Fróðskaparrit - 01.01.1987, Qupperneq 43

THE FAROESE AUXILIARY VERB MUNNA
47
(14) Hann man eta kjøt
can mean: ’He eats meat [regularly], I
reckon’, ’He is eating meat [now], I
reckon’, or ’He’ll/he’s going to eat meat, I
reckon’. Future time is also implicit in
straightforward conditionals, in which
munna may sometimes be used, e.g.
(Hammershaimb and Jakobsen 1891,330);
(15) Og tók hann stórafjós av og breyt
niður, mundi tað verða honum og
øðrum til meina
’And if he took [the] big byre away
and pulled [it] down, it would surely
be of him and others to [the] suffering
(i.e., it would surely bring suffering
upon him and others)’
— a reported speech equivalent of the
direct:
(16) Og tekur tú stórafjós av og brýtur
niður, man tað verða tær og øðrum til
meina
’And if you take [the] big byre away
and pull [it] down, it will surely be of
you and others to [the] suffering’
In conditionals, mundi, mundu when
followed by an infinitive thus correspond to
English ’would’ (with the added feature
[+ doubt]) in contrast to non-conditionals
such as (10-12) where they simply denote
uncertainty and mark tense. Naturally, if
mundi, mundu + infinitive is the non-con-
ditional preterite equivalent of a present-
tense Verb Phrase with future meaning, it
will correspond (leaving aside the main
semantic feature [+ doubt]) neither to a
simple past nor (unambiguously) to
’would’ in English, but rather to ’was going
to’, as in:
(17) Guðrun bað hann steðga eina løtu -
maðurin mundi vera skjótur aftur
’Guðrun asked him [to] stay a bit -
the (i.e., her) husband was doubtless
going to be quick back (i.e., return
quickly)’
Counter-factual conditionals in Faroese
may also involve the use of the preterite of
munna, but in this case combined with a
supine rather than an infinitive, e.g.
(Jakobsen 1898-1901, 165):
(18) Soleiðis gekk tað eina langa tíð, og
idla mundi verið burtur úr, um ikki
ein maður, Sakaris nevndur ... hevði
hildið seg mentan at beina trødlið
burtur
’Thus it went [on for] a long time, and
bad would doubtless have been out
of, if not a man, Sakaris named, had
reckoned himself capable to clear the
troll away (i.e., bad would doubtless
have come of it, if a man named
Sakaris had not reckoned himself
capable of getting rid of the troll)’
It seems normally to be possible in such
conditionals to insert either the infinitive or
the supine of the auxiliary hava ’have’
between mundi, mundu and the supine of
the lexical verb. In the case of (18) this
would give: idla mundi hava verið buriur úr
or idla mundi havt verið burtur úr. The
double supine construction appears to be
the more common, possibly because other-
wise there would be identity of form with
the different function of mundi hava exem-