Jaguar 3 –  A Constructed Language

Jaguar 3 Usage

Legend: Definitions, Terms, <Text>, [IPA], -Tags-, and "Glosses".

Usage of the Affixes

Polarity and Number

The interpretation of a number prefix depends on whether the word form is a noun (aspect/mood is Nom-) or not. If it's a noun (or a pronoun), the number is the cardinality of a set of referents. If it's a verb, number is pluractional, referring to the number of occurrences. For nouns, polarity is a question of membership in the set.

• Polar question prefixes (PQ-, aí-) are possible only on finite and copular forms.
• Verb forms can't take negative paucal (-ark-) or negative plural (-ars-) prefixes.
• If the aspect/mood is durative (Dur-), the number must be singular.
• For non-durative verb forms, negative singular is equivalent to nullar.

Aspect/Mood

The usages of the aspects and moods other than nominal are as follows:

• The imperative mood indicates that the clause is a command.
• The aoristic aspect is used for changes of state and actions taken as a whole. In final clauses, it's definite past.
• The perfect aspect is used for prior situations. In final clauses, it's indefinite past.
• The durative aspect is used for current situations. In final clauses, it's absolute present.
• The future aspect is used for subsequent situations. In final clauses, it's definite or indefinite future.

Evidentiality

Evidentiality is either direct (Wit-) or indirect (everything else). Unmarked evidentiality is assumed to be reported (Hrs-) unless the verb's obviative participant is 1st person (in a statement) or 2nd person (in a question), in which case it's direct (except if the aspect/mood is future; here, it must be indirect).

Person

The 1st person proximative and obviative prefixes refer to the speaker and any associated persons, possibly including addressees. The 2nd person prefixes refer to addressees and any associated persons excluding the speaker. The 3rd person prefixes refer all other specified persons. If no obviative person is specified, the unspecified prefix is used (this is the default). The reflexive obviative prefix has the same referent as the proximative person, which may be explicit (finite or copular), implicitly 2nd person (imperative), or implicitly coreferential (attributive or phrasal).

Grammatical Voice and Argument Structure

Note: these terms are not optimal.

Except for class 1 verbs, unmarked grammatical voice is direct. Here, direct means that the proximative and obviative arguments have the semantic roles specified in the verb class table while inverse means that the roles are swapped.

Argument structure is quasi-derivational. Active is the normal interpretation. Autocausative assigns the ergative role as well as the dative or absolutive role (depending on the verb's class) to the proximative argument (assuming direct voice).

page started: 2016.Jan.10 Sun
current date: 2016.Jan.10 Sun
content and form originated by qiihoskeh

Table of Contents