K'tlê – A Constructed Language

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gqe/ Derivational Morphology

This chapter covers derivational morphology, including incorporation.

1. Derivational Morphology
   1. Derivational Suffixes
   2. Deriving Nouns from Verbs
   3. Deriving Nouns from Nouns
   4. Nouns Used as Noun Modifiers
   5. Deriving Verbs from Nouns
   6. Deriving Verbs from Verbs

Derivational Suffixes

Here are some derivational suffixes:

Cls	Singular Suffix		Plural Suffix		Role	Verb Classes
AO	-qe	—£ĕ	-qe/?	—£e̅?	kinship	?
AN	-hi	—hĭ	-hi/?	—hi̅?	agent	agentive, transitive, trivalent
	-no	—nŏ	-no/?	—no̅?	person	?
	-it	—it	-ita	—ĭta	creature	?
IO	-'a	—'a	-'e/n	—'e̅n	personal artifact	any?
IN	-to	—tŏ	-ti/n	—ti̅n	impersonal artifact	agentive, transitive ?
	-zo/	—zo̅	-zoin	—zoin	pattern	?
MN	-yo	—Yŏ			liquid or water	?
	-nizi/	—nizi̅			abstraction	any

Deriving Nouns from Verbs

In general, this is done by using a verb as a modifier to a noun. It can be thought of as prefixing the basic form of the verb to the noun or as suffixing the noun to the verb. The latter is useful because many nouns are derived using generic, or classifying, nouns, called classifiers for short. There are many of these, both taxonomic (e.g. "bird", "tree", "fish") and functional (agent, product, instrument). Note that each classifier is either animate or inanimate (which happens to provide the agreement needed for called them classifiers). As a result, a couple functions have two distinct classifiers.

The classifier used must be semantically compatible with one of the verb's argument roles. That role then becomes the role of the noun's subject. Any argument not needed by the classifier is excluded from the noun's argument structure, except that it can reappear as an incorporated noun.

If the classifier produces an obligatorily possessed noun, there are two possibilities: (a) the noun's second argument (usually the possessor) is also carried over from the verb's argument structure, and (b) the possessor is just added to the noun's argument structure independent of the verb. A noun that functions as the possessor may be incorporated, in which case, the resulting word acts like a non-possessed noun.

As this form of derivation produces nouns for which the verb-part denotes an inherent (or at least long-term) characteristic, the nouns are sometimes used as if verbs taking the "gnomic" aspect (which otherwise doesn't occur in K'tlê ).

• .k'loco/ha

  k'loco̅ha.

  "I cooked it."

  k'-loco̅h-a

  1S.Dir-cook-3S

• .locefik

  locefik.

  "I'm a chef." or "I cook."

  loceh-hi-k

  cook-agent-1S

Deriving Nouns from Nouns

One way this can be done is to replace the existing classifier of a noun; of course, this is essentially the same as deriving the noun just from the verb. However, classifiers can be suffixed to nouns without removing the existing classifier (if there is one). This is often done with nouns denoting parts of things, such as body parts.

As with verbs, the classifier and the original noun must be compatible. When the base noun is an obligatorily possessed noun, the classifier often denotes a class of potential possessors for that word, so that the resulting noun denotes something which possesses the thing denoted by the base noun. This is most useful when a descriptive verb is prefixed to the resulting noun. For example, if the noun meant "wing", a classifier for "bird" could be used, with a verb meaning "red"; the resulting noun would mean "redwing[ed bird]".

Nouns Used as Noun Modifiers

Nouns can be used attributively, just like verbs, taking the same adjectival suffixes (which agree with the qualified noun in gender and number, if these are different). They can also be used to modify other nouns forming compounds. One thing that happens here is that if both nouns have the same classifier, the one on the modifying noun is replaced by a generic inverting one if necessary, or just dropped. For example, "red-wing-bird" + "swim-bird" becomes "red-wing-null-swim-bird".

Effectively, this is done through incorporation. There are two kinds: core incorporation, where a noun used as an argument is incorporated, and oblique incorporation, where a noun used as the argument of a secondary verb is incorporated. The former changes the verb's argument structure by removing the argument corresponding to the incorporated noun, but the latter doesn't. In both cases, the incorporated noun is non-referential and lacks number.

The core arguments which can be incorporated are:

• the object of a relational verb, making it a patientive monovalent verb;
• the patient of a transitive verb, making it an agentive monovalent verb;
• the theme of a trivalent verb, making it like a transitive verb except for the role of the patient;
• the recipient of a trivalent verb, making it like a transitive verb with the theme becoming Argument-1.

The oblique arguments which can be incorporated are:

• an instrument (the object of relational |hom|).

Deriving Verbs from Verbs

Some of the inflectional affixes could be considered derivational in that they have some derivational characteristics: some change the verb from dynamic to static or vice-versa, some change the verb's argument structure, and some do both. However, they're treated as inflectional due to being very semantically regular and productive (as well as being very morphologically regular).

One process that is treated as derivational here is reduplication, which varies in its effect and isn't completely productive (the most frequent use is making certain kinds of dynamic verbs iterative).

page started: 2009.Apr.04 Sat
prior version: 2009.Apr.10 Fri
last modified: 2009.Oct.19 Mon
last modified: 2010.Mar.27 Sat
content and form originated by qiihoskeh

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