Section §23.1 introduces necessity and possibility auxiliaries. Section §23.2 presents subjunctive verbs, which are used to talk about unfulfilled past necessity and obligation (section §23.3) and in “if” sentences (section §23.4); a summary of the uses of the subunctive is in section §23.5. Sections §23.6 and §23.7 cover reflexives and reciprocals.

Xiëru Zalo Ra Dizh

In this lesson, you’ll learn a number of different patterns for using necessity and possibility auxiliaries.

§23.1. Necessity and possibility

Necessity auxiliaries. Here are some Valley Zapotec sentences expressing necessity or obligation.

Both of these sentences use an AUXILIARY (abbreviated “aux.”), a “helping verb” that comes at the beginning of the sentence, in the normal verb position, but is followed not by the subject but by a complete sentence containing a MAIN VERB, the subject, and an object or other sentence parts. Here’s the pattern:

The verb following the auxiliary is considered the main verb because it tells the action or state that the sentence is really concerned with, and because in normal Zapotec word order the main verb is the one immediately followed by the subject. Just as with English auxiliaries like must, a Zapotec auxiliary serves to tell something about the speaker’s belief about the necessity or obligation of the action or state. Unlike main verbs, auxiliaries often cannot be used in sentences by themselves, and on their own they sound incomplete. (Some auxiliaries can be used on their own as main verbs, but with different meanings.)

In the pattern and examples above, the main verb is irrealis. The necessity auxiliary itself may be habitual (as with rquiny) or may have another form (like na par). (Na par is a phrase beginning with the verb na “is”.) Necessity auxiliaries do not change their form, regardless of the time the sentence refers to.

Valley Zapotec has several necessity auxiliaries that work the same way. The two used in the examples, na par [nàa pahr] and rquiny [rquììi’ny], express necessity or obligation, as does nadizh [nadìi’zh], which you saw in one of the readings in S-26. These NECESSITY AUXILIARIES are translated into English with verbs like “must”, “should”, “ought to”, “has to”, “needs to”, and “is supposed to”, all of which express quite similar meanings.

Here are two additional necessity auxiliaries whose meanings are a little different:

Ryal [ryàall] means “should” in the sense of “deserves to” or “should get a turn to” (the first sentence above could even be translated “It’s Señor Felipe’s turn to get a piece of land”). Runygan [ruhnygaan] expresses a slightly different “should” meaning, more like “it’s better” or “had better”. Both auxiliaries follow the same pattern that is used with na par and rquiny — auxiliary plus main verb plus subject plus the rest of the sentence.

In a negative auxiliary sentence, queity comes before the auxiliary, and the negative particle –di comes after it.

(When the auxiliary is a phrase like na par, –di follows the first word.)

Occasionally you may hear a second pattern, however:

Here, there are two –di‘s, one after the auxiliary and one after the main verb, before the subject. Both of these negative patterns mean just the same.

When you focus a noun in an auxiliary sentence, it goes in front of the auxiliary:

Past necessity. Compare the following pair of sentences:

The second sentence describes a past necessity. It works just like the regular necessity auxiliary sentences you saw earlier, but instead of an irrealis main verb, we use a perfective main verb.

Here are some more  past necessity examples:

Most past necessity examples like these use the na par auxiliary. But whatever auxiliary is used, it does not change its form, even though the time referred to changes.

You’ll learn other ways to say “should” or “must” as you study more Zapotec, and you’ll learn another necessity auxiliary pattern later in this lesson.

Future necessity. In English we can say things like Tomorrow I’m going to have to go to Tlacolula. If you think about it, though, if you know that you have an obligation, it’s really an obligation now — so it’s fine to use the ordinary necessity auxiliary pattern in Zapotec:

There’s no other way to talk about future necessity in Zapotec.

Possibility auxiliaries. Here are some sentences that express possibility or capability.

These sentences use the possiblity auxiliaries rile [rille’eh], rac [rahc], and racgan [rahcgaan]. Possibility auxiliaries are translated into English with “can” or “is able to”, or sometimes “may” or “knows how to”. Racgan may also express “succeeds in (doing)” or “completely (does)”.

The sentences above use the same basic pattern as the necessity auxiliaries, but they’re different — the main verbs following the auxiliaries are habitual, not irrealis. In other words, the form of the main verb matches the form of the auxiliary: both are habitual.

Unlike necessity auxiliaries, possibility auxiliaries can change their form. Here are some additional examples:

In these sentences, the form of the auxiliary changes according to the meaning of the sentence — the perfective gucgan is used to mean “was able to” and the irrealis and definite chile and zale are used to mean “will be able to”. (You’ll usually see chile in negative sentences.) The main verb following the auxiliary expresses a matching meaning. In the first sentence, a perfective main verb follows a perfective auxiliary referring to the past, while in the next two, irrealis main verbs follow irrealis or definite auxiliaries referring to the future.

There are several important differences, then, between necessity auxiliaries and possibility auxiliaries.

• First, necessity auxiliaries don’t change their form, no matter what time the sentence refers to, but possibility auxiliaries can change their form, according to the time they refer to.

• Second, the main verb following a possibility auxiliary matches the auxiliary. If the auxiliary is habitual, the main verb is habitual. If the auxiliary is perfective, the main verb is perfective. If the auxiliary is definite or irrealis (referring to the future), the main verb is irrealis. In contrast, the main verb after a necessity auxiliary doesn’t match the form of the auxiliary. In the examples you’ve seen so far, the main verbs after the necessity auxiliaries are either irrealis or perfective. (You’ll learn about another pattern used with necessity auxiliaries later on in this lesson.)

You can see another difference between necessity and possibility auxiliaries in negative sentences:

Just as you’d expect, queity goes before the possibility auxiliary, and –di follows it. But you can’t use another -di on the main verb in these sentences, as you can with necessity auxiliaries. When the auxiliary is irrealis, the subject comes after queitydi (just as in any irrealis negative):

Here’s another past possibility sentence from one of the readings in S-26 with the auxiliary gucgan followed by the special use of incompletive ze:

This sentence shows that sometimes speakers put queity and –di on the main verb, not on the auxiliary.

A focused name, noun phrase, or pronoun can go before a possibility auxiliary.

In the last sentence, the focused noun phrase is a modifying phrase, axta ni queity raly re “even one (someone) who wasn’t born here”. Next in the sentence comes the possibility auxiliary zale, plus the main verb gac.

_{Fot Teiby xte Lecsyony Galyabchon. Traditional cooking area in a home in San Lucas. Queitydi ryengw mna chile ygyi re!}

Another auxiliary pattern. In Part Xon of Blal xte Tiu Pamyël, Rony writes Chiecw,

This sentence uses a different pattern from the possibility pattern you saw earlier. The second part of this example, a rile ycwaën email “we can write email”, has a habitual possibility auxiliary followed by an irrealis main verb. You may hear speakers use this pattern occasionally, but we won’t practice it in this book, since this pattern often sounds awkward to native speakers.

You’ll learn more about other ways to use auxiliaries in section §23.3, and you’ll hear many other auxiliary patterns as you learn more Zapotec.

§23.2. Subjunctive verbs

Past negative sentences and the subjunctive. You already know how to make a past negative sentence, of course:

These sentences use the normal pattern, queity plus the negative verb plus the particle –di plus the subject (Lecsyony Gaz). To show that we’re referring to the past here, the verb is perfective.

There’s another negative past pattern, however. Here are some examples:

These sentences mean just the same thing as the perfective negative sentences, but their verbs are in a new form called the SUBJUNCTIVE (abbreviated “sub.”). You can use a subjunctive verb instead of a perfective verb in any past negative sentence without changing the meaning.

Subjunctive verbs are used in several types of sentence patterns in Zapotec, as you’ll see in this lesson. They refer to events that either never happened or are hypothetical. They are almost never used as the only verb of a positive sentence — a sentence with a subjunctive verb will almost always contain a negative word like queity, an auxiliary, or another sentence, as you’ll see later.

Forming subjunctive verbs. Forming the subjunctive is very regular. If the base of the verb starts with a consonant, you simply add the prefix n-:

The double nn on subjunctive verbs whose base starts with n may sound like a single n to you, but if you listen, you’ll probably hear an additional n before it!

If the base starts with a vowel, you use the prefix ny-:

As you know, base-changing verbs have a different base in the perfective: the perfective stem of rau “eats” is bdau, and the perfective stem of rgue “cusses” is bde. The base that is used in forming the subjunctive (and every other form other than the perfective) is the same as the habitual base, as the examples above show.

The n- prefix used before bases that start with consonants may remind you of the neutral prefix n-, which you learned about in Lecsyony Tseinyabchon. But there are many differences between neutral and subjunctive verbs. The neutral prefix n- is used almost exclusively before bases that start with vowels — but the subjunctive prefix is ny- before vowels. Some verbs do not have a prefix in the neutral, but all verbs have a prefix in the subjunctive.

The subjunctive stem is different for some verbs with “we” subjects. As you know, d-base verbs and some other verbs have irregular forms with “we” subjects. But forming the “we” subject subjunctive verb follows the same rules given above. Once again, you start with the base used in the habitual — which for these verbs, is different from the base used with other subjects.

Just look at the base! If it starts with a consonant, use the subjunctive prefix n-; if it starts with a vowel, use the prefix ny-.

Using the subjunctive with nyuclaz. Nyuclaz [nyu’clààa’z] is a verb that means “wanted to, would have liked to (but didn’t)”. This verb is always used with a subjunctive verb that tells what the subject wanted to do (but was unable to), as in

These sentences show three different ways to use nyuclaz. If the subject is a noun or name, as in the first example, the pattern is

If the subject is a pronoun, as in the next two examples, both nyuclaz and the subjunctive verb must have a bound pronoun suffix, as in

Finally, if the subject is a focused noun or name, as in the last example, you use the following pattern:

You may hear other patterns if you listen to Zapotec speakers.

_{Fot Tyop xte Lecsyony Galyabchon. In 2006, Mexico celebrated the 200th anniversary of the birth of Benito Juarez in 1806 in San Pablo Guelatao, Oaxaca. http://www.latinamericanstudies.org/juarez.htm}

§23.3. Unfulfilled past necessity and obligation

A sentence like I was supposed to go (but I didn’t) refers to an unfulfilled past obligation. In Valley Zapotec, you talk about unfulfilled past obligations and necessities using a necessity auxiliary with a subjunctive main verb. Compare the following sets of examples:

The first sentence in each set is a standard necessity auxiliary sentence, referring to an as yet unfulfilled obligation that exists now but that will probably be fulfilled in the future. The second sentence in each set is a past necessity auxiliary sentence, referring to a past obligation that has now been fulfilled. (These sentences could be amplified by saying something like “…and I did.”) The third sentence in each set is a subjunctive necessity auxiliary sentence, referring to an past obligation that was not fulfilled. (These sentences could be amplified by saying “…but I didn’t.”)

With the necessity auxiliary rquiny, the subjunctive gives the “should have” meaning:

Again, these sentences mean that the speaker did not, after all, eat, and that Jeronimo did not, in fact, go to Oaxaca.

§23.4. More about “if” sentences

Lecsyony Galyabtyop presented sentences with bal “if”, like

Now consider another “if” sentence:

This sentence uses balna [ballnah], another word for “if”. The difference between bal and balna is that a bal “if” sentence might be true, or might come true in the future, but a balna “if” sentence can’t come true — it refers to something in the past that didn’t happen, or to something that could not possibly be true. Bal expresses a possible “if”, while balna expresses “if” that is contrary to the facts as we know them.

Compare the following pair of sentences:

The first sentence uses bal, and it refers to an event that has not happened, but that is possible. (Juan has not gone to Tlacolula yet, but he might. If he does, maybe he’ll buy a bicycle.) The second uses balna, and it refers to a past event that did not happen. (Juan did not go to Tlacolula. Therefore, whatever he might have done if he had gone can’t occur.)

“If” sentences have two parts, the “if” CONDITION (the factor that determines whether the predicted consequence will happen) and the resulting CONSEQUENCE (the predicted event that will occur if the condition is met). For example, in the first sentence of the last pair above, the condition is bal chia Jwany Bac, and the consequence is si Jwany teiby bisiclet. In the second sentence, the condition is balna nyia Jwany Bac, and the consequence is nzi Jwany teiby bisiclet.

In Zapotec as in English, the two parts of an “if” sentence may be reordered, with the consequence first:

In a possible “if” sentence with bal, both the condition and the consequence are irrealis, as you learned in Lecsyony Galyabtyop. In the contrary to fact “if” sentences with balna given above, both the condition and the consequence are subjunctive.

It’s also possible, however, to use a perfective verb (usually preceded by a “already”) in the consequence part of a balna “if” sentence, as in

§23.5. Using the subjunctive: A summary

The subjunctive is the last verb form you’ll learn in this course. You’ve learned four ways that this new verb form is used:

• in past negative statements

• with the verb nyuclaz

• in sentences about past unfulfilled obligations or necessity, with necessity auxiliaries

• in contrary to fact “if” sentences with balna

If you only talk about present realities, you won’t need to use the subjunctive much! But it is good to learn to recognize, understand, and use subjunctive verbs when you need to. Knowing how to use it will help you to say more complicated things in Zapotec, and to participate more fully in conversations.

§23.6. Reflexives

Reflexive repetition. In a REFLEXIVE SENTENCE, the subject is exactly the same as the object; they refer to the same individual:

In an English sentence like John saw himself, we think of the subject and object as referring to the same person, but in fact the English words John and himself are not the same. In Valley Zapotec reflexive sentences with noun or name subjects, however, you use exactly the same words for the subject and object, as the examples show: the object word repeats the subject word or phrase exactly.

Sentences like these actually have two quite different meanings. In addition to the reflexive meaning, they can be used when the subject and object refer to different individuals:

So, for example, “Juan saw Juan” means that one person named Juan saw another person named Juan, and “The teacher saw the teacher” means that one teacher saw a second teacher, just as in the corresponding English sentences. Most Zapotec sentences with this type of structure have two quite different meanings, just like these examples.

Repetition with possessors and prepositional objects. Sentences like these “saw” ones aren’t really too common, however. In Zapotec, it is more common to use repetition patterns in sentences where the possessor of an object is the same as the subject, like those you saw in Lecsyony Tsëda:

Just as in the reflexive sentences, these sentences repeat names and nouns that refer to the same individual or individuals — but these repeated names and nouns can also be interpreted as referring to someone different.

Many cases where you might expect to use a reflexive word like himself or herself in English use the repeated possessor pattern in Zapotec. For example, in English we can say Pedro cut himself, but in Zapotec it’s best to say which part of the body was cut:

Similarly, in English we say Elena saw herself in the mirror. In Zapotec, though, the best way to say “sees” is with a prepositional object, as in

(In Zapotec we say lo gyigwan rather than using lany, perhaps because the image is “on” the surface of the mirror rather than “inside” it.) Even though we use the reflexive word herself in the English translation here, the second Lia Len here is not a regular object, but a prepositional object.

Although the repetition of the subjects in the reflexive object pattern (the “saw himself” sentences) and the reflexive possessor-prepositional object patterns look similar, they don’t work exactly the same. As you learned in Lecsyony Tsëda, you can use the special “own” pronoun –ni for the reflexive possessors and prepositional objects:

When you use –ni, the sentences have only the meaning that the possessors and prepositional objects are the same as the subjects — they can’t refer to two different individuals with the same names

However, you can’t use a pronoun to substitute for the second Jwany in “Juan saw himself”:

When the subject is a noun or name and the object is a pronoun, they can’t refer to the same individual!

Reflexive, reflexive possessor, and reflexive prepositional object sentences with pronoun subjects. As you know, subject and object pronouns are different, so repetition can’t be used to show that the subject and object are the same in a reflexive sentence.

Once again, though, the subject may be the same as the object, or different. The same is true with pronoun subjects and reflexive prepositional objects and possessors:

The second Zapotec sentence here and its English translation both have two meanings — they can mean “She cut her own hand” or “She cut her (someone else’s) hand”. (Of course, the Zapotec sentence can also mean “He cut his hand” (two meanings) or “He cut her hand”, and so on, since Zapotec does not make the same distinction that English does between “he” and “she”.) But in every case, the sentence can be used both if the subject and the hand’s possessor are the same or if they’re different. (What’s important is that both the subject pronoun and the possessor pronoun need to be the same — you shouldn’t use a proximate subject pronoun and a distal possessor pronoun, for example.)

As you learned in Lecsyony Tsëda, the special “own” pronoun –ni can’t be used to show that a possessor or prepositional object is the same as a subject pronoun.

Lag and reflexives. Speakers often use the word lag [làa’g], which means something like “self”, to clarify a reflexive meaning. There are two lag patterns.

In the first lag reflexive pattern, the subject is focused and preceded by lag:

If the subject is a pronoun, lag is followed by a bound pronoun:

(Of course, you still need the bound subject pronoun on the verb, as you always do with a pronoun subject!)

In the second lag reflexive pattern, lag precedes an object noun:

You can use the first lag pattern in reflexive possessor and prepositional object sentences:

However, the second lag pattern can’t be used with possessors or prepositional objects.

§23.7. Reciprocals

Reciprocal sentences with sa. Look at the following sentences:

These are RECIPROCAL “each other” sentences, in which members of a plural subject direct the action of the sentence at the other members of their group. (“One another” is another way to express the same meaning in English.) Reciprocal meaning is shown in Zapotec by sa [sa’ah] (the same as the word for “relative”), which is followed by either a repetition of the subject (if the subject is a noun) or by a bound pronoun.

If the subject is a plural noun, you can use sani instead of repeating the subject.

You can also use sa with reciprocal possessed objects:

Sa follows the possessed noun, followed by either a repetition of the subject noun or a bound pronoun.

The same thing happens with reciprocal prepositional objects:

Reciprocal sentences with –sa. Compare the following pairs of reciprocal sentences:

These pairs of sentences illustrate two reciprocal patterns. The first sentence in each pair is a basic reciprocal sentence like those you practiced in Tarea Xon, where the object begins with sa plus a copy of the subject noun or a bound pronoun:

The second sentence in each pair uses a different pattern. These sentences don’t include objects. They have only a verb plus a subject, but the verb ends in the reciprocal extender –sa [sa’ah], which turns the verb it is attached to into a CB verb.

Both of these two patterns are good ways to express sentences with reciprocal objects. However, the second pattern, with the –sa extender, cannot be used to express sentences with reciprocal possessors or reciprocal prepositional objects.

Abbreviations

aux. auxiliary

sub. subjunctive

Prefixes

n- [n] (sub. verb prefix, used before hab. bases starting with consonants)

ny- [ny] (sub. verb prefix, used before hab. bases starting with vowels)