In roots, stems, and affixes cited in the grammar and the vocabulary, those with mutatable consonants are given in the original non-mutated form provided that an identical form actually exists; if not, those with consonants which may appear as either codas or between vowels appear in both forms, the coda version first, e.g. lū, lov.
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 |
| -is | -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 | -ā | -Dur | present or durative |
| -ɪ | -ē | -Aor | aoristic |
| -o | -ō | -Prf | perfect or retrospective |
| -e | - | -Fut | future or prospective |
| -ma | -mā | -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, -li | -1P | 1st person plural |
| -k, -ki | -2 | 2nd person |
| -0 | -3 | 3rd person |
| -f, -fi | -U | Unspecified |
| -* | .Imp | Imperative (2nd person) |
The 3rd person theme prefix combines with the preceding recipient prefix.
| Prefix | + 3T- | Tag | Description | Slot |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| je- | jō- | 1S- | 1st person singular | 1st |
| ba- | bau- | 1P- | 1st person plural | |
| go- | gū- | 2- | 2nd person | |
| so- | sū- | Rfx- | Reflexive (all persons) | |
| 0- | u- | 3R- | 3rd person recipient or patient | |
| li- | yū- | UR- | Unspecified recipient or patient | |
| ho- | 3T- | 3rd person theme | 2nd | |
| 0- | UT- | Unspecfied theme | ||
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 |
| -fe | -Nom | action (non-participant) |
The temporal adjunct suffix -x (-Tmp) is appended to a participant suffix forming temporal participles and temporal action nominals.
The conditional forms are constructed by appending -cin (Cond) to finite forms.
Some adjectival verbs have adverbial forms constructed by appending -ī (-Adv) to a stem which includes polarity but not aspect.
Nouns are inflected for number (singular and plural and/or mass) and for case. Mass nouns are inflected as plural nouns in the partitive and as singular nouns otherwise. 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. Final stem consonants mutate before vowel-initial suffixes. The V-Stem endings shown in the table are already mutated.
| Case | Name | Singular | Plural | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| V-Stem | C-Stem | V-Stem | C-Stem | ||
| Abs | Absolutive | -0 | -0 | -c | -o |
| Top | Topical | -ga | -ka | -cka | -oga |
| Voc | Vocative | -i | -i | -ji | -oi |
| Gen | Genitive | -r | -a | -ja | -or |
| Par | Partitive | - | - | -dū | -tū |
The 3rd person pronouns are still not finalized.
The genitives of pronouns have special forms used as possessive determiners:
| Pronoun | Tag | Genitive | Partitive | Description |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| jen | 1S | jer | - | 1st person singular |
| ban | 1P | bar | bantū | 1st person plural |
| gon | 2 | gor | gontū | 2nd person |
| son | Rfx | sor | sontū | Reflexive |
| dave | 3AS | daver | - | 3rd person animate singular |
| dano | 3IS | danor | - | 3rd person inanimate singular |
| daz | 3M | dala | daztū | 3rd person inanimate mass |
| davec | 3AP | daveca | davectū | 3rd person animate plural |
| danoc | 3IP | danoca | danoctū | 3rd person inanimate plural |
This may still not be the final version.
| Pronoun | Tag | Genitive | Partitive | Description |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| cen | CQP | cer | centū | content question, personal |
| cā | CQG | ceha | cādū | content question, general |
| nen | ExiP | ner | *nentū | existential quantifier, personal |
| nā | ExiG | neha | *nādū | existential quantifier, general |
| paren | UniP | parer | *parentū | universal quantifier, personal |
| parā | UniG | pareha | *parādū | universal quantifier, general |
| *xan | RP | xar | xantū | relative pronoun |
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- | Exi- | existential quantifier |
| pare- | Uni- | universal quantifier |
| xa- | RP- | relative pronoun |
Examples include sist "here" and zecpa-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 nof "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 salkyōhin (salkyōnoft).
| Value | Cardinal | Ordinal | Value | Cardinal | Ordinal |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | hin | noft | 10 | kyō | kyōm |
| 2 | hix | hicm | 20 | kēc | kēcm |
| 3 | sal | salm | 30 | salkyō | salkyōm |
| 4 | pol | polm | 40 | polkyō | polkyōm |
| 5 | ken | kemm | 50 | kenkyō | kenkyōm |
| 6 | seje | sejēm | 60 | sejegyō | sejigyōm |
| 7 | tagi | tagīm | 70 | tagigyō | tagigyōm |
| 8 | deno | denūm | 80 | denogyō | denogyōm |
| 9 | bō | bōm | 90 | bōgyō | bōgyōm |
Larger numbers are formed using 100 tova (tobām) as the base. The preceding factors are 2 through 9 (no factor appears for 100) and the following addends are 1 through 99.
The suffixes here are shown before any mutation.
| Suffix | Tag | Description |
|---|---|---|
| -in | -Inch | Inchoative |
| -op | -Auto | Autocausative |
| -tor | -Caus | Causative |
| -q | -Abil | Abilitative |
| -kar | -Diff | Difficilitative |
page started: 2014.Jul.30 Wed
current date: 2014.Aug.11 Mon
content and form originated by qīhoskeh
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