A phrase is either a noun phrase or a pronoun. A noun phrase contains, at minimum, a noun. The order of noun phrase constituents, when all are present, is:
Determiner QuantityWord Attributives Noun RelativeClause
A noun or pronoun is inherently either animate or inanimate; this is relevent for objects of trivalent verbs and for partitives, superlatives, and ordinal numbers.
If a quantity word appears but no determiner, the phrase is indefinite. If neither determiner nor quantity word appears, the noun phrase is definite. The definite determiner is used only with quantity words.
| black | cat-P |
| "the black cats" | |
| "3" | black | cat-P |
| "3 black cats" | ||
| Def | "3" | black | cat-P |
| "the 3 black cats" | |||
The determiner may be replaced by a phrase in the genitive case.
| woman-Gen | "3" | black | cat-P |
| "the woman's 3 black cats" | |||
The determiners are given in the following table:
| Word | Tag | Description |
|---|---|---|
| sē | Prox | proximal demonstrative |
| dō | Medi | medial demonstrative |
| lā | Dist | distal demonstrative |
| ćā | CQ | content question |
| du | Def | definite |
| si | Spc | specific, relative |
| era | Exi | existential quantifier |
| faśa | Uni | universal quantifier |
The quantifiers preclude any quantity word.
| Uni | black | cat-P |
| "all black cats" | ||
The generic nouns mu (AS, animate singular), śi (AP, animate plural), be (IS, inanimate singular), and xa (IP, inanimate plural) are used in phrases that otherwise lack a noun or pronoun; these include the partitive, superlative, and ordinal constructions, which have the following structures, of which the 1st 2 are simple partitives:
GenitivePhrase QuantifierPronoun
GenitivePhrase QuantityWord GenericNoun
GenitivePhrase QuantityWord Superlative GenericNoun
GenitivePhrase QuantityWord Ordinal# GenericNoun
The generic noun (or quantifier pronoun) agrees with the genitive phrase in gender. Note that the quantity word is optional and precluded by a quantifier pronoun.
| woman-P-Gen | UniA |
| "all the women" | |
| manu muk | |
|---|---|
| ma-nu | mu-k |
| 1P-Gen | AS-Nom |
| "1 of us" (subject) | |
| black | cat-P-Gen | old-Sup | AS |
| "the oldest [of the] black cat[s]" | |||
| book-P-Gen | "3" | "2"-Ord | IP |
| "the 2nd 3 books" | |||
A clause contains, at minimum, a verb. It may also contain a subject phrase in the nominative case, 1 or 2 object phrases in the accusative case, 1 or 2 oblique phrases in the instrumental case, and various kinds of adverbs. An extraclausal phrase in the vocative case may be inserted. The verb always appears last in the clause (except for certain particles); the subject, if expressed as a phrase, appears first (possibly with exceptions).
If the verb is trivalent, there can be up to 2 objects expressed; if the verb is bivalent, at most 1 object can be expressed. Univalent verbs lack objects. When there are 2 possible objects, one is an animate primary (indirect) object and the other is an inanimate secondary (direct) object. The primary object usually precedes the secondary object. If the verb is passive, antipassive or reflexive, the primary object (or sole object) can't be expressed.
There are 2 kinds of oblique phrases: those representing instruments and those that represent agents and appear only in passive clauses. When both kinds appear in the same clause, the animate phrase will be taken as the agent and the inanimate phrase as the instrument (they can't be both animate or both inanimate).
There are 2 kinds of clauses, according to the form of the verb: final clauses and non-final clauses. A full sentence requires a final clause, which appears last in its clause chain. A final clause is imperative if the verb is marked imperative and otherwise indicative (more or less). All other clauses are non-final clauses; these are used as, or instead of, complement clauses, adjunct clauses, secondary predicates, and relative clauses, if background, and as coordinate clauses, if foreground.
The switch-reference suffix on any non-final verb relates the subject of that clause to the subject of the following clause.
In the clause following SS or OS, a 1st or 2nd person subject may be marked on the verb, but isn't required.
Definite time (-DT) means that the speaker has a particular temporal point of reference in mind that the addressee(s) should recognize. Definite time is typically translated as non-habitual imperfective or, if not present time, perfective (aoristic).
Indefinite time (-IT) signifies only that the situation occurs before (past) or after (future) the absolute present time.Indefinite time is typically translated as present perfect when past and as present prospective when future.
Habitual time (-Hab) is used for a series of occasions. Present habitual overlaps the past and the future.
Relative time depends on the time specification of the final verb for its resolution.
The time of an imperative clause is always future, whether immediate or not.
When used as if a complement clause, the non-final clause replaces the secondary (or only) object of the following clause, which often has a perception, mental state, or informational verb.
| girl-P-Nom | pie | eat-DS | 1S-see-Pst-DT |
| "I saw the girls eat the pie." | |||
| girl-P-Nom | pie | eat-Pst-DS | 1S-see-Pst-DT |
| "I saw that the girls had eaten the pie." | |||
There are 3 kinds of auxiliaries: post-final particles, auxiliary verbs, and auxiliary suffixes. The auxiliary verbs take complement clauses, the time inflections of which depend on the specific auxiliary. The volitionals VN and VP always have future complements. The deontics DN and DP always have present complements. In contrast, the contrafactual complements of "wish" can be past, present, or future.
| cat-Nom | mouse | hunt-Fut-SS | VN-DT |
| "The cat wants to hunt the mouse." | |||
| girl-Nom | giraffe | see-DS | Pas-DP-Neg-Fut-DT |
| "The girl won't be permitted to see the giraffe." | |||
The verbs "give" and "take" are used in the benefactive and malefactive constructions, respectively. The primary object is the beneficiary or maleficiary. The secondary object is a same-subject complement clause specifying the action taken to help the beneficiary or hinder the maleficiary.
| boy-Nom | dish-P | wash-SS | woman | give-Pst-DT |
| "The boy washed the dishes for the woman." | ||||
In addition, the primary object can instead be a clause specifying the purpose of the action. This purpose clause precedes the other clause.
| woman-Nom | dinner | cook-NP-Fut-DS | boy-Nom | dish-P | wash-SS | give-Pst-DT |
| "The boy washed the dishes so that the woman could cook dinner." | ||||||
Reported speech is documented in Syntax Part 2.
When used as if an adjunct clause, the non-final clause appears in addition to any objects of the following clause (even if the objects are omitted). A temporal adjunct clause is one specifying the time relative to which the following clause occurs, according to the Time1 inflection of the adjunct verb.
| woman-Nom | dinner | cook-DS | man-Nom | call-Pst-DT |
| "While the woman was cooking dinner, the man called (her)." | ||||
| woman-Nom | dinner | cook-Pst-SS | eat-Pst-DT |
| "After the woman cooked dinner, she ate (it)." | |||
Depictive secondary predicates are translated like adjunct clauses.
| man-Nom | meat | eat-SS | nude-Pst-DT |
| "The man ate the meat nude." | |||
| cat-Nom | house | in-DS | boy-Nom | see-Pst-DT |
| "The boy saw the cat in the house." | ||||
Resultative secondary predicates are handled a bit differently: the action clause precedes the resultative clause, which is typically inchoative. Since the patient is coreferenced, the action clause takes the -OS ending, except when the patient is effectively the subject, in which case the -SS ending is used.
| woman-Nom | cat | release-OS | house | in-Inch-Pst-DT |
| "The woman put the cat in the house." | ||||
| man-Nom | Ant-drink-SS | sick-Inch-Pst-DT |
| "The man drank himself sick." | ||
The type of relative clause used depends on the roles of the head noun both within the relative clause and within the matrix clause. A relative clause may be correlative with the head noun indicated by the determiner Spc, post-nominal with a relative pronoun RP, or internally-headed with no explicit marking. The relative clause is marked -SS or -OS if internally-headed and otherwise marked -DS. The matrix of a non-correlative clause must be passive if the role of the head noun within it is patient, in order to avoid embedding the relative clause. The following table summarizes the usage of the types:
| Role | Matrix Role | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Agent | Patient | Oblique | Possessor | |
| Agent | (1) InternallyHeaded + SameSubject |
(2) InternallyHeaded + SameSubject + Passive |
(7) Correlative | |
| Patient | (3) InternallyHeaded + ObjectSubject |
(4) InternallyHeaded + ObjectSubject + Passive | ||
| Oblique | (5) PostNominal + RelativePronoun |
(6) PostNominal + RelativePronoun + Passive | ||
| Possessor | ||||
| (1) | ||||
| girl-Nom | book | read-SS | cat | see-Pst-IT |
| "The girl reading the book has seen the cat." | ||||
| (2) | ||||
| girl-Nom | book | read-SS | woman-Ins | Pas-know-DT |
| "The woman knows the girl reading the book." | ||||
| (3) | ||||
| girl-Nom | cat | see-OS | mouse | hunt-Pst-DT |
| "The cat the girl saw was hunting a mouse." | ||||
| (4) | ||||
| girl-Nom | book | read-Pst-OS | man-Ins | Pas-have-DT |
| "The book the girl was reading belongs to the man." | ||||
| (5) | ||||||
| boy-Nom | RP-Gen | cat-Nom | mouse | hunt-Pst-DS | woman | know-DT |
| "The boy whose cat was hunting the mouse knows the woman." | ||||||
| (6) | ||||||
| fork-Nom | boy-Nom | pie | RP-Ins | eat-Pst-DS | woman-Ins | Pas-wash-DT |
| "The woman is washing the fork that the boy ate the pie with." | ||||||
A correlative clause may also be used instead of any of the other types. The role of a correlative head noun within the matrix clause is specified by the case of a 3rd person pronoun, which may be omitted if accusative or (rarely) nominative.
| (7) | |||||||
| woman-Nom | Spc | fork | wash-Pst-DS | boy-Nom | pie | 3IS-Ins | eat-Fut-IT |
| "The boy will eat the pie with the fork the woman washed." | |||||||
page started: 2014.Oct.27 Mon
current date: 2014.Nov.03 Mon
content and form originated by qiihoskeh
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