The root of an inflected word provides its most basic meaning; note that roots can be polysemic or even homophonic.
The classifier is what determines whether the inflected word acts lexically as a noun or a verb. If it acts as a noun, the classifier is called a noun-class and it also determines the gender and number of the noun and whether or not it needs a possessor prefix. If it acts as a verb, the classifier is called an verb-type and it determines whether the verb is basically static, dynamic, or in-between (the action-type), what its aspect is, and what its argument structure is.
Where it appears, the personal prefix specifies the possessor of a possessed noun or the 2nd argument of a bivalent verb (there can be two such prefixes if the verb is trivalent). It never appears on non-possessed nouns or on univalent verbs.
The agreement suffix determines the syntactical part-of-speech: a finite verb, a secondary verb, a noun or noun modifier, an adverb, or maybe something else.
(Agreement-)Root-Classifier(-Tense)(-Agreement)(-Mood)
A plural or mass noun may be incorporated by the verb; if so, the incorporated noun is immediately prefixed. The valence is determined by the verb-type, as usual and if bi- or tri-valent, agreement prefixes may precede the noun part.
(Object-)(IncorpNoun-)Root-VerbType(-Tense)(-Agreement)(-Mood)
(Possessor-)(Modifier-)Root-NounType(-Subject)
| Singular | Plural | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Base | Tag | Description | Base | Tag | Description |
| i | 1S | 1st person Singular | ini | 1XP | 1st person Exclusive Plural |
| çi | 1ND | 1st person Inclusive Dual | çini | 1NP | 1st person Inclusive Plural |
| go | 2S | 2nd person Singular | gono | 2P | 2nd person Plural |
| ca- | Rflx- | Reflexive | cana- | Rcpr- | Reciprocal |
| Singular | Plural | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Base | Tag | Description | Base | Tag | Description |
| fini | Imp.N | 1st person Inclusive Dual | fini | Imp.N | 1st person Inclusive Plural |
| fi | Imp.S | 2nd person Singular | fino | Imp.P | 2nd person Plural |
The demonstratives are mostly related to the personal pronouns. The form çìmee is a dialectal addition or replacement for ìmee.
| Base | Tag | Name | Description |
|---|---|---|---|
| (ç)ìmee | Prx | Proximal | nearest place speaker is now |
| gòmee | Med | Medial | nearest place addressee is now |
| xàmee | Dst | Distal | nearest place some 3rd person is now |
| wàa | Rem | Remote | not near any participants |
The tense and mood suffixes can appear only on finite or adjectival forms.
The tense suffixes -Prs, denoting absolute present, and -Pst, denoting definite past, are placed after the verb-type and before any agreement suffixes. These are used only when needed and -Prs is never used with the aoristic aspect.
The definite future tense suffix -Fut and the modal suffixes are placed after the agreement suffixes and don't co-occur with the present or past suffixes. However, the contrafactual mood suffix -Ctf, which is identical to the definite past tense suffix, is placed immediately before a future or modal suffix when it appears.
| Suffix | Tag | Name | Description | Group | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Present | relative | tense | |||
| - | -Prs | Present | absolute | ||
| -h | -Pst | Past | definite time | ||
| - | -Fut | Future | definite time, "will" | ||
| -h | -Ctf | Contrafactual | (used only with future or modal) | ||
| - | -Cap | Capability | potential, "can" | modality | |
| - | -Nec | Necessity | potential, "must" | ||
| - | -Prm | Permission | deontic, "may" | ||
| - | -Req | Requirement | deontic, "shall" | ||
| - | -Est | Estimative | epistemic, "may" | evidential | |
| - | -Ded | Deductive | epistemic, "must" | ||
| - | -Hrs | Hearsay | indirect | ||
| -ne | -Wit | Witness | direct (from nee) | ||
| Type | V | Tag | Valence | Subject | Group | Passive | - Object |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| A | i | -A | mono- | agentive | dynamic | - | - |
| B | e | -B | patientive | dynamic | |||
| C | i | -C | patientive | static | |||
| D | a | -D | bi- | agentive | dynamic | B | A |
| E | a | -E | patientive | static | Pas + C | C | |
| F | o | -F | patientive | static | Pas + C | C | |
| dynamic | Pas + B | B | |||||
| G | u | -G | tri- | agentive | dynamic | Pas + D | D |
When an object references the same entity as the subject, the reflexive agreement prefix is used. Other valence-decreasing operations work by substituting the corresponding lower valence verb-type, except that the passive for types E, F, and G must use the passive suffix (-Pas).
The causative (-Cau) adds a causer argument to the verb; if the original subject is agentive, it becomes a patientive causee. Only the following applications are possible:
The autocausative (-Auc) has the general effect of the reflexive of a causative.
page started: 2010.Jun.22 Tue
current date: 2010.Jun.27 Sun
content and form originated by qiihoskeh
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