títí ... fi

Until an Event

Level 3

The supported fuller endpoint frame is títí tí + wọ́n + á + fi + di + role.

How It Works

The supplied event-boundary witness uses títí tí wọ́n á fi di before a future change in the participants’ situation. In the examples, studying or working extends up to becoming something. Preserve the order á fi: the future marker precedes fi. These markers receive no person or number suffixes.

Compare the fragment títí di alẹ́, “until evening,” with títí tí wọ́n á fi di dókítà, “until they become doctors.” The first names a time; the second contains an event and identifies its participants. Fi belongs to the temporal frame here and introduces no instrument. The boundary limits the stated continuation without specifying everything afterward.

This lesson practises the fuller prospective frame with shared participants and becoming predicates. The supplied evidence leaves shorter forms, nonprospective uses, and broader endpoint and participant distributions unresolved; the illustrated order is not a complete paradigm for every subject.

Examples (3)

  1. Wọ́n máa kàwé títí tí wọ́n á fi di dókítà.

    They will study until they become doctors.

    Study extends to a future change in role.

  2. Wọ́n máa ṣiṣẹ́ títí tí wọ́n á fi di ọ̀gá.

    They will work until they become bosses.

    The becoming clause supplies the prospective endpoint.

  3. Wọ́n máa kàwé ní ilé títí tí wọ́n á fi di olùkọ́.

    They will study at home until they become teachers.

    The location belongs to the studying clause.