Fróðskaparrit - 01.01.1987, Page 39

THE FAROESE AUXILIARY VERB MUNNA
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When followed by the supine the past tense expresses
the idea of »nearly, almost, hardly«:
Tarvurin mundi dripið meg. The bull nearly (almost)
killed me.
Tey mundu ikki kent meg. They hardly knew me.
Contrast the meaning of the following sentences:
Eg hugsi, hon mundi detta. I think she fell, would fall,
has fallen.
Eghugsi, hon mundi dottið. I think she nearly fell.
Mundi eingin Føroyingur vera førur fyri at taka lut í
hesum samráðinguml Was there not a Faroeman com-
petent to take part in these discussions?
Mundi eingin Føroyingur verið førur fyri at tikið lut í
hesum samráðingum'! Would not a Faroeman have
been competent to take part in these discussions?
Clearly, it is always difficult to explain
the use of modal auxiliaries in a few lines,
but where brevity is the keyword, two basic
requirements, it seems to me, ought to be
fulfilled. First, the essential meaning or
meanings of the auxiliary must be put
across as unambiguously as possible.
Second, the exemplification must support
the description and provide typical and
clear instances of the contexts in which one
may expect to find and use the verb in
question. As I shall try to show, Lock-
wood’s account fails in both respects.
The statement: »munna ... means ’may,
can, I suppose’ etc.« - together with the
initial examples — is a reasonable prelimi-
nary, but by providing English equivalents
at the outset, Lockwood erroneously
suggests that these will normally suffice to
render munna into English. What is lacking
here is a brief account of the main semantic
area the verb covers. This is all the more
essential in that without it Lockwood’s next
suggestion, that ’will, would’ provide suit-
able English renderings of man, mundi, is
likely to lead most readers astray. Like
many auxiliary verbs English ’will, would’
can have numerous different meanings,
and it is not clear from what Lockwood
says, nor from his examples, which mean-
ing or meanings the pair has when trans-
lating munna. The suggestion does seem to
be made, though, that whatever their sense
the one thing they do not express is doubt:
»Even though munna usually expresses
an element of uncertainty, it may also
correspond to English ’will’.«
It is not too hard to gauge the general
sense of the examples:
(1) Tað man óivað vera beinari
(2) Vit kendu hana ikki og skiftu lágmælt-
ir orð um, hvussu hon mundi eita
The precise function of man and mundi
remains somewhat obscure, but the adverb
óivað in (1) and the two initial clauses in (2)
indicate the approximate semantic area in
which we are moving, and it is possible to
envisage certain types of context in which
this use of munna might be appropriate.
Considerably more impenetrable are two
of the further examples, and their lack of
an obvious context amply reveals the in-
adequacy of the suggested English rende-
ring of munna:
(3) Flanus mundi vinna, haldi eg, tí hann
er so kvikur
(4) Mundi »Tjaldrið« fara í gjáramorg-
unin?
As a native speaker of English, I find the
use of ’would’ here at best opaque. My stu-
dents have tended to take ’Hanus would
win’ as part of a conditional construction,
while ’Would »The Oyster Catcher« sail
yesterday morning?’ seemed to them un-
interpretable. In the absence of further