The inflected word classes are nouns, verbs, and adpositions. Pronouns and determiners and quantifiers are subclasses of nouns. Adjectives are a subclass of verbs. Place names are also verbs. There are also various uninflected particles and conjunctions.
Nouns are declined for number and case, including some markers that aren't strictly case. Number is singular and plural, the singular being unmarked, while the plural distinguishes associative from homogenous and collective from distributive. Noun stems end in consonants.
| Case | Tag | Suffix | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| Patientive | -Pat | -a | can be 0 for inanimate nouns |
| Agentive | -Agt | -u | can be 0 for animate nouns |
| Dative | -Dat | -i | |
| Copular | -Cop | -e | |
| Attributive | -Att | -o | can be 0 for participial forms |
| Combination | Tag | Suffix |
|---|---|---|
| collective, homogenous | -HC | -as |
| collective, associative | -AC | -en |
| distributive, homogenous | -HD | -ask |
| distributive, associative | -AD | -enk |
Conjugation can be divided into 2 orders: the independent order and the coreferential order. The independent order consists of the finite and adjunctive forms, while the coreferential order consists of the depictive, resultative, infinitive, and participial forms.
Adpositions may be considered defective verbs, since use the coreferential order but not the independent order. For the details, see Verb Conjugation below. However, complete verbs can be derived by appending -t to the adposition root, which ends in either a vowel or a single consonant.
Verbs use both orders. Verb stems end in consonants. The finite forms are inflected for tense and mood and sometimes for the 2nd argument. The adjunctive forms are finite forms with an additional suffix. The coreferential order forms are inflected for aspect and syntactical function.
| Tense/Mood | Tag | Suffix | Aspect |
|---|---|---|---|
| Past | -Pst | -a | Retrospective |
| Present | -Prs | -i | Progressive |
| Future | -Fut | -u | Prospective |
| Subjunctive | -Sub | -e | - |
| Imperative | -Imp | -o | - |
The 2nd argument suffixes that can follow the tenses and moods are as follows:
| Description | Tag | Suffix |
|---|---|---|
| Local Singular | -LS | -s |
| Local Plural | -LP | -m |
| Reflexive | -Rfx | -x |
There is also a reflexive prefix Rfx- (xa- or xi-, depending on the verb class) that's used on coreferential forms.
Note: Local generally means 1st person, 2nd person, or inclusive person. In this case, local refers to the other of 1st or 2nd person than the one that appears in the clause.
In the following table, the C-stem verb forms are those which are suffixed for 2nd argument as well as for tense and mood. Only the finite and adjunctive forms can take the local person suffixes. Participial stems are declined for case like nouns, but not usually for number.
| Form | Tag | Verb | Adposition | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| V-stem | C-stem | V-stem | C-stem | ||
| Finite | -0 | -0 | - | - | |
| Adjunctive | -Adj | -hek | -ek | - | - |
| Depictive | -Dep | -k | - | -k | -ek |
| Resultative | -Rsl | -n | - | -0 | -0 |
| Infinitive | -Inf | -r | - | -r | -ar |
| Participial | -Prt | -l | - | -l | -o |
There are 2 additional prefixes: the negative (ne-, Neg-) and the contrafactual (pi-, Ctf-). The order of prefixes is contrafactual, negative, reflexive. The contrafactual prefix appears only on independent order forms and copular forms.
Adjectives are univalent verbs representing qualities that can be used in comparisons. They can take prefixes specifying degree, such as the satisfactive degree prefix zo- (Sat.Deg-). The degree prefixes appear closest to the root.
In addition to the adposition-to-verb suffix -t (-A2V), there's the inceptive suffix -(i)c (-Inc); it applies to verbs and directly to adpositions, replacing the -t.
dan => dant => danc
sap => sapc
vid => vidic
The genitive (-af, -Gen) and partitive (-om, -Par) suffixes regularly derive nouns from nouns.
The superlative suffix (-est, -Sup) regularly derives superlatives, which are nouns, from adjectives. The ordinal suffix (-est, -Ord) regularly derives ordinal numbers (which are also nouns) from cardinal numbers.
Adverbs of manner or mainly formed from adjective stems by appending -ai (-Adv). The satisfactive manner adverb is zohai.
page started: 2012.Jul.27 Fri
current date: 2012.Aug.02 Thu
content and form originated by qiihoskeh
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