Fróðskaparrit - 01.01.1987, Side 42

Fróðskaparrit - 01.01.1987, Side 42
46 THE FAROESE AUXILIARY VERB MUNNA two are complicated unnecessarily by the inclusion of halda and hugsa ’think, be- lieve’. Thus (3) repeated as: (10) Hanus mundi vinna, haldi eg, tí hann er so kvikur means: ’Hanus most likely won, I think, because he’s so quick.’ If we omit haldi eg, the doubt is still conveyed by mundi, and we can render the resulting sentence: ’Hanus won, I suppose, because he’s so quick.’ In: (11) Tað mundi ikki vera sjáldan, at fátæk- ir menn fingu við til gávis Lockwood’s translation brings out the sense of mundi admirably, but if one re- places ’one may suppose’ by ’I suppose’ no violence is done to the Faroese original and a more consistent pattern (and thereby greater clarity) is achieved. The final ex- ample in this trio: (12) Eg hugsi, hon mundi detta is so context-free, that it is difficult to determine the precise meaning of mundi. That is presumably the reason for the be- wildering range of English equivalents offered. However, the inclusion of Eg hugsi presumably indicates that the basic ’I suppose’ sense is the one intended here, and the rendering: ’I think she most likely fell’ seems appropriate. In positive questions, as noted, munna normally expresses doubt about what is predicated of the subject (while also mark- ing tense), and Lockwood’s two examples, one direct and one indirect, illustrate this well. The translations, however, must be altered to something like: 'Did Tjaldur sail yesterday morning, I wonder?’, ’We ... asked each other what she might (possibly) be called’ (cf. Hvussu man hon eita? ’What is she called, I wonder?’); the function of munna will then be apparent. Nor, on its own, is there much of a problem about the first in the contrastive pair of negative questions that concludes Lockwood’s re- marks on munna: Once again munna marks tense, and the doubt it characteristi- cally expresses applies to the negation (’Was there really not a Faroeman ...?’); the writer is thus indirectly affirming his belief in the existence of a Faroeman com- petent to take part in the negotiations. The relationship of this to the second negative question and of that to the other examples of mundi, mundu + supine is more com- plex and requires the introduction of addi- tional examples. The use of munna to express doubt and mark tense is not restricted to the present and preterite, as shown by the following quotation (from Hammershaimb and Jakobsen 1891, 355): (13) Systirin grunaði væl á svarinum, Eirikur gav henni, at hann mundi hava dripið Símun ’The (i.e. his) sister suspected strong- ly from the answer Eirikur gave her that he had most likely killed Símun’ Similarly, Hann man hava dripið hana means: ’He has killed her, I suppose.’ In Faroese, as in all Scandinavian languages, the present tense can often denote future time. Thus, a sentence such as:
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