The copulative conjunction iyo – ‘and’ only connects nouns (wiil iyo gabadh – a boy and a girl; shan iyo toban – five and ten, i.e. fifteen).
The conjunction ama – ‘or’ can link nouns:
(3) Guriga ama xafiiska kaalay – Come home or to the office.
The complex conjunction ama…ama – ‘either…or’ can connect verbs:
(4) Ama tag ama joog – Either go away or stay
and nouns:
(5) Ama lacag ama dehab – Either money or gold.
The conjunction oo – ‘and’ can link verbs:
(6) Way maqleen oo garteen – They heard and understood
while the conjunctions oo and ee link homogeneous attributes, oo being used with indefinite and ee with definite nouns: Faras qurxoon oo orod dheer – A beautiful (and) fast horse; Faraskii sarkaalka ee weynaa – The big horse of the officer (lit.: the horse of the officer and big). The conjunctions na, se – ‘and’, ‘but’ can occupy any place in a sentence and often adjoins a sentence particle.
0.3.7. There are three series of personal pronouns: full emphatic (aniga – I, adiga – you sing., isaga /asaga, usaga in some dialects/ – he, iyada – she, annaga – we excl., innaga – we incl., idinka – you pl., iyaga/ayaga – they); clipped emphatic (ani – I, adi – you sing., etc.) and short subjective (aan – I, aad – you sing., uu – he, ay – she, aan/nu – we excl., aynu – we incl., aad /variant aydin/ – you pl., ay – they). The pronouns can take all cases except the vocative. The nominative case marker of the emphatic pronouns is the morpheme -u, which is always optional. The full emphatic pronouns can play the roles of the subject and object of the predicate of the main clause. They adjoin the definite article, and follow the general rules for nouns.
If a short subjective pronoun is present in the main clause it usually immediately follows a sentence particle. The functions of the subjective pronouns and the rules of their combination with the sentence particles are investigated in detail in the main part of this work.
The preverbal markers of the object are the short objective pronouns (i – me, ku – you, thee, na – us excl., ina – us incl., idin – you pl., is – self) and the so-called second objective pronouns, whose role is played by the possessive pronouns without articles (kay – my, kaa – your sing., kayo – our excl., keen – our incl., and kiin – your pl.) When a certain object is designated the presence of the corresponding short pronoun is obligatory. In the Maxaad-tiri dialects the 3rd person, both singular and plural, of the short objective pronouns is expressed by a zero marker. The short objective (non-zero) pronouns exclude each other by one and the same verb. Where it is necessary to designate two objects simultaneously the second set of objective pronouns is used:
(7) Wuu iiga (i+u +ka) kaa warramay – He told me about you (sing.) [lit.: yours].
The same thought can be expressed with the help of the full (emphatic) pronouns: Wuxuu aniga iiga warramay adiga. However, it must be noted that this introduces an amendment to the rule about the compulsory supplementing of any explicitly expressed objects with the corresponding short objective pronouns: here the second full pronoun adiga – ‘you’ is not supplemented with the corresponding short one, because ku – ‘you’ is incompatible with i – me).[5] The short objective pronouns belong to the system of preverbal particles which determines their place in the sentence.
0.3.8. A sentence particle together with the indefinite personal pronoun la – ‘one’, ‘someone’ forms a construction which corresponds to the passive voice in other languages.
(8) Geelii waa la xaday – The camels were stolen [lit.: Somebody stole the camels]. Here the pronoun la is the subject and is identical to the 3rd person masculine singular.
0.3.9. The pronoun ay – ‘she’, in the meaning of the impersonal subject, can be attributed to the short subjective pronouns:
(9) Waa [ay] tahay – All right [lit.: She is].
The pronoun ay is used mainly with the sentence particles waa and waxaa. In constructions with waa it is dropped even if it is the only representative of the subject, as in example (9), and not
(10) *Way tahay.[6]
In combination with the SP waxaa it conforms to the rules concerning the use of the subject pronouns with this sentence particle (see chapter 3):
(11) Waxaa jirta in Golaha Ammaanka ee UQM uu ka kooban yahay xubno joogto ah iyo kuwo ku-meel-gaar ah – The fact [lit.: She] is that the UN Security Council consists of permanent and non-permanent members;
(12) Taasuna waxay [waxaa + ay] tahay in dad badan oo Soomaali ahi ay ka guureen dalkooda – So it [lit.: she] is that many Somalis have left their country.
It is necessary to add that sometimes ay is substituted by the pronoun uu – ‘he’ or the homonymic ay with the meaning of ‘they’ (for example Waa [uu] yahay, with the same meaning as in 9).
0.3.10. On the whole, the order of words in an independent simple affirmative sentence in Somali is defined by the placing of the following main components, of which the first two are obligatory:
1) A verb (more exactly, a predicate in general) with preceding particles;
2) A sentence particle;
3) Nouns (a subject and objects, including objects in the role of an adverbial modifier of place, manner etc.) followed by their attributes;
4) Adverbial modifiers of time;
5) A short subjective pronoun.
It should be noted, however, that
a) the sentence particle always precedes the predicate[7];
b) the subjective pronoun almost always precedes the predicate and always follows the sentence particle, often immediately;
c) in the framework of the above-stated rules, nouns and adverbial modifiers can in practice occupy almost any place in regard to other components and each other (Zholkovsky, 1966, pp.143-144).
Within the limits of the above-mentioned rules, the order of words depends on the choice of sentence particle, the placement rules of which are described in the corresponding sections of the book.
0.3.11. The predicate agrees with the subject in gender, person and number, but not every form distinguishes all these categories. Only the forms of the 3rd person singular are opposed by gender (masculine and feminine). It is true that Bell (1953) considers that in the plural there are also verbal forms of both masculine and feminine gender. The latter, in his opinion, are generated by conjugation of the verbs, the subjects of which are plural feminine nouns differing from the corresponding masculine singular forms either by tone (when undefined) or by an article:
awr-ka (burden camel) – awr-ta (burden camels);
dibi-ga (ox) – dibi-da (oxen);
orgi-ga (he-goat) – orgi-da (he-goats);
carab-ka (Arab) – carab-ta (Arabs).
Besides this small group there are feminine plural nouns which are normally used in the singular:
marti-da – guests;
Soomaali-da – Somalis;
Xabashi-da – Ethiopians etc. and also the plural forms of some nouns borrowed from Arabic:
nijaar-ka (carpenter) – nijaariin-ta (carpenters);
askari-ga (soldier) – askar-ta (soldiers) and others.
Nevertheless, in all the cases given above the derivation of the verbs results in forms identical to those which emerge when the subjects are expressed by the feminine nouns in the singular.
Thus verbs in the plural mainly tie up with plural nouns, and verbs in the singular of the corresponding gender, with singular nouns. The regular exclusions are connected to the use of the SPs baa and waxaa.
Depending on the role of the subject in the sentence (whether it is the rheme or not), there are two types of agreement of subject with predicate: “complete” (type I) and “clipped” or “restricted” (type II).
Type I is characterized by the maximum distinction of all categories in all forms (persons, genders, numbers, modalities). It occurs when the logical accent is not placed on the subject (i.e. when the sentence contains the SP waa or when the SP baa or waxaa joins a short subjective pronoun).
Type II does not distinguish numbers in the forms of the 3rd person of the usual verbs and singular persons of the attributive verbs (apart from the 3rd person feminine in any of the Past Tenses). It is used when the verb agrees with the subject of the main clause which is stressed by the SP baa (ayaa, yaa) or waxaa (i.e. when a sentence contains the SP baa or waxaa without a short subjective pronoun).
0.4. Sentence particles and the focus system in the Somali language.
The sentence particles from the paradigm of waa (variant – aa), baa (variants –ayaa/yaa/aa) and waxaa, by means of which the focus system in the overwhelming majority of Somali dialects is realized, is investigated in this work. Focus (in other terminologies rheme, comment) plays an important role in Somali grammar. It is understood as a component of the actual division of the sentence which contains new information about the theme (topic), that is the initial point of the message or, according to Mathesius (1939), “the starting point of the utterance”.
However, I am aware of the vulnerability of the notion that a theme does not contain any novelty but is only “a binding link” between the sentence and the context. As has been shown in the works of Russian and other linguists, information is created by the dynamic combination of the theme and the rheme, i.e. by the proposition as a whole (Krušel’nickaya, 1956; Halliday, 1970; Nikolayeva, 1978; Ševlyakova, 1980; Padučeva, 1988).
According to Chafe (1976), the old information (‘given’) becomes apparent in a weaker and more softened form than the new (‘new’). In addition, a certain unit can be given or can be new, depending on whether the speaker thinks that it is present in the consciousness of the listener at the moment of the utterance of the sentence. The works of the representatives of the Czech school (Fibras, 1966 et al.) have investigated the notion of communicative dynamism, the lower degree of which is inherent in the given and the higher degree in the new.
While I am well aware that fruitful results can be obtained from a many-sided approach to investigating the problems of focus, I consider it necessary to concentrate, at the present stage of Somali language studies, on the immediate task, that is the elucidation of the surface manifestations of the mechanism of rheme-making. This task is worked out through two interrelated plans: synchrony (on the material of non- clichéized sentences) and diachrony (on the material of proverbial structures).
0.4.1.The presence of a sentence particle in practically every independent simple affirmative sentence is a distinguishing feature of the Somali syntax. The sentence particle predicatises the sentence, which would otherwise turn into an attributive construction, and places a logical accent on one of its members:
(13) Ninkii yimid – The man who came, but
(14) Ninkii waa yiimid – The man came or
(15) Ninkii baa yimid – The man came or
(16) Waxaa yimid nin – A man came.
The meaning of what is said here is that in Somali the so-called actual division of the sentence is grammatically obligatory, is expressed by a special particle and is inseparable from the predication itself.
The predicative SP waa makes the verb (the predicate) into the rheme. The nominative baa and waxaa (each in its own way) attract attention to every dependent member of the first rank (DFR) – subject, objects or adverbial modifiers of time, manner etc.
Thus the sentence particle in Somali realizes several types of focus: predicative, agent- and patient-actantial, and circumstantial.
In some sentences it is possible to use two particles: baa (ayaa) and waxaa. The combination of the SP waa with baa or waxaa is prohibited.
In some texts, especially the folkloristic ones often used in this investigation, one may come across phrases which seem to refute this postulate:
(17) Cigaal Shiidaad waa fuley baad barateen – You have learnt [that] Igal Shidad is a coward.
But here the compatibility of the sentence particles waa and baa (used with the short subjective pronoun of the 2nd person singular aad) is imaginary. The first part of the sentence (Cigaal Shiidaad waa fuley), which has the shape of an independent syntagm and for this reason contains a sentence particle, plays the role of an object which is here stressed by baa – the single sentence particle of the whole sentence.
(18) Waxaad u baratay waa baaskaa – What will ruin you is what you have got accustomed to [lit.: The thing to which you have got accustomed will ruin you]. (Proverb)
This proverb contains only one sentence particle – waa. As for the lexeme waxaad, which coincides in form with the sentence particle used with the short subjective pronoun of the 2nd person singular aad (waxaa + aad = waxaad), it can be seen from the literal translation that it consists of the word wax, which means ‘a thing’ and the same short subjective pronoun (wax + aad = waxaad).
(19) Waxaan daacad ahayni dib bay ka xumaadaan – He who acts treacherously harms himself [lit.: What is not honest harms itself]. (Proverb)
In this proverb the form waxaan, which looks like the SP waxaa together with the short subjective pronoun of the 1st person singular aan (waxaa + aan = waxaan), creates the illusion of the presence of the two sentence particles waxaa and baa, the latter adjoining the short subjective pronoun of the 3rd person plural ay (baa + ay = bay). But in fact baa is the single sentence particle here, while waxaan presents a synthesis of the word wax from the previous example used as the plural (things) and the negative particle aan (wax + aan = waxaan – the things which are not). It is also necessary to take into account that the sentence particles baa and waxaa follow each other in this order when they are used in the same sentence.
Sentence particles always precede the predicate, waa precedes it immediately.
0.4.2. Another focus system is found in the May and Digil dialects; it is characterized by the absence of verb focusing (and correspondingly the SP waa) and by the non-combinability of the SP baa and its variants ba, iyaa, aya, ya and others with short subjective pronouns.