.2 introduces familiar pronouns. The irregular verb ria “goes” and the related andative “goes and” verbs are presented in sections §17.3 and §17.4. Section §17.5 is about the –zhyi “must be that way” particle, and section §17.6 the –ag “this” –ag and –i “that” noun endings.

Xiëru Zalo Ra Dizh

Rap expresses a more general “has” meaning than ca (Lecsyony Tsëbtyop). Ca refers specifically to having or holding something in one’s hands, but rap can refer to having something that’s not in one’s immediate possession. Thus, the following sentences can be used in the same situation, but the second is a bit more specific:

§17.1. More about question words

You learned about question words and question word questions in Lecsyony Gaz and Lecsyony Tsëbteby.  As you know, question word questions begin with a question word or question word phrase followed by a verb. In this section you’ll learn more about using question words.

Asking “where”. The basic word for “where” is cali. This question word is used to ask where some event takes place:

Cuan [cu’an] “where is” is a question word that works like a verb — all you do is add a subject (either a noun phrase or a bound pronoun), as in the following questions used to ask about the location of the subject:

Cuan can’t be used without a following subject or with any additional verb. As you can see, the exact translation of cuan depends on what subject you use.

Answers to “where” questions. You can use re “here”, re “there” (can you pronounce the difference?), and ricy “there” in answers to “where” questions, as in these mini-dialogues:

Answers to cuan questions often use the verb nu, which means “is (located)” or, sometimes, “lives”.

You can also use a place name to name a location where something takes place or something or someone is located. In this type of sentence, you don’t need a word for “in”.

As these examples show, nu means “lives” when it is used in an answer to a cali nu question, and it means “is” when it is used in an answer to a cuan question.

You’ll learn other ways to answer “where” questions in Lecsyony Tseinyabchon.

Asking “how much” and “how many”. Asking “how much” or “how many” is complicated in Zapotec. You’ve already learned one way to say “how much money” (or just “how much”, when you’re referring to money), blac. Another similar word is bgaly. You don’t need to use the word muly “money” with these words. See if your teacher feels there’s any difference between the following two ways to ask a “how much money” question:

In contrast, the more general word bal “how many” can’t be used by itself. As you saw in Lecsyony Tsëbteby, bal can be used before a noun:

In these questions, it’s the bal phrase that comes at the beginning of the question, followed by the verb.

Bal can also be used with a bound pronoun, as in

“How much” is xi zicydi. Like bal, this word can be used before a noun:

Xi zicydi can be used before a singular bound proximate or (more commonly) distal pronoun. In this case, it becomes xi zicydy:

Unlike bal, xi zicydi can also be used by itself:

Asking “whose”. Here’s another type of question sentence:

(The second question, of course, could also mean “Whose brother hit Ignacio?”, since gwaizy is a reversible verb.)

Tu is used to ask a “whose” question. In this type of sentence, tu comes first, followed by an e-possessed word like xmes or bets, and then the rest of the sentence:

You’ll also hear speakers use another type of “whose” question with the –ni bound pronoun ending you learned about in Lecsyony Tsëda. Compare the following two questions. The first one uses the “whose” question pattern you just learned. The second type of “whose” question uses a different structure that begins with tu plus the whole question sentence, beginning with the verb. The second question sentence contains an e-possessed noun with the bound pronoun –ni.

It’s good to be able to recognize this second type of “whose” question, but we will not practice them in this book.

§17.2. Familiar pronouns

The sentences below use new pronouns which you haven’t seen in this book up to now, FAMILIAR (abbreviated “fam.”) pronouns. The bound subject and possessor familiar pronoun is -azh [ahzh:] and the free familiar pronoun is laazh [làa’-azh:].

Familiar pronouns are different from the other pronouns you have learned so far in that men and women use them differently. They are primarily used by male speakers, most commonly to refer to adult men, but they can also be used by men to refer to adult women. As the name implies, familiar pronouns are primarily used for other community members who the speaker knows. Speakers have ordinary social respect for those they refer to with familiar pronouns, but generally these pronouns show somewhat less respect than respectful pronouns — thus, many speakers would not use them to refer to specially respected people like older relatives, teachers, or priests. Familiar pronouns are not used to refer to animals or inanimate objects. Men generally do not use familiar pronouns to refer to children.

Women also use familiar pronouns, especially in quoting a male speaker who used familiar pronouns, but it’s rather difficult to give rules. For example, you may hear women use familiar pronouns to refer to children in order to show pity or fondness. If you’re female, however, it is best for you not to use familiar pronouns (except in quoting remarks by men) until you have observed how other female Valley Zapotec speakers that you know use these pronouns in natural conversation.

The plural bound familiar pronoun is -razh [rahzh:] and the plural free familiar pronoun is larazh [làa’rahzh:], as in

Plural familiar pronouns are used by men to refer to groups of adults of both sexes. Again, if you are female, listen to how other female speakers of Valley Zapotec use the familiar pronouns before using them yourself.

Because the bound singular pronoun –azh starts with a vowel, many vowel-final stems combine with it similarly to the way they combine with pronouns like –ëb or -ad. The verb charts at the end of this book give all the irregular familiar subject forms. Familiar subject forms of most verbs with consonant-final stems are not usually irregular.

§17.3. The verb ria “goes”

The Valley Zapotec verb ria “goes” [rihah] is an extremely important and useful verb. In this lesson, you’ll learn a number of different ways people use this verb.

As you can see, in this use ria expresses the equivalent of the English phrase “goes to“,  there is no word for “to” in these sentences. Of course, translations don’t always use “to”:

Another common meaning of ria is “costs” (perhaps a closer English translation would be “goes for”), as in

Like other verbs with vowel-initial bases and vowel-final stems, ria is an irregular verb. Here are the habitual forms of ria with bound pronoun subjects that start with vowels. As you can see, every form except “I go” and “you go” uses a base ie (normally pronounced [ieh]):

Of course, the translations given are not the only ways these forms can be used — as you know, “he” could be replaced in most cases by “she” and in some by “it”, and so on; sometimes “goes” might not be the best translation for the verb (as you have seen, it might also be translated “goes to” or “costs”, for example). The most irregular forms of ria are those with “we” subjects. Here is the habitual form:

This verb is irregular because instead of the base ia or ie, it has a base yo [yoo’]. (The other “we” forms of ria are similar, as you’ll see.)

Ria is different from every other Valley Zapotec verb, because in the habitual ria is also irregular with “they” and formal subjects. (Rni and a few other verbs have a special “they” combination form, but only ria is irregular with formal subjects.) Instead of adding the plural bound pronouns to the stem ria, you use the same rie [rieh] base that was used in most of the singular forms:

Because ria is a very common and important verb, you should learn all these forms as soon as you can.

The perfective stem — and the imperative — of ria is gwe [gweh]. With bound pronoun subjects that start with consonants, the forms of gwe are regular. Most perfective forms with bound pronoun subjects that start with vowels also begin with gw. You should learn all of these, since each of them is irregular in one way or another:

The “we” perfective verb is quite unexpected. It doesn’t start with gw, but with the regular perfective prefix b-, added to the “we” stem yo that you saw above:

The plural and formal forms of gwe are regular. Here’s an example:

The irrealis stem of ria is chia [chiia]. (Occasionally ch– is used as an irrealis prefix for verb bases that start with i.) Here are the irregular irrealis forms, most of which use an ie, just as in the habitual:

As you can see, once again the “we” form includes an o vowel.

The same ie base is used with “they” and formal subjects, with the combination form, chie [chie]:

Now that you know the forms of ria, you can understand the greetings

Ria does not have a regular progressive form starting with ca– (though you will learn about a special ria progressive in Lecsyony Galyabteiby). The most common thing people mean when they use an expression like I am going… is to refer to the future (as in a sentence like I am going to do it tomorrow). If you want to translate “is going” to refer to the future, use the irrealis form of the verb that would follow “going” in the English sentence.

If you want to use a “going” verb to refer to an ongoing act of going (as in a sentence like I am going to the store right now, meaning I am on my way to the store right now), you should use the irrealis chia — because you are referring to an act of going that will be completed in the future (when you arrive at your destination).

§17.4. Andative “goes and” verbs

The following sentences use “goes and” verbs — the technical term for these is ANDATIVE verbs:

Habitual andative verbs are formed by adding the prefix ri- to the front of a verb base. The bases are underlined in the ordinary and andative examples below:

Ri- is a short form of the verb ria “goes”.

Irrealis andative verbs start with chi-, and perfective andative verbs start with gu– (again, these prefixes are derived from forms of ria-).

Like the verb ria “goes”, andative verbs have no progressive form.

Andative verbs are used to say that someone goes and performs an action. They can be translated either with English “goes and” or, often, with “goes to”. While the “goes to” translation may sound better to you in some cases, there’s an important difference between English goes to (or will go to or went to) sentences and Zapotec andative verbs. An English sentence like Juan went to feed the chickens does not necessarily mean that Juan actually fed the chickens (just that he went with the intention of doing so). However, the Zapotec sentence Gugyan Jwany ra budy means that Juan not only went, he also definitely fed the chickens (as with English Juan went and fed the chickens). Another way to think of this is that the English sentence Juan went to feed the chickens primarily tells us about Juan’s going. However, the Zapotec sentence Gugyan Jwany ra budy primarily tells us about going-and-feeding.

“We” subject andative verbs. Most speakers use special andative prefixes on verbs with a “we” subject: habitual ryo– [ryoo’], irrealis cho- [choo’], and perfective byo– [byoo’]:

Some speakers may use a different base for some “we” subject andative forms. For example, the normal andative form of racw “puts on a shirt” is ritacw “goes and puts on a shirt”.  You may hear two “we” subject forms of this andative verb:

In this case, some speakers use the d-base form of this verb in the andative, and others don’t. Special “we” subject andatives like this are listed in the verb charts at the end of this book.

Combining an andative verb with a form of ria. Sometimes speakers express “goes and” sentences by using both a form of ria and a following andative verb. For example, in the first sentence below, the verb ria “goes” is followed by rixel “goes and sends”, and in the last sentence, choën “we go” is followed by choxelën “we go and send”:

As the examples show, ria and the following andative verb have matching prefixes — both habitual, both irrealis, or both perfective. If the subject is a noun phrase, as in the first two sentences, it appears either before or between the two verbs. If the subject is a pronoun, however, the bound pronoun ending must be attached to both ria and the andative verb.

Although it may seem as though this last type of sentence should be translated with two “go” verbs (for instance, you might wonder if the first sentence should be “Juan goes and goes and sends letters every day”), speakers feel these are really equivalent to the simpler andative pattern with one verb.

Many verbs have irregular andative forms — they use a different base with the andative prefixes from the one they use in the habitual. There are some general rules that will help you to guess the andative base (in other words, what you add the andative prefix ri- to), but in general you should learn andative forms, especially for verbs that are irregular in other forms. The verb charts at the end of the book list irregular andative (“and.”) verbs.

For some verbs, the andative base is the same as the irrealis stem:

For d-base verbs whose perfective base starts with d, the andative base starts with t:

Many other base-changing verbs with perfective bases starting with d work the same way:

On the other hand, other base-changing verbs and some verbs whose bases start with d have andative bases starting with nd:

Usually the vowel pattern of an andative verb is the same as that of the verb it is formed from, but not always:

In other ways, andative verbs with irregular bases are used just like andative verbs with regular bases. They also use the prefixes chi- and gu- and the special “we” subject prefixes ryo-, cho-, and byo-.

§17.5. The -zhyi “must be that way” particle

Here are some sentences that describe the speaker’s conclusion about a situation:

Speakers use sentences like these to tell that they believe that a situation must be true on the basis of some evidence. For instance, if Juan isn’t around, and you figure that he’s gone to send some letters, but you’re not sure, you might use the first sentence.

The “must” idea in these sentences comes from the particle –zhyi [zhyi’] which appears after each verb stem in each sentences. Like the negative particle –di, –zhyi comes right after the verb stem, before the subject. If the subject is a pronoun, it is added to the verb following –zhyi. –Zhyi becomes –zhy before pronoun subjects that start with vowels.

We will normally translate –zhyi with “must”, but in fact its meaning only means “must be that way”. –Zhyi never expresses the must of necessity or obligation in an English sentence like We must leave now, or we’ll miss the plane.

There are several groups of particles in Valley Zapotec, all of which come before pronoun endings in a Valley Zapotec word. You have only seen the negative particle –di attached to a verb, but –zhyi and some other particles you’ll learn later are different. Rather than following a particular type of word, these particles always appear in a particular position in the sentence.

-Zhyi is always attached to the first word, or occasionally the first short phrase, in the sentence. If that element is the verb, as in the first examples above, –zhyi comes right after the verb, before the subject (even if that subject is a pronoun that must be attached to the verb). If the subject or object or some other item in the sentence is focused, that focused item is the first element of the sentence, and –zhyi will be added after it. The last example above shows that –zhyi follows a phrase like ra cart “letters”.

Here is the sentence pattern to use with the particle –zhyi:

Later, you will learn other particles that work like –zhyi. Remember that –zhyi expresses the “must be that way”, indicating the speaker is drawing a conclusion. Sometimes “might” or “could” or “maybe” are better translations for –zhyi, as you’ll see later.

When the item at the beginning of the sentence is a focused free pronoun, things work unexpectedly. Here’s an example:

Normally, as you know, the free pronoun “he” is laëng (of course, this can express “she” or even “it” too). Most free pronouns are formed from a BASE plus the corresponding bound pronoun — so, laëng consists of a base la plus the proximate ending -ëng.

The base la (most commonly pronounced [làa’]) counts as the “first item” in the -zhyi sentence pattern, and the bound pronoun -ëng is the first thing in the “rest of sentence”, giving lazhyëng [làa’zhyëng]. Here are some more sentences beginning with combinations of -zhyi and different free pronouns:

The formal “you” free pronouns use la as the base even though that’s not part of the free pronoun:

Three free pronouns have different bases before their bound pronoun endings. The base of naa “I” is na, the base of liu “you” is li, and the base of danoën “we” is dano, as in

§17.6. The -ag “this” and -i “that” endings

You already know about using the “this” and “that” words re / re and ren / ren in noun phrases to emphatically mention the location of a noun phrase relative to the speaker’s position. Another way to say “this” and “that” in Zapotec is with the noun endings –ag [ahg] “this” and –i [ih] “that”, as in

-Ag and –i are bound forms of “this” and “that” corresponding to the independent “this” and “that” words you’ve already learned.

Like re “this” and ren “this”, –ag is used on a noun referring to something that is very close to the speaker, probably within touching distance. –I is used differently from re “that” and ren “that”, however. It is often used on a noun referring to something that is far off or out of sight, but crucially this noun must be something that has been mentioned in the conversation already, something that the hearer will be able to identify not just because he can see it, but because it has already been mentioned. Thus, a more explicit translation for the second sentence above might be “That dog (that was mentioned before) barked.”

Like nouns followed by “this” and “that” words, nouns followed by –ag and –i are often focused, but not always. In this book, we will underline the translations of focused phrases.

Because –ag and –i are endings that begin with vowels, they work like pronoun endings when combining with vowel-final nouns. –I “that” follows the same rules as the distal pronoun –i when combining with noun phrases (see Lecsyony Tseiny (13)). –Ag works similarly to the familiar pronoun –azh (§17.2).

When you focus a noun with an -ag or -i ending in a “must” sentence with the particle -zhyi, that noun counts as the “first item” in the -zhyi sentence pattern. Next comes -zhyi (which becomes –zhy before these endings) plus -ag or -i. Here are some examples:

Fot Tyop xte Lecsyony Tseinyabtyop. Two gringos in traditional zhomrel photographing _{the Ydo Santony [ydoòo’ Sanntoony], the old church of San Antonio near the bus stop at the entrance to San Lucas Quiaviní.}

Prefixes, Endings, and Particles

-ag [ahg] this

-azh [ahzh:] he, she (bound singular familiar pronoun) (used differently by men and women; primarily used by male speakers, see lesson)

byo- [byoo’] perfective andative prefix for verbs with “we” subjects; “we went and”

chi- [chi] irrealis andative prefix; “will go and”

cho- [choo’] irrealis andative prefix for verbs with “we” subjects; “we will go and”

gu- [gu] perfective andative prefix; “went and”

-i [ih] that

-razh [rahzh:] they (bound plural familiar pronoun) (used differently by men and women; primarily used by male speakers, see lesson)

ri- [ri] habitual andative prefix; “goes and”

ryo- [ryoo’] habitual andative prefix for verbs with “we” subjects; “we go and”

-zhy [zhy] must (form of –zhyi used before pronoun endings that start with a vowel)

-zhyi [zhyi’] must (particle)

Abbreviations

fam. familiar