The structure of a verb form is as follows, where Base includes the Root and any derivational suffixes.
Agreement-Base-Polarity-Aspect-Agreement-Participant
Positive polarity is unmarked.
| Suffix | Tag | Name |
|---|---|---|
| -an | -Neg | negative |
| -ix | -Aff | affirmative |
The aspects have both traditional and descriptive names. The aspect suffixes combine with a following imperative mood suffix, also shown in the following table.
| Suffix | Imperative | Tag | Names |
|---|---|---|---|
| -a | -â | -Dur | present or durative |
| -ɪ | -ê | -Aor | aoristic |
| -o | -ô | -Prf | perfect or retrospective |
| -e | - | -Fut | future or prospective |
| -ɪma | -ɪmâ | -Hab | habitual |
A verb form may be a participle, an infinitive, or finite, as determined by the agreement affixes. There may be 1 agreement suffix, specifying the subject, agent, or donor, and up to 2 agreement prefixes: the 1st specifies location, patient, or recipient while the 2nd (which is always inanimate) specifies location or theme. Any class of verb may take the agreement suffix.
In entries with 2 forms, the 2nd is used with the aoristic aspect and the 1st with all other aspects. The imperative suffix isn't shown since it always combines with the preceding aspect suffix; see the Aspect Suffixes table.
| Suffix | Tag | Description |
|---|---|---|
| -s, -si | -1S | 1st person singular |
| -r, -ri | -1P | 1st person plural |
| -k, -ki | -2 | 2nd person |
| -0 | -3 | 3rd person |
| -f, -fi | -U | Unspecified |
| -* | .Imp | Imperative (2nd person) |
The participant suffixes make finite forms into participles. There's also a suffix for action nominals. Only forms with 3rd person subjects can be used as agent participles, since coreference requires that the appropriate argument be 3rd person (with no phrase appearing). Action nominals and oblique (instrument and location) participles don't require any core arguments to be 3rd person. Participles and action nominals may be further inflected as nouns.
| Suffix | Tag | Description |
|---|---|---|
| -0 | -Agt | agent |
| -to | -Ani | animate patient or recipient |
| -mo | -Ina | inanimate patient or theme |
| -pe | -Ins | instrument |
| -la | -Loc | location |
| -he | -Act | action (non-participant) |
The temporal adjunct suffix -q (-Tmp) is appended to a participant suffix forming temporal participles and temporal action nominals.
The conditional forms are constructed by appending -hec (Cond) to finite forms.
The 3rd person theme prefix combines with the preceding recipient prefix.
| Prefix | + 3T- | Tag | Description | Slot |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| je- | jô- | 1S- | 1st person singular | 1st |
| be- | byô- | 1P- | 1st person plural | |
| go- | gû- | 2- | 2nd person | |
| so- | sû- | Rfx- | Reflexive (all persons) | |
| 0- | u- | 3R- | 3rd person recipient or patient | |
| na- | nau- | UR- | Unspecified recipient or patient | |
| u- | 3T- | 3rd person theme | 2nd | |
| 0- | UT- | Unspecfied theme | ||
The genitives of pronouns have special forms used as possessive determiners:
| Pronoun | Tag | Genitive | Partitive | Description |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| jen | 1S | jema | - | 1st person singular |
| ben | 1P | bema | bentai | 1st person plural |
| gon | 2 | goma | gontai | 2nd person |
| son | Rfx | soma | sontai | reflexive |
| den | 3AS | dema | - | 3rd person animate singular |
| dâ | 3IS | der? | - | 3rd person inanimate singular |
| del | 3M | dela | deltai | 3rd person inanimate mass |
| demo | 3AP | demor | demotai | 3rd person animate plural |
| dex | 3IP | dexa | dextai | 3rd person inanimate plural |
| Pronoun | Tag | Genitive | Partitive | Description |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| cen | CQ? | cema | centai | content question, personal |
| câ | CQ? | cer? | câtai? | content question, general |
| paran | Uni? | parama | parantai | universal quantifier, personal |
| parâ | Uni? | parar? | parâtai? | universal quantifier, general |
| qâ | RP? | qar? | qâtai? | relative pronoun |
Nouns are inflected for number (singular and plural and/or mass) and for case. The specific inflections depend on whether the noun stem ends in a vowel or a consonant. The vocative singular suffix combines with the stem vowel. Mass nouns are inflected as plural nouns in the partitive and as singular nouns otherwise.
| Case | Singular | Plural | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| V-Stem | C-Stem | V-Stem | C-Stem | |
| Abs | -0 | -0 | -x | -o |
| Voc | -i | -i | -xi | -oi |
| Gen | -r | -a | -xa | -or |
| Par | - | - | -tai | -tai |
Nouns may also be inflected for polarity. The suffixes are the same as for verbs and appear between the noun stem and any number-case suffix. Vowel-stem nouns insert h between the stem and the suffix.
Each demonstrative pronoun consists of a demonstrative determiner (sî Prox, dû Medi, and lâ Dist) followed by an indefinite pronoun.
| Pronoun | Tag | Description |
|---|---|---|
| be | AS | indefinite animate singular |
| ho | IS | indefinite inanimate singular |
| hol | M | indefinite inanimate mass |
| bex | AP | indefinite animate plural |
| hox | IP | indefinite inanimate plural |
Several verbs, such as sɪt "at", can act like suffixes to a preceding object or, conversely, the preceding object acts like a prefix. The objects include nouns and the elements listed below. When the object is a noun, the combinations are written with a hyphen - in between.
| Prefix | Tag | Description |
|---|---|---|
| si- | Prox- | demonstrative, proximal |
| do- | Medi- | demonstrative, medial |
| la- | Dist- | demonstrative, distal |
| ce- | CQ- | content question |
| ne- | Ind- | indefinite |
| para- | Uni- | universal quantifier |
| qa- | RP- | relative pronoun |
Examples include sist "here" and rexpa-nd "to the house".
Superlatives are verbs regularly derived from adjectival verbs using the suffix -ɪt (-Sup). Ordinal numbers are verbs derived from the corresponding cardinal numbers using the suffix -ɪm (-Ord), except that "first" and "last" are superlatives of nuf "early" and qor "late", respectively.
The cardinal numbers are uninflected. They're shown in the following table along with the corresponding ordinal number stems. To add the single digits to the tens values, append the corresponding cardinal (or ordinal) to the tens cardinal, e.g. 31 salkyôhin (salkyônuft).
| Value | Cardinal | Ordinal | Value | Cardinal | Ordinal |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | hin | nuft | 10 | kyô | kyôm |
| 2 | hix | hixm | 20 | kêx | kêxm |
| 3 | sal | salm | 30 | salkyô | salkyôm |
| 4 | pol | polm | 40 | polkyô | polkyôm |
| 5 | ken | kemm | 50 | kenkyô | kenkyôm |
| 6 | seji | sejêm | 60 | sejikyô | sejikyôm |
| 7 | tagi | tagîm | 70 | tagikyô | tagikyôm |
| 8 | denu | denûm | 80 | denukyô | denukyôm |
| 9 | bô | bôm | 90 | bôkyô | bôkyôm |
page started: 2014.Jul.22 Tue
current date: 2014.Jul.27 Sun
content and form originated by qîhoskeh
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