Fróðskaparrit - 01.01.1987, Qupperneq 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: