Legend: Definitions, Terms, <Text>, «apa», -Tags-, and "Glosses".
Every utterance can be thought of as just a sequence of words, with each word modifying the cumulative semantics of its predecessors. However, it may useful to analyze utterances in terms of sentences and clauses.
A sentence consists of a final clause preceded by any number of medial clauses. A clause is final when the last word of the clause contains a final particle and medial when the last word of the clause contains a conjunction. Note that medial clauses include both coordinate clauses and subordinate ones. Words not containing any particle constitute the preceding portion of each clause.
| (1.1) | 2cat/1 | 1[se=f |
|---|---|---|
| "I don't see your cat." | ||
| (1.2) | .hse/1 | cat[in | 4\slp=t |
|---|---|---|---|
| "The cat is sleeping in the house." | |||
| (1.3) | ]met/p | 2cat[et=q |
|---|---|---|
| "Is your cat eating those pieces of meat?" | ||
| (1.4) | 9\sng=t |
|---|---|
| "Who's singing?" |
There are 3 other kinds of clauses.
A sequence of words constitutes a complement clause when the following word's voice is marked auxiliary; the referent of a complement clause is a situation.
A headless relative clause consists of a word marked as such along with any preceding words that are part of its argument. Only the role of the referent is specified (according to the verb's argument structure class and the verb's voice). Examples of headless relative clauses are 1'si "what I see", kid'ma "the child's mother", and fsh/rar 4`et "whoever is eating the rare fish".
A word that doesn't terminate a final clause, a medial clause, a complement clause, or a headless relative clause can be an internally headed relative clause. If the subject of that word is local or null, the referent of the internally headed relative clause is the object; otherwise, the referent is the subject. Examples of internally headed relative clauses are /dog/1 "a dog", /dog/1 2[hr "the dog you hear", fsh/rar "the rare fish", and fsh/rar cat[et "the cat that is eating the rare fish".
| (2.1) | fsh/rar | /cat[et | mn[se\f |
|---|---|---|---|
| "The man didn't see the cat that was eating the rare fish." | |||
| (2.2) | /kid'ma | cat]fnd | kid/new=t |
|---|---|---|---|
| "The child whose mother found the cat is young." | |||
| (2.3) | mn/old | 4'hr[ | 2[kno=q |
|---|---|---|---|
| "Do you know what the old man heard?." | |||
| (2.4) | fsh/rar | /cat[et[w | 4\slp\t |
|---|---|---|---|
| "When the cat had eaten the rare fish, she slept." | |||
| (2.5) | .kfe/cld\c | wm[dk\t |
|---|---|---|
| "The woman drank the coffee even though it was cold." | ||
Aggregation and alternation are the translations of compound phrases conjoined by "and" and "or", respectively, and use certain conjoining verbs with special semantics. In both cases, there is a non-manifest argument whose referent is modified by each successive component; at the end, the resulting referent becomes that of the entire construction. The modification depends on which conjoining verb appears.
With the aggregating verb a, the referent of each subject is added to the non-manifest argument's referent. At the end, this becomes the referent of the whole construction.
| (5.1) | 1grdn/sml | /mn/a | /rabt/wht | 4/a | /dog/angr | 4/a | 4[in\t |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| "A man, the white rabbit, and an angry dog were in my small garden." | |||||||
With the alternating verb x, the individual referents are not combined; instead, the referent of the whole construction is one of the individual referents.
| (5.2) | lets/e | mn/x | rabt/x | dog/x | 4[et\t |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| "Either the man, the rabbit, or the dog ate the lettuce." | |||||
Only the voice markers in the following table appear with the copula:
| Symbol | Name | Description |
|---|---|---|
| [ | Direct | subject is superset of object |
| ] | Inverse | subject is subset of object |
| ' | Direct Headless | referent is subset of subject |
| ` | Inverse Headless | referent is superset of subject |
| = | Identity | subject and object have identical referents |
| / | Existential | subject referent exists |
| (3.1) | =cat/p | [5]e=t |
|---|---|---|
| "This is a cat." | ||
| (3.2) | =cat/p | =maml3[e=t |
|---|---|---|
| "Cats are mammals." | ||
| (3.3) | cat/1 | 2=e=f |
|---|---|---|
| "You're not the cat." | ||
| (3.4) | ]cat/e=q |
|---|---|
| "Does that cat exist?" |
In all of these constructions, the direct headless forms of the copula are used. The noun of the copular word specifies the whole from which a part is selected.
In a partitive construction, the only other thing specified is the cardinality of the part; if the value is other than 1, the cardinality requires an additional coreferential word.
| (4.1) | rabt3'e | 4/wht=t |
|---|---|---|
| "1 of the rabbits is white." | ||
| (4.2) | dog/5 | 4'e | 4/2 | 4/old\t |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| "2 of the 5 dogs were old." | ||||
In an ordinal construction, the elements of the part are selected according to their position in some list. This is provided by a coreferential word containing an ordinal number. The cardinality of the part may also be specified after the ordinal; otherwise, it is 1.
| (4.3) | mn3'e | 4/1o | /dog[at;t |
|---|---|---|---|
| "The 1st man will have a dog with him." | |||
In a superlative construction, the elements of the part are selected according to some scale of comparison, which is provided by a coreferential word containing a scalar verb. The cardinality of the part may also be specified after the ordinal; otherwise, it is 1. In addition, the superlative may be modified by a coreferential ordinal word immediately following the scalar word (otherwise, "first" is implied).
| (4.4) | cat3'e | 4/old | 4/blk=t |
|---|---|---|---|
| "The oldest cat is black." | |||
| (4.5) | kid3'e | 4/old | 4/2o | =cat]vn=t |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| "The 2nd oldest child wants a cat." | ||||
page started: 2022.Feb.20 Sun
current date: 2022.Feb.23 Wed
content and form originated by qiihoskeh
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