Page:A Concise Grammar of the Malagasy Language.djvu/56

atào (past, natào; future, hatào) ahòana, how? (implying difficulty or impossibility).

[literally, done how?]

atào can take as its agent either a suffix pronoun (as hatàoko ahòana, how can I do it?) or a noun (as, hatàon' nỳ òlona ahòana nò fandòsitra, 'how shall the people escape'? (literally, what shall the people do as regards a way of escape?) This last idiom is a common use of the modal noun.

D. Adverbs of place are very numerous. The following list shows fourteen of them, which are closely connected with the demonstrative pronouns both in form and in meaning:—

The chief adverbs of place are the following:

etỳ, èto, here; èo, ètsy, èny, eròa, erỳ, there;

atỳ, àto, here; ào, àtsy, àny, aròa, arỳ, there.

These different forms cannot be interchanged at pleasure, because the choice of one form rather than another depends upon the distance of the place spoken of.

The forms beginning with a belong rather to the vague and unseen, while those with e to what is seen, and clearly pointed out; as, atỳ an-tàny, here on earth; etỳ an-tànako, 'here in my hand'; aò am-bàta, in a box'; èo imàsonào, 'before your eyes'.

Repetition of adverbs of place sometimes occurs (as, àny an-èfitra àny, 'there in the desert'); but it is not compulsory, as in the case of demonstrative pronouns.

Tenses of Adverbs—The only two kinds of adverbs which