juna
Doing Something to Each Other
Use juna alone or with a plural possessor.
How It Works
Juna expresses ‘each other’ or ‘one another’. It can occur alone or with plural possessors: junanmu identifies a group including the speaker, junanku the addressed group, and junansu a third-person group. The subject or conversation makes the participants recoverable; a possessive ending is not obligatory everywhere.
As a direct object, the reciprocal expression counts as a noun object. Grade 2 therefore uses taimaki ‘help’ before it, rather than taimake, used before short direct-object pronouns. Subject-TAM marking still identifies the actors and action frame.
Compare Sun taimaki kansu ‘They helped themselves’ with Sun taimaki junansu ‘They helped each other’. The first directs the help back to the subject group; the second expresses help between its members. Choose the plural possessor by participant reference, rather than by the English translation alone.
Examples (3)
- Mun taimaki junanmu a gona.
We helped each other on the farm.
Junanmu includes the speaker.
- Kun taimaki junanku wajen gyaran mota.
You helped each other with repairing a car.
Junanku identifies the addressed group.
- Amina da Musa sun taimaki junansu bayan tafiya.
Amina and Musa helped each other after the journey.
The named pair supplies the reciprocal participants.
How It Connects
Learn This First
Recognize reflexive versus reciprocal participants and noun coordination before mutually directed actions with juna. In bayan tafiya, after the journey, tafiya is a nominal temporal complement without an embedded subject-TAM marker. In wajen gyaran mota, wajen introduces the activity with respect to which the listeners helped one another; linked nominal gyaran mota means repairing a car.
Related Patterns
Practice juna in Bubblegum
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