7. Modal sentence connection: the causals

   ri'a    BAI rinka modal: physical cause
    ki'u    BAI krinu modal: justification
    mu'i    BAI mukti modal: motivation
    ni'i    BAI nibli modal: logical entailment

7.1)  le spati cu banro
        ri'a le nu
            do djacu dunda fi le spati
    the plant grows
        with-physical-cause the event-of
            you water give to the plant.
    The plant grows because you water it.

7.2)   la djan. cpacu le pamoi se jinga
        ki'u le nu la djan. jinga
    John gets the first prize
        with-justification the event-of John wins.
    John got the first prize because he won.

7.3)   mi lebna le cukta
        mu'i le nu mi viska le cukta
    I took the book
        with-motivation the event-of I saw the book.
    I took the book because I saw it.

7.4)  la sokrates. morsi binxo
        ni'i le nu la sokrates. remna
    Socrates dead-became
        with-logical-justification Socrates is-human.
    Socrates died because Socrates is human.

As written, Example 7.1 claims that the plant grows, but only refers to the event of watering it in an abstraction bridi (abstractions are explained in Chapter 11) without actually making a claim. If I express Example 7.1, I have said that the plant in fact grows, but I have not said that you actually water it, merely that there is a causal relationship between watering and growing. This is semantically asymmetrical. Suppose I wanted to claim that the plant was being watered, and only mention its growth as ancillary information? Then we could reverse the main bridi and the abstraction bridi, saying:

7.5)  do djacu dunda fi le spati
        seri'a le nu ri banro
    You water-give to the plant
        with-physical-effect it grows.
    You water the plant; therefore, it grows.

7.6)  le nu do djacu dunda fi le spati cu rinka
        le nu le spati cu banro
    The event-of (you water-give to the plant) causes
        the event-of (the plant grows).
    Your watering the plant causes its growth.
    If you water the plant, then it grows.

Suppose we wish to claim both events as well as their causal relationship? We can use one of two methods:

7.7)  le spati cu banro .iri'abo do djacu dunda fi le spati
    The plant grows.  Because you water-give to the plant.
    The plant grows because you water it.

7.8)   do djacu dunda fi le spati
        .iseri'abo le spati cu banro
    You water-give to the plant.
        Therefore it grows.
    You water the plant; therefore, it grows.

The compound cmavo ``.iri'abo'' and ``.iseri'abo'' serve to connect two bridi, as the initial ``.i'' indicates. The final ``bo'' is necessary to prevent the modal from ``taking over'' the following sumti. If the ``bo'' were omitted from Example 7.7 we would have:

7.9)  le spati cu banro
        .i ri'a do djacu dunda
            fi le spati
    The plant grows.
        Because of you, [something] water-gives
            to the plant.
    The plant grows.  Because of you, water is given
        to the plant.

Because ``ri'a do'' is a modal sumti in Example 7.9, there is no longer an explicit sumti in the x1 place of ``djacu dunda'', and the translation must be changed.

The effect of sentences like Example 7.7 and Example 7.8 is that the modal, ``ri'a'' in this example, no longer modifies an explicit sumti. Instead, the sumti is implicit, the event given by a full bridi. Furthermore, there is a second implication: that the first bridi fills the x2 place of the gismu ``rinka''; it specifies an event which is the effect. I am therefore claiming three things: that the plant grows, that you have watered it, and that there is a cause-and-effect relationship between the two.

In principle, any modal tag can appear in a sentence connective of the type exemplified by Example 7.7 and Example 7.8. However, it makes little sense to use any modals which do not expect events or other abstractions to fill the places of the corresponding gismu. The sentence connective ``.ibaubo'' is perfectly grammatical, but it is hard to imagine any two sentences which could be connected by an ``in-language'' modal. This is because a sentence describes an event, and an event can be a cause or an effect, but not a language.