Feb18 –  A Constructed Language

2 Feb18 Basic Morphology

Legend: Definitions, Terms, <Text>, «apa», -Tags-, and "Glosses".

2.1 Classification

The major lexical types are verb root, noun root, unit root, quantity root, particle, and affix. These are combined to form syntactical verbs, nouns, units. quantities, adverbs, and particles. A quantity is either a numeric expression, a scalar quantity, or a quantifier. Nouns include pronouns. Verbs include relational words and scalars, as well as action words. Each verb has an action type and belongs to an argument structure class.

2.1.1 Argument Structure Classes

A verb can have up to three core arguments, depending on its class; these are called the person, status, and third arguments. The corresponding columns name the roles for each class. A class is single if both person and status have the same role; it's double if they're distinct. A given class contains either static or dynamic verbs, except for the experiential class. Under Examples, the root name is in parentheses.

Argument Structure Classes

Label	Type	Base Name	Person	Status	Third	Examples
_0_	Dyna	Affective	Affectee		-	"rain"
_1_	Dyna	Actional	Actor	Location	-	"walk"
_2_	Stat	Descriptive	Perceiver	Descriptee	-	"hot", "here"
_3_	Dyna	Descriptive	Cause	Descriptee	-	"heat" (hot), "bring" (here)
_4_		Experiential	Experiencer	Stimulus	-	"see", "angry"
_5_	Dyna	Transitive	Agent	Patient	-	"eat", "kick"
_6_	Stat	Spatial	Locatee		Location	"in"
_7_	Dyna	Spatial	Cause	Locatee	Destination	"insert" (in)
					Origin	"remove" (in)
_8_	Stat	Possessive	Possessor		Possessum	"have"
		Informative	Knower		Fact	"know"
_9_	Dyna	Possessive	Donor	Recipient	Theme	"give" (have)
		Informative	Speaker	Addressee	Message	"say" (know), "ask" (know)

2.1.2 Verb Action Types

Verb Action Types

Label	Name		Description	Examples
E__	Event		a point of change	"break", "give"
C__	Culminating	Process	has termination point	"cook"
U__	Unitizable		can be broken into steps	"walk", "eat"
D__	Discrete	State	not scalar	"in", "see"
S__	Scalar		scale and direction of comparison	"hot", "here"

2.2 Lexeme Formation

2.2.1 Verb Lexemes

Verb lexemes are CVCC, formed from a CCC root with a V infix. For the spatial, possessive, informative, and descriptive classes, the derivations for "at" and "away" are static while the derivations for "to" and "from" are dynamic. Other classes have different interpretations of the derivational infixes.

Verb Derivational Infixes

Infix	Gloss	Description	Spatial	Actional	Experiential	Transitive
<a>	"at"	the named state	"inside"	"walk along"	"see"
<u>	"away"	its opposite state	"outside"	"walk across"	"fail to see"
<i>	"to"	entry to the state	"insert", "enter"	"walk toward"	"look at"	"kick"
<o>	"from"	exit from the state	"remove", "exit"	"walk away from"	"look away from"		"eat"

2.2.2 Noun Lexemes

There are three kinds of noun lexemes: deverbal nouns, root nouns, and pronouns. Pronouns are CV or CVC while nouns are CCVC. A deverbal noun consists of a CCC root with a V infix; the infix specifies one of four general kinds of participants. The vowel of a root noun is purely lexical.

Participant Noun Infixes

Infix	Description	zgr
<i>	Product
<a>	Location	"stream"
<o>	Instrument
<u>	Agent or Actor	"water"

2.2.3 Other Lexemes

Unit roots are CVCV while quantity roots are mostly CVC.

2.3 Nouns

2.3.1 Noun Structure

Noun Forms

Order	Name	Unmarked	Group
A.	Case or Copula	required	Stem
B.	Noun Lexeme	required
C.	Possessor	none	Suffixes

2.3.2 Noun Possession

When the possessor is local or reflexive, it appears as a noun suffix; otherwise, a genitive construction is used.

Possessor Suffixes

Suffix	Tag	Description
-ka	K	Knower
-ba	L	Learner
-xa	M	Inclusive
-ni	Lo	Lower-status
-no	Hi	Higher-status
-'o	Rfx	Reflexive

2.3.3 Cases, Conjunctions, and Copulas

The (zu) forms appear before pronouns, determiners, and quantities.

Cases, Conjunctions, & Copulas

Case		Name	Conjunction		Description	Group
su-	Gen	Genitive	-	-	-	Adnominal
zi-	P	Person Argument	ziri-	P-N	complement	Core
to-	S	Status Argument	tori-	S-N
ga-	T	Third Core Argument	gari-	T-N
di-	Ins	Instrumental	diri-	Ins-N	means	Oblique
pa-	Ben	Benefactive	pari-	Ben-N	purpose for
hu-	Mal	Malefactive	huri-	Mal-N	purpose against
mo(zu)-	Loc	Locative	mo-	Tmp	temporal
sli(zu)-	All	Allative	-	-	-
slo(zu)-	Abl	Ablative	-	-	-
slu(zu)-	Perl	Perlative	-	-	-
sla(zu)-	Via	Viative	-	-	-
'o-	Voc	Vocative	-	-	-
la-	And	And	lari-	And-N	logical and	Conjunction
lu-	Ior	Inclusive Or	luri-	Ior-N	inclusive or
gi-	Por	Preclusive Or	giri-	Por-N	preclusive or
-	-	-	tloy-	Rat	reason
-	-	-	tiv-	If	conditional
mi-	UT	Utterance Time	-	-	-	Copula
co-	DT	Definite Time	-	-	-

2.3.4 Noun Examples

[deverbal]	mo-zgar	Loc-water<place>	"at the stream"
[root]	pa-hhan-ka	Ben-fish-1	"for my fish"

2.4 Verbs

For a double class verb, both the person and status parts of the prefix are relevant, but for a single class verb, only one of them is.

2.4.1 Verb Structure

Verb Forms

Order	Name	Unmarked	Group
A.	Tense	cotemporal	Temporal
B.	Aspect	[im]perfective
C.	Person & Status	3rd person coreferential	Agreement
D.	Preverbs	none	Stem
E.	Verb Lexeme	required
F.	Voice	required

2.4.2 Voice Suffixes

Only single person or status prefixes are used with the reflexive, although the verb's class must be double.

Voice Suffixes

Suffix	Tag	Name	Double	Single
-u	Dir	Direct	P acts on S	applies to S
-a	Inv	Inverse	S acts on P	applies to P
-i	Rcp	Reciprocal	P & S act on each other	-
-o	Rfx	Reflexive	P or S acts on itself	-

2.4.3 Person and Status Prefixes

There is also a bilocal prefix ra- K:L. The bi-non-local prefix 3:3 doesn't occur with inverse marking. The imperative prefixes don't appear with inverse or reciprocal marking. Reflexive marking appears only with single prefixes.

Person & Status Double Prefixes

Person										Status
Knower		Learner		Inclusive		Non-local		Imperative
ka-	K:3	ba-	L:3	xa-	M:3	na-	3:3	sa-	Imp>3	Neutral
ko-	K:Hi	bo-	L:Hi	xo-	M:Hi	no-	3:Hi	so-	Imp>Hi	Higher
ki-	K:Lo	bi-	L:Lo	xi-	M:Lo	ni-	3:Lo	si-	Imp>Lo	Lower
ku-	K:R	bu-	L:R	xu-	M:R			-	-	Coreferential

Person-only Single Prefixes

Knower		Learner		Inclusive		Non-local		Imperative
ka-	K	ba-	L	xa-	M	na-	3	sa-	Imp

Status-only Single Prefixes

Neutral		Higher		Lower		Coreferential
na-	3	no-	Hi	ni-	Lo

2.4.4 Some Verb Examples

[single]	ka-zigr-a	K:3-<to>water-Inv	"I'm getting rained on."
[single]	ni-tuly-u	3:Lo-<away>in-Dir	"The lower-status person is outside."
[reflexive]	ba-xunt-o	L-<away>see-Rfx	"You fail to see yourself."
[double]	ra-hask-u	K:L-<at>hear-Dir	"I hear you."
[double]	bo-xant-a	L:Hi-<at>see-Inv	"The higher-status person sees you."
[double]	ko-xint-i	K:Hi-<to>see-Rcp	"The higher-status person and I are looking at each other."
[double]	sa-tipt-u	Imp>3-<to>walk-Dir	"Walk there!"

2.4.5 Preverbs

Preverbs

Prefix	Tag	Name	Type	Sources	Description
-	Sing	Singulative	E	U	single step of action
-	Inc	Inceptive	E	U, C	start of action
-	Cul	Culminative	E	U, C	end of action
tix-	Con	Conative	C	U, C, E	attempted action
-	Hab	Habitual	U	all	habitual action

2.4.6 Aspect

The unmarked aspect depends on the verb's action type.

Aspect Prefixes

Prefix	Tag	Description
		[im]perfective
ta-	Ret	Retrospective
pi-	Pro	Prospective

2.4.7 Tense

Tense Prefixes

Prefix	Tag	Initial	Medial
		Utterance Time	Cotemporal
mi-	UT	-	Utterance Time
co-	DT	Definite Time	?

Tense-aspect Combinations

Present	Past	Future	?	Clause
mi-	mita-	mipi-	Absolute	Medial
	ta-	pi-	Relative
-			Indefinite	Final
	co-		Definite
ta-	cota-		Retrospective
pi-	copi-		Prospective

2.4.8 More Verb Examples

co-ka-vuzg-o	DT-K-<away>awake?-Rfx	"I felt sleepy"
co-bo-tix-xont-i	DT-L:Hi-Con-<from>see-Rcp	"You and the higher-status person were trying to look away from each other"

page started: 2025.Feb.22 Sat
current date: 2025.Feb.28 Fri
content and form originated by Jeffrey S. Jones (qiihoskeh)

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