This lesson begins with questions (section §7.1). Subject proximal and distal pronouns are introduced in section §7.2, and sections §7.3 and §7.4 covers combination forms of verbs (to which these pronouns are attached) and their pronunciation. Free pronouns and their use as objects and focused subjects are described in section §7.5, and section §7.6 explains the use of free pronouns with cuan. Section §7.7 is a summary about pronoun use. Section §7.8 presents negative sentences.

^{Lecsyony 7, Video 1. (With Ana López Curiel.)}

Xiëru Zalo Ra Dizh

Turkeys are very important in Zapotec culture. In a small town like San Lucas Quiaviní, some turkeys are allowed to run free in the streets — and they know their way home. Budy ngual refers to a male turkey, while budy gwuar is more general term.

_{Fot Teiby xte Lecsyony Gaz. Chickens and a turkey in San Lucas Quiaviní.}

§7.1. Two Types of Questions

Question word questions. Here are some Zapotec questions, sentences used to ask for information or confirmation:

^{Lecsyony 7, Video 2. (With Geraldina López Curiel.)}

These questions start with the QUESTION WORDS tu “who” and xi “what”. QUESTION WORD QUESTIONS like these always start with a question word (Zapotec speakers don’t use questions corresponding to English Petra plays what? with the question word later in the sentence). There are other question words as well, which you’ll learn in later lessons.

A-yac questions. Zapotec (like other languages) actually has two types of questions. Here are some examples of the second type:

^{Lecsyony 7, Video 3. (With Geraldina López Curiel.)}

Both types of questions ask for information, but while the first type needs an answer that could be a noun or name (like Bdo or Cha guet) or a sentence (like Bdo rcaz cha guet or Cha guet rcaz bdo), the second type only requires an answer like a [àaa’] “yes” or yac [yaa’c] “no”. The first type is a question word question; we can call the second an A-YAC QUESTION (in English, these are sometimes called yes-no questions!). As you can see, the way to ask a Zapotec a-yac question is to put the QUESTION MARKER e [èee] at the end of the sentence that is used in the question.

The question marker e is pronounced with a rising tone (in a KPP pattern), which means that your voice goes up at the end of an a-yac question in a similar way to what happens with an English yes-no question. The rhythm of these questions is not exactly the same in English and Zapotec, though, so you should listen carefully to your teacher and try to make your e sound like theirs. Question word questions have a different rhythm, and do not use the question marker e. Try repeating both types of questions after your teacher.

Focus and question word questions. Look at the following question-word questions and answers:

^{Lecsyony 7, Video 4. (With Anda and Geraldina López Curiel.)}

As these pairs show, if you use a complete sentence to answer a question word question, the new information is usually focused. (In Zapotec, complete sentence answers are probably more common than they are in English.) In other words, just as the question word comes at the beginning of the question, the information that replaces it (bdo replacing tu, cha guet replacing xi, and so on) is focused, in the same position. (If you read the English question and answer pairs above aloud, you’ll hear focus emphasis on the underlined words in the answers, just as discussed in Lecsyony Gai.)

Focus in a-yac questions. A-yac questions work differently. It is less common to focus words in Zapotec a-yac questions than in ordinary sentences, and when words are focused in questions they are strongly emphatic. However, you will hear sometimes speakers use questions like:

^{Lecsyony 7, Video 5. (With Geraldina López Curiel.)}

Answers to questions like these don’t always involve focus. So the following could be a “yes” answer to both of the focus questions.

^{Lecsyony 7, Video 6. (With Geraldina López Curiel.)}

Adverbs like na, nai, and rata zhi (an adverb phrase) can also be focused in a-yac questions:

^{Lecsyony 7, Video 7. (With Geraldina López Curiel.)}

Because this is a very common sentence position for adverbs, adverbs at the beginning of a sentence are not necessarily strongly emphasized.

§7.2. Verbs with proximate and distal pronoun subjects

Words like English I, me, you, he, him, she, her, and it are PRONOUNS — they serve the same function as noun phrases (nouns, names, or longer phrases) in sentences (as subjects or objects), but either refer to participants in the conversation (I and me refer to the speaker, you to the hearer) or are used to refer to other people or items that can be identified by those participants.

In Zapotec, pronoun subjects are not separate words (as in English), but are attached as endings added to the verb stem. Here are some examples:

^{Lecsyony 7, Video 8. (With Geraldina López Curiel.)}

-Ëng ([ëng]) is a PROXIMATE (“prox.”) pronoun and -i ([ih]) a DISTAL (“dist.”) pronoun. Choose the proximate if you are referring to someone or something close by and easily visible. Use the distal if you are referring to someone or something farther away or out of sight. These pronouns are BOUND, because they must always be attached to something, such as the verbs in these examples. (Noun phrases containing re also make reference to the location of something relative to the speaker. However, unlike re phrases, the -ëng and -i pronouns are not emphatic or even strongly contrastive.)

As you can see from the examples, these Zapotec pronouns may be used to refer to both males and females, primarily people who are contemporaries or equals of the speaker. They can be translated with either English “he” or “she”. These Zapotec pronouns are GENDER NEUTRAL (able to refer to any gender), and some people might translate them using “they (sg.)”, as in the following example. (While we won’t translate singular pronouns with “they (sg.)” in this book, you should feel free to do so in your homework.)

^{Lecsyony 7, Video 9. (With Geraldina López Curiel.)}

The proximate and distal pronouns may also be used to refer to people you don’t know at all or who are not important to you. They can also refer to certain INANIMATE (non-living) items, as in

^{Lecsyony 7, Video 10. (With Geraldina López Curiel.)}

The “it” in these examples could be a book, a pen, or money, for example.

When you listen to your teacher, other speakers, or the people on the recordings, you’ll probably notice that when -i is added to words that end in y (like cazhuny in the examples) the y is not easy to hear. The combination of yi at the end of a Zapotec word often sounds pretty much like just i.

When you add -i or -ëng pronoun onto a verb that ends in the letter c, there is a spelling change:

^{Lecsyony 7, Video 11. (With Geraldina López Curiel.)}

The habitual stem of “gets better” is ryac, and the normal perfective stem is byac. However, c always is written as qu before i and ë (as explained in Lecsyony Tyop), so when you use an -i or -ëng subject for any form of this verb (or any other verb ending in c), the verb must be spelled with a qu. There’s no pronunciation change here — both c and qu are pronounced just the same in Zapotec. (The same spelling change happens with any pronoun or other verb ending beginning with i, ë, or e.)

The pronouns -i and -ëng are SINGULAR pronouns — they are only used to refer to one individual. You’ll learn PLURAL pronouns (used to refer to more than one individual) later. Zapotec pronoun usage is complicated. You’ll be learning more about this over the course of the next few lessons. Do not use proximate and distal pronouns to refer to highly respected people. These pronouns can be used to refer to children and animals, though there is another pronoun that can be used here as well. Most speakers also would not use proximate and distal pronouns to refer to water or tortillas, so you should not do this either. You’ll learn about how to use pronouns to refer to all of these people and items later.

Remember, all the Zapotec subject pronouns that you’ll learn must be attached to the verb of their sentence. They are not separate words, and they cannot appear in other positions in the sentence the way nouns can.

§7.3. Combination forms of verbs

If you compare any of the verbs with -ëng or -i pronoun subjects in section §7.1 with the normal habitual, perfective, or progressive forms of those verbs that you learned in Lecsyony Gai and Lecsyony Xop, you should not hear any difference between the verb used on its own (in its INDEPENDENT form) and the verb with the added pronoun subject. Verb bases with CB, KC, KCP, and KP VOWEL PATTERNS (the pattern of vowels in their key syllable, the last syllable of the independent form), for example, don’t change their pronunciation when pronoun subjects are attached. (If you’ve forgotten how to interpret a xa rni buny ra dizh “pronunciation guide” or what abbreviations like CB and KKC mean, you should review these concepts in Unida Teiby.)

We can refer to the form of a verb base that is used before a pronoun or other ending as that base’s COMBINATION form. The combination form of the verbs in the examples in section §7.1 is the same as their independent form, but the pronunciation of other verbs changes in the combination form. Whether there’s a change depends on the vowel pattern of the verb base. Listen as your teacher pronounces these examples of verbs that change in the combination form:

^{Lecsyony 7, Video 12. (With Ana López Curiel.)}

If you listen, you’ll hear that these verbs sound different when the pronoun subjects -ëng and -i are added. The verbs here have KKC vowel patterns ([ryu’lààa’z], [bsèèi’dy], and [casudììe’by]) in their independent form. (Recall that the vowel pattern is what you hear in the last syllable of the verb base.) Verbs like these whose base has a KKC vowel pattern change their vowel pattern to KC ([ryu’làa’z], [bsèi’dy], and [casudìe’by]) in the combination form.

Here is how it works. In the KKC verb base yulaz [yu’lààa’z], all the vowels of the pronunciation guide for the last syllable are the same, so it’s easy to change this to a KC pattern [yu’làa’z]. The KKC verb bases seidy and sudieby, however, have diphthongs in their last syllable ([sèèi’dy] and [sudììe’by]). In the combination form of a verb base containing a diphthong, the first element of the diphthong is represented by the first part of the combination form, and the second element by the second part. The diphthong in the verb base “learn” is ei, so the e must be a K vowel and the i must be a C vowel; in “boil”, the diphthong is ie, so the i must be a K vowel and the e must be a C vowel: the combination forms of these verbs are pronounced [sèi’dy] and [sudìe’by].

Rsubiaz “dries” is another example of a verb whose combination form is different from its independent form. The independent form of this verb has a BB vowel pattern ([subihahz]); in the combination form, this becomes a PB pattern ([subiahz]).

Below is a chart of independent and combination forms for the verb types you’ve worked with so far in these lessons. These are all verb bases that end in one or more consonants. The chart shows the vowel type for both the independent and the combination forms. Verbs above the shaded row in the chart do not change their pronunciation in the combination form. Verbs below the shaded row do change their pronunciation in the combination form. Each verb is given with a “He…” example using -i. (Sentences that need an object to be complete end in “…” in the chart.)

^{Lecsyony 7, Video 13. (With Geraldina López Curiel.)}

§7.4 More about pronunciation of verbs with pronoun subjects

In addition to combination form changes, some verbs have other pronunciation changes that vary according to what element is attached. Compare the verbs of the following three sentences:

^{Lecsyony 7, Video 14. (With Geraldina López Curiel.)}

Listen carefully as your teacher says each sentence, paying special attention to the bany base of each verb. Wbany [wbahnny] and wbanyi [wbahnnyih] have similar vowel patterns (each verb’s key syllable contains a B breathy vowel, with a low tone), since the combination form of a verb with a B vowel pattern in its independent form is unchanged. On the other hand, the base of wbanyëng [wbàa’nyëng] has a different vowel pattern (a KC combination, with a falling tone).

The distal pronoun -i can be added to the combination form of any verb whose base ends in a consonant with no other pronunciation change. Some verbs, however, change their pronunciations when -ëng is added. Rbany is one verb of this type.

You’ll learn more about combination forms and other changes in verbs with pronoun subjects in later lessons.

From now on, we will not always specify “this one” and “that one” in translations for the proximate and distal pronouns. For instance, we could translate the last two sentences above as

or as

There is no association between either the proximate pronoun or the distal pronoun and a particular choice of “he” or “she”. Remember to choose the pronoun that is appropriate in a given context, according to the distance and visibility of the person or item referred to.

§7.5. Free pronouns

As you’ve seen, “he”, “she” and “it” proximate and distal subjects must be attached to a verb. Here are some examples of sentences with “him”, “her”, and “it” objects:

^{Lecsyony 7, Video 15. (With Ana López Curiel.)}

The pronouns lai ([la’ài’]) and laëng ([la’a-ëng]) are the distal and proximate FREE pronouns. Unlike bound pronouns, free pronouns do not have to be attached to another word. Free pronouns can be used as objects, as in the above sentences, in the normal position for objects, following the subject of the sentence (either a noun phrase or a bound pronoun). (Laëng has a hyphen in its pronunciation guide, indicating that this word has two syllables, as explained in §4.2. Listen carefully as your teacher says it. It may sound like one syllable to you (the ë is hard to hear!), but if you contrast it with other words with the CP pattern, you’ll hear the difference.)

Another way to use free pronouns is when you want to focus a pronoun subject, as in the following examples:

^{Lecsyony 7, Video 16. (With Ana López Curiel.)}

These sentences are different from the focus sentences you’ve seen up to now. When a pronoun subject is focused, the sentence must contain not only the focused free pronoun at the beginning of the sentence, but also the bound pronoun subject attached to the verb. You can never begin a sentence with a focused free pronoun subject without including a bound subject pronoun attached to the verb.

A good way to think of how this works is to remember that any verb with a pronoun subject must have a bound pronoun attached to it. Free pronouns are never used after verbs to indicate subjects. The bound pronoun attached to the verb is what tells you what the subject is. Adding a focused version of the pronoun at the beginning of the sentence is extra. A free pronoun can never be the only indicator of the subject of a sentence that contains a verb.

As the examples here show, free pronouns may be translated as either subjects or objects — “he”, “him”, “she”, “her”, and “it” are all good translations for these pronouns.

Free pronoun objects cannot be focused. When the object of a sentence is a pronoun, it must come after the subject (or after the verb, if the subject is focused).

_{Fot Tyop xte Lecsyony Gaz. Goats in San Miguel del Valle.}

In sentences like these, the pronoun used after cuan is a free pronoun. (Some people might refer to the noun or pronoun following cuan as the object of cuan.)

When there is a pronoun subject ending, that ending comes after the negative particle -di on the verb. Before a pronoun that begins with a vowel, -di becomes -dy [dy].

^{Lecsyony 7, Video 19. (With Geraldina López Curiel.)}

(Both subject pronouns that you’ve learned in this lesson, -ëng and -i, start with vowels, so you will always use -dy before these pronoun subjects. However, some other pronouns start with consonants, as you will see later.) If you listen to the pronunciation of verbs like bdeidy that change in the combination form before -di, you’ll hear that the combination form is used before -di, as before any ending. Here’s the new pattern:

In the diagram, hyphens appear between verbs and -di and also between -di and bound subject pronouns, just so that the columns will line up.

Negative questions. Questions usually use a different negative sentence pattern, as you can see in the following examples:

^{Lecsyony 7, Video 20. (With Geraldina López Curiel.)}

As these examples show, the -di ending is usually not used on the verbs in questions. The pattern is

(You may hear some speakers using -di somewhat differently in certain types of sentences. Listen carefully, and notice what your teacher says!)

Negative sentences with a copied subject. You cannot focus a noun phrase or pronoun in a negative sentence using the normal focus patterns you’ve learned in this unit. However, sometimes speakers will begin a negative sentence with a copy of the subject noun phrase or pronoun, as follows:

^{Lecsyony 7, Video 21. (With Geraldina López Curiel.)}

As the second example shows, this works even if the subject noun phrase includes re. Another way to do the same thing is to use a noun phrase at the beginning of the sentence, but a pronoun (referring to the same individual) for the subject after the verb, as in

^{Lecsyony 7, Video 22. (With Geraldina López Curiel.)}

These sentences are something like English sentences like “The boy, he didn’t run”, “As for him, is he jumping?”, “That teacher, he’s not teaching Zapotec”, or “Pedro, he doesn’t speak English well” — but not exactly.

This kind of sentence is more common in Zapotec than in English, so it’s useful to practice using it.

Prefixes, Endings, and Particles

-ëng [ëng] he, she, it (proximate singular bound pronoun)

-i [ih] he, she, it (distal singular bound pronoun)

-di [di’] (negative particle)

-dy [dy] (form of -di used before bound pronouns beginning with vowels

Abbreviations

dist. distal

prox. proximate