Legend: Definitions, Terms, <Text>, [IPA], -Tags-, and "Glosses".
A basic sentence may be a command, a statement, content question, or a polar question. All of these are sequences of clauses. In addition to basic sentences, there are also conditional sentences and satisfactive sentences.
The last clause of a basic sentence is always a final clause; this may be preceded by any number of coordinate clauses. Any final or coordinate clause may be preceded by (and therefore be the host of) a subordinate clause. There are also participial constituents, which are limited clause-like constructions embedded in noun phrases.
In a command, the final clause contains an imperative, prohibitive, or jussive verb form; the other kinds of final clauses have other (i.e. tense-marked) final verb forms. The final clause of a polar question is terminated by the polar question particle che (PQ) while a content question is marked as such by the presence of some content question word. Other final clauses are those of statements.
If an epistemic modal particle appears, it precedes any other post-final particle.
A conditional sentence consists of a conclusion preceded by a condition. The conclusion may be any basic sentence. The condition is also a sequence of clauses, in this case terminated by the conditional particle (If). If the conditional sentence is contrary-to-fact, both final clauses have contrafactual mood verbs; otherwise, neither do.
A satisfactive sentence consists of a satisfactive subordinate clause followed by a conditional sentence, although the condition is often omitted.
Subordinate clauses function as temporal or other adjuncts, as complement clauses, and as relative clauses.
A complement clause appears as the patient argument of the following host clause. Infinitive-headed clauses can only be complements.
A relative clause modifies the 1st noun phrase of the host clause and is marked by the presence of the relative pronoun, whose form determines the usage of the noun phrase within the subordinate clause. There are no headless relative clauses (i.e. those modifying null noun phrases); the pronoun her IP is used instead for indefinite relative clauses.
All other subordinate clauses are adjuncts.
Compound tenses occur when a subordinate clause with perfect, progressive, or prospective aspect is the complement of a positive or negative existence verb. The tense of the existence verb is either definite past, present, or future. Some combinations, such as future prospective and present perfect are rare, the latter usually replaced by the simple indefinite past. However, in the contrafactual mood, the simple indefinite past and the future don't exist, so the present perfect and the present prospective must be used instead.
Non-participial negation is regularly accomplished using an infinitive followed by the negative existence verb pa (Neg). This includes the negation of V-Stem imperative verbs. However, the prohibitive form is used for C-Stem verbs. The existence infinitive yu (Exi) is always omitted before pa. The negative of the copula shu (Cop) is bai (CopNeg).
A clause contains, at minimum, a final, coordinate, or subordinate verb form, according to which the type of clause is determined. Except for certain post-verbal particles (such as the polar question and conditional particles), the verb appears at the end of the clause. The verb may be preceded by core argument phrases, oblique argument phrases, and various kinds of adverbs. The order of these is variable.
Only 1 phrase in a clause may be modified by a relative clause; that phrase must appear first.
The core arguments of a clause are those required by and at least partially specified by the verb. Non-3rd person core arguments appear as phrases only for contrastive focus, or as topics. 3rd person core arguments may be null under certain conditions, but otherwise appear as phrases. The core argument that applies to all verbs is the proximate (absolutive case) and the core argument that applies only to transitive verbs is the obviative (marked by the obviative case, if the phrase is animate, else also absolutive).
Imperative clauses constitute a special case: only the verb appears.
Since oblique arguments are not specified by the verb, the must appear as phrases taking the dative, ablative, instrumental, or locative case.
Vocative phrases, which are optional, specify the addressees.
The adverbial phrases include adverbs of manner, degree, duration, frequency, and number of iterations or occasions. They are constructed like argument phrases except that the head noun is adverbial.
Manner adverbs are constructed using the adverbial noun ter (Man) modified by a participle (typically as a single word). If the verb is dynamic (less common), the aspect is progressive; otherwise, the aspect is perfect. However, there are exceptions: "fast" and "slow" are sifiter and mokhiter (progressive) while "early" and "late" are sifater and mokhater (perfect).
The head noun of a duration phrase is a temporal unit word. To indicate duration of a situation, it takes the instrumental case.
Temporal displacement is a special construction. Here, the duration phrase, which is not marked for case, must be preceded by a temporal adjunct in the perfect or prospective aspect. The perfect indicates that the host event occurs later than the adjunct event by the specified duration while the prospective indicates that the host event occurs earlier than the adjunct event by the specified duration. There are a few adverbs that can appear instead of the adjunct clause. These are:
| Word | Glosses | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| diide | "from now" | requires future host |
| diifa | "ago" | requires past host |
| soide | "after", "later" | host is past or future |
| soifa | "before", "earlier" |
The time-when adverb dii "now" may be used immediately before a participle to indicate absolute present tense for that participle.
In an identity clause, the verb is a form of the copula (Cop), which has a regular negation. The subject and complement, being interchangeable, are both phrases in the absolutive case.
In a definition clause, the verb is also a form of the copula (Cop). Here, the complement of the copula is a noun phrase with the head noun taking the combining form; this appears immediately before the copula. The subject of a copula is a phrase in the absolutive case.
In an existence clause, the verb is a form of either the positive (Exi) or negative (Neg) existence verb. The sole argument is either an absolutive phrase or a complement clause. The complement clause may be an infinitive clause, in which case the construction is either contrastive or a simple negation. Otherwise, the construction is used for compound tenses (limited to future or definite past + perfect, progressive, or prospective).
The 1st phrase in the clause is the most topical while the focused phrase (if any) is closest to the verb. In clauses with unilocal verb forms, the intensive particle jou takes the place of the personal pronoun in core cases.
A phrase is either a noun phrase or a pronoun. Both have the attributes of gender, referentiality, and number (if referential). Non-adverbial phrases also have the attribute of case.
A noun phrase is terminated by the head noun of the phrase, which supplies the attributes mentioned above. A noun phrase may begin with either a determiner or an embedded possessor phrase in the genitive case. There may be other modifiers in between the determiner or possessor and the head noun. These include participial constructions, quantity words (at most, 1), and appositive nouns taking the non-final form. Note that any relative clause appears before the phrase.
The determiners are shown in the following table. Some of them are related to pronouns.
| Word | Tag | Description |
|---|---|---|
| chan | CQ | content question |
| dokkan | Sat | satisfactive |
| Uni | universal quantifier | |
| hen | Ind | indefinite |
| din | Prox | proximal demonstrative |
| son | Medi | medial demonstrative |
| ran | Dist | distal demonstrative |
A noun phrase beginning with a either the indefinite determiner or a quantity word is indefinite (but referential) while a noun phrase with no determiner or quantity word is definite (assuming the noun isn't non-referential). Most determiners can be used with nouns marked non-referential to denote a kind of entity.
A participial construction most often consists of only a participle, possibly incorporating a non-referential noun in the combining form (if the participle is transitive). Incorporated nouns and omitted transitive arguments have the obviative role. The referent of an omitted argument must be determined from context.
If anything other than a possessor precedes the noun in the phrase, the possessor must appear in the genitive, not as a prefix. The presence of a possessor, whether as a genitive phrase or a prefix, precludes any determiner.
There are no adpositions in Jun04; relational nouns are used instead. There are 2 constructions. In the 1st, the head noun of the object phrase takes the genitive case while the relational noun is unmarked for number. In the 2nd, the head noun of the object phrase has the combining form and the relational noun is marked for the number of the phrase. When plural, the 2nd form is necessarily distributive while the 1st is collective by contrast. Otherwise, the 2nd form is preferred.
The partitive, ordinal, and superlative constructions have the same general syntax. They all select a part from a whole, albeit by different criteria. The superlative selects according to a set-wide comparison with respect to some scalar quality, represented by a nominalized scalar verb. The ordinal selects according to position in some kind of sequence, represented by an ordinal number (which is also a noun). The partitive doesn't specify the criteria; here, the part is represented by a special partitive noun. The superlative, ordinal, or partitive noun may be immediately preceded by a quantity word specifying the cardinality of the part. The whole is denoted by a preceding phrase in the genitive case; this is either plural or headed by a mass noun.
Phrases can be conjoined. All but the last phrase in the sequence takes one of the phrase conjunction "case" endings (aggregate or alternate).
A noun is negated using a form of the negative copula bai (CopNeg) immediately after the appropriate form of the noun (i.e. a combining or absolutive form). The negated noun may be a phrase modifier, in which case it appears as a perfect participle, or the complement of a definition or identity clause.
page started: 2016.Jun.12 Sun
current date: 2016.Jun.28 Tue
content and form originated by qiihoskeh
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