412

as statements of desirability or possibility, e. g.
'Why don't you give?', ‘You should marry your contem-
porary’. For these speakers the Desiderative is not a
cautionary unless the independent suffix -raki also
occurs in the sentence. Compare the following from a
folk tale about a fox and a lake bird (wallata) told in
Compi in the late 1960s:

Sikuya.ya pik.t'.itasma, kayfa.raki pik.t'.itasma.
thorn pierce 31 spine pierce

D-1

‘Thorns don't you pierce me, spines don't you pierce me.'
(L. Martin-Barber, Hardman et al. 1975:3.97)

In editing the story for publication another speaker from
Compi replaced the sentence suffix -ya on the first word

with another -raki, giving the following:

Sikuya.rak pik.t'.itasma, kayna.raki pik.t'.itasma.

(L. Martin-Barber, Hardman et al. 1975:3.101)

Another example from the La Paz area is

Jagi.ru.rak ach.ja.ya.s.ka.sma.
people bite cause 23
D-1

'Be careful you don't let them bite people. '
(Hardman et al. 1975:1.208)