Aug04 –  A Constructed Language

Aug04 Morphology

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

Morphology Overview

Person and Number Terminology

This person terminology is used for verb inflection and pronouns.

The 1st person distinguishes singular from plural. The 2nd person doesn't distinguish number. Although phrases can distinguish singular from plural, 3rd person inflections don't distinguish number.

Gender Terminology

There are 2 genders: animate and inanimate.

Word Classification

The major classes of words are verbs, participles, nouns, pronouns, quantity words, and particles. The kinds of particles are post-final, adverbial, and determining. Verbs share aspect marking with participles and participles share stems with nouns.

Each noun is animate or inanimate, count or mass, and common or proper. Pronouns may also be animate or inanimate.

Verbs are grouped into classes with respect to argument roles and action type. The action types are dynamic, habitual, and static; a verb's action type determines which aspect is unmarked. Some dynamic verbs are telic. Many static verbs and some quantity words are also scalar (i.e. able to be used to denote scales of comparison). The argument role classes are Class 1, Class 2, and Class 3. There are also 3 conjugations.

Verb, Participle, and Noun Inflection

This section covers the inflection of verbs, participles, and those nouns derived from verb roots.

Verb roots are triconsonantal; the most basic forms are CVCC, with the vowel specifying the conjugation. These are modified by infixing, vowel replacement, suffixing, and prefixing.

Stem Formation

The form of the stem determines whether the word is a verb or not. The following table shows some sample stems:

Stem Formation
E Roots O Roots A Roots Tag Usage POS
tefn·e sopr·e malk·e action nominal noun
tāfan sīpar mēlak <Don> donor, agent noun or participle
tifān sepār malāk <Rec> recipient, animate patient
tefūn sopūr malūk <Thm> theme, inanimate patient
vetfūn vospūr vamlūk <Ins> instrument
netfūn nospūr namlūk <Loc> location
'etfūn 'ospūr 'amlūk <Sup> superlative (scalar)
tīfen sēper mōlek <Anim> animate patient verb
tefīn sopīr malīk <Inan> inanimate patient
tifōn sipōr molōk <Intr> intransitive

Inflection Summary

Both verbs and participles are inflected for aspect. Verbs are also inflected for mood, person and number of the agent, transitivity, and gender of the patient; person and number of the patient are specified by proclitic pronouns. Participles are inflected for the role and gender of the relativized argument; person and number of the non-relativized argument are specified by proclitic pronouns. Note that participles are intransitive unless an appropriate argument appears while the patients of transitive verbs are assumed to be anaphoric singular if no argument appears.

The possible noun inflections are referentiality, number, and case, along with the role and gender of the relativized argument.

Action Types and Aspects

The aspect suffixes follow the stem immediately. The 2nd column under each heading is used when a personal ending (other than the imperative) follows. The stative form of a static verb, the habitual form of a habitual verb, and the progressive form of a dynamic verb are considered to be unmarked for aspect.

Action Type & Aspect Suffixes
Static Habitual Dynamic Tag Name
-0 -e - - -Sta Stative
-co -0 -e -co -Hab Habitual
- - -0 -e -Prg Progressive
-a -a -a -Aor Aoristic
-to -to -to -Prf Perfect
-i -i -i -Pro Prospective

There are no aoristic participles. For static and habitual verbs, usually only one of the aoristic and the perfect appear in a given type of context.

Personal Suffixes and Proclitics

The personal proclitic pronouns may appear on both participles (Part. column) and verbs (Anim., Inan., and Intr. columns). The following table shows the proclitic pronouns and the personal suffixes along with where they can be used. The Type A column is used for Class 1 and Class 3 verbs. The Type B column is used for Class 2 verbs.

Personal Suffixes & Proclitics
Part. Anim. Inan. Intr. Type A Type B Tag Description
ke= - -k 1S 1st person Singular
ma= - -m 1P 1st person Plural
šo= - 2 2nd person
- -o Imp Imperative
la= - - Rfx Reflexive
- -x -0 Uns Unspecified
sa= - -0 -s? 3S 3rd person Singular
to= - -r 3P 3rd person Plural
ya= - 3rd person + pronoun Cor Correlative

The imperative ending never appears with a marked aspect.

Noun Stem Alternations

There are 3 kinds of noun stems: CVC, CVCC, and those formed from verb stems. Stems of the CVC type have alternate phases depending on the ending. Formation of the stems of the last type are covered in the Derivation section. However, some of those also have stem alternations. All other nouns have only 1 stem phase. The alternate phases are shown in the following table:

Noun Stem Alternation
Phase E Roots O Roots A Roots O Infix
0 šen- kot- lam- ?
1 šān- kīt- lēm- ?
2 šīn- kēt- lōm- ?

Noun Suffixes

The noun ending is a combination of 2 things; the 1st is referentiality and number and the 2nd is case. A noun form is either referential and singular (-S), referential and plural (-P), or non-referential (-NR). For each combination, the following table shows each suffix along with the appropriate stem phase. The non-referential absolute ending depends on the type of noun stem, as shown.

Noun Suffixes
Singular Plural NonReferential Tag Name
0 -a 1 0 -0 CVC -Abs Absolutive
0 -e CVCC
2 other
2 -as 1 -is 2 -os -Erg Ergative
2 -an 1 -in 2 -on -Gen Genitive
- 0 -o -Com Combining form

Pronouns

The following table shows the personal, correlative, and reflexive pronoun roots along with their case endings. There are both proclitic and free absolutive forms.

Some Pronoun Forms
Abs. Erg. Gen. Tag Description Group
ke= kes ken 1S 1st person Singular Personal
ma= mas man 1P 1st person Plural
šo= šē šos šon 2 2nd person
sa= sas san 3S 3rd person Singular
to= tos ton 3P 3rd person Plural
ya= yas yan Cor Correlative Other
la= - lan Rfx Reflexive (3rd person)

All other pronouns are composites of determiner plus gender; they take the same number and case suffixes as nouns, but lack non-referential forms. The following table lists the determiners along with the animate and inanimate pronouns (in the absolutive singular):

Determiners & Pronoun Stems
Determiner Spatial Anim. Inan. Tag Description
vām·a vāt·a Ind indefinite
sām·a sāt·a Prox proximal demonstrative
sæm·a sæt·a Medi medial demonstrative
tōm·a tōt·a Dist distal demonstrative
čā čō čōm·a čōt·a CQ content question
pen pen pemm·a pent·a Sat satisfactive
- Rel relative
- - hūm·a hūt·a IRP indefinite relative

Content Word Inflection Examples

šomīnehak
šo=men<ī/e>h-a-k
2=see<Anim>-Aor-1S
"I saw you."

norū'ī
nor<o/ū>'-ī
give<Thm>-PAbs
"gifts"

Quantity Words

Cardinal Numbers

The simple cardinal numbers are shown in the following table:

Cardinal Numbers
Value Word Value Word Value Word Value Word
1 hes 1st ? 10 yak 100 ven
2 čof 2nd čēfox 20 čīfak 200 čūfen
3 tar 3rd tōrox 30 tērak 300 tōren
4 lot 4th lētox 40 lītak 400 lūten
5 kep 5th kīpox 50 kāpak 500 kæpen
6 maz 6th mōzox 60 mēzak 600 mōzen
7 reš 7th rīšox 70 rāšak 700 ræšen
8 'oc 8th 'ēcox 80 'īcak 800 'ūcen
9 šam 9th šōmox 90 šēmak 900 šōmen

The simple cardinal numbers are combined from largest to smallest, e.g. lūten-kāpak-maz 456. 1000 is yōken; multiples of this are formed by placing it after any value from 2 to 999, e.g. lūten-kāpak-maz yōken 456,000.

Ordinal Numbers

Ordinal numbers are nouns mostly derived from the corresponding cardinal numbers. The 1st 9 ordinals are shown in the table above; 10th is yōkox and 100th is vīnox. The ordinals for the multiples of 10 and 100 are formed by suffixing -ox, e.g. mēzakox 60th. Only the final word of a compound ordinal number takes the suffix.

Fractional Numbers

A fractional number consists of a numerator followed by a denominator. The numerator is a cardinal number, omitted if 1. Denominators are regularly formed from the corresponding cardinal numbers by prefixing ta-. Examples: tačof (1/2), tar talot (3/4).

Derivation

While some types of derivation is morphological (involving affixes), other types (such as compounding and incorporation) are replaced by syntactical constructions.

CVC postpositions are made into verbs by adding r as the 3rd consonant. They might also be made into nouns.

Verb to Verb

In some cases, telic verbs denoting entry to the state (i.e. inchoative) are derived from scalar or other static verbs by changing the final consonant of the root; these will be listed in the lexicon. Some other verbs have telic autocausative derivations (such as "look at" from "see") which change the final consonant of the root to c; these will also be listed in the lexicon.

Noun to Verb

Incorporation is syntactical, with the verb preceded by the combining form of the incorporated noun. There might be some verbs derived from CVC noun roots.

Noun to Noun

Some adverbial nouns denoting units of measure are derived from noun roots by adding the suffix -ar -Adv. There may be similar derivations. Otherwise, compound nouns are formed syntactically, by preceding the head noun with the combining form of the modifier noun.

Verb to Noun

There are participant nominals and action nominals, which are deverbal nouns derived by replacing the verb stem formant by a noun stem formant, as described in Stem Formation.

page started: 2016.Aug.05 Fri
current date: 2016.Aug.11 Thu
content and form originated by qiihoskeh

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