Chapter 107Kuni, Indirect Complements, and Purpose Clauses

107.1 Kuni before a predicate of speech or thought

Kuni can introduce content that is intended, expected, inferred, or desired. It often occurs before ramu ‘think’ or ye ‘say’ Satō (2008: 119)Nakagawa (2024: 476–477). These meanings include future-oriented statements, but the construction also supports inference about an existing situation.

The label COMP identifies the linking function in these examples. Their modal readings come from the source's account of the construction; it would be misleading to assign one tense value to every occurrence of kuni.

107.2 Kunak and yak in indirect reports

Nakagawa describes kunak with prospective or inferred content. One example concerns men who conclude that a woman is the sole survivor, unaware that she has hidden her younger brother Nakagawa (2024: 477, example 1111). This inference concerns the current situation.

His yak examples report a dream already experienced or an inference about an event being observed Nakagawa (2024: 477–478). Bugaeva, while reporting Tamura's association of kuni with future events and yak with past ones, also records yak with present and future content Bugaeva (2008: 67–68). The temporal tendencies therefore need source and constructional qualification.

Nakagawa further distinguishes indirect-complement yak from conditional yakne: the latter cannot simply replace it as the indirect-speech marker in his description Nakagawa (2024: 478). The forms' other clause-linking uses do not make their complement uses interchangeable.

107.3 Reporting an instruction

An instruction can be reported through a causative predicate followed by kusu ye. Nakagawa contrasts this with a directly quoted imperative Nakagawa (2024: 478–479).

The published direct counterpart has ahun ‘come in’ or polite ahup yan. The indirect frame changes the predicate to a causative and assigns person reference from the reporting context. It is a distinct construction from a bare verb followed by kuni.

107.4 Purpose linkage with kunine

Kunine also links an action to its intended result or purpose. Refsing describes this in Shizunai, where her material contains it less often than purpose kusu Refsing (1986: 252–253).

Satō also gives Chitose na a=nuno kunine itak, an instruction to speak so that people can hear better Satō (2008: 54). Refsing tentatively connects kunine with kuni and the copula. Her historical suggestion concerns this linker; the examples establish purpose linkage between predicates.

107.5 Prospective nominal expressions

Kuni can occur before p/pe in a nominal expression. Nakagawa's e=e kuni p identifies food intended for the addressee to eat, within a statement that it has been stored in the house Nakagawa (2024: 443, example 996). Such a phrase can refer to a concrete prospective object rather than an abstract duty.

Bugaeva offers a morphological analysis of kun-i-p under modal nominal expressions, marking the proposed obligation meaning of its first component as uncertain Bugaeva (2016: 102). That analysis and the attested meanings of complete constructions should remain distinct. Prospective, inferential, and directive readings depend on the surrounding predicates and discourse.