Compounds have Head-Modifier order.
The parts of speech are particles (mainly conjunctions and certain adverbs), quantifiers (such as cardinal numbers), and predicates (content words). The predicates are primarily classified according to their potential valence and may be verb-like, adjective-like, or noun-like.
Predicates are inflected for clause type, actual valence, role alignment, possessibility, tense or aspect, and number or pluractionality; they may also take modal, aspectual, or degree affixes.
Quantifiers may also be marked for possessibility.
The 1st prefix indicates the clause type.
| Prefix | Tag | Name |
|---|---|---|
| m- | M- | Main |
| Att- | Attributive | |
| t- | Sub- | Subjunctive |
| c- | Cor- | Coreferential |
| g- | Rsl- | Resultative |
| s- | Imp- | Imperative |
Each non-attributive predicate takes the 2nd prefix which marks either tense or aspect. Attributive predicates take the 2nd prefix only when the aspect or tense differs from the predicate's native aspect; this is aoristic for dynamic words and durative for static words.
| Prefix | Tag | Name | Kind |
|---|---|---|---|
| an- | Pst- | Past | Tense |
| ei- | Prs- | Present | |
| ou- | Fut- | Future | |
| os- | Gno- | Gnomic | |
| u- | Aor- | Aoristic | Aspect |
| a- | Prf- | Perfect | |
| i- | Dur- | Durative | |
| er- | Pro- | Prospective |
The aspect prefixes can appear with any clause type prefix, but the tense prefixes are limited to the main, attributive, and subjunctive clause types.
The same prefix la- (P-) is used for both plural and pluractionality.
The modals occupy a separate slot from the aspectual and degree prefixes.
The modals include the epistemic necessity prefix zei- (EN-) and the epistemic possibility prefix (EP-).
The aspectuals include the process phases ("begin" vala-, "pause", "resume", and "finish").
The possessibility suffix -Pos increases the potential valence of the word by 1. It's -n following short vowels and otherwise -ne. It's the 1st suffix.
The 2nd suffix marks the actual valence and appears only when this differs from the expected value. If the clause type is main or subjunctive, the expected value is the potential valence, which may be from 0 to 3. Otherwise, the expected value is one less than the potential valence.
| Suffix | Tag |
|---|---|
| -(e)l(e) | -0 |
| -(e)k | -1 |
| -(e)s | -2 |
| -(e)c | -3 |
The (e) indicates that e is inserted before the suffix consonant when the stem ends in a consonant and no vowel follows the suffix.
The 3rd suffix specifies how the roles are assigned to the arguments.
| Prefix | Tag | Name |
|---|---|---|
| Direct | ||
| -a | -V | Inverse |
| -u | -X | Auxiliary |
| -au | -VX | Inverse + Auxiliary |
| -i | -R | Reflexive/Reciprocal |
page started: 2013.Jan.18 Fri
current date: 2013.Feb.26 Tue
content and form originated by qiihoskeh
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