Legend: Definitions, Terms, <Text>, [IPA], -Tags-, and "Glosses".
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.
There are 2 genders: animate and inanimate.
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.
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.
The form of the stem determines whether the word is a verb or not. The following table shows some sample stems:
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 |
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.
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.
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 | |||
-ī | -i | -ī | -i | -ī | -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.
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.
Part. | Anim. | Inan. | Intr. | Type A | Type B | Tag | Description |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
ke= | - | -k | 1S | 1st person Singular | |||
ma= | - | -m | 1P | 1st person Plural | |||
šo= | - | -š | 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.
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:
Phase | E Roots | O Roots | A Roots | O Infix |
---|---|---|---|---|
0 | šen- | kot- | lam- | ? |
1 | šān- | kīt- | lēm- | ? |
2 | šīn- | kēt- | lōm- | ? |
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.
Singular | Plural | NonReferential | Tag | Name | ||||
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
0 | -a | 1 | -ī | 0 | -0 | CVC | -Abs | Absolutive |
0 | -e | CVCC | ||||||
2 | -ē | other | ||||||
2 | -as | 1 | -is | 2 | -os | -Erg | Ergative | |
2 | -an | 1 | -in | 2 | -on | -Gen | Genitive | |
- | 0 | -o | -Com | Combining form |
The following table shows the personal, correlative, and reflexive pronoun roots along with their case endings. There are both proclitic and free absolutive forms.
Abs. | Erg. | Gen. | Tag | Description | Group | |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
ke= | kī | kes | ken | 1S | 1st person Singular | Personal |
ma= | mō | mas | man | 1P | 1st person Plural | |
šo= | šē | šos | šon | 2 | 2nd person | |
sa= | sō | sas | san | 3S | 3rd person Singular | |
to= | tē | tos | ton | 3P | 3rd person Plural | |
ya= | yō | yas | yan | Cor | Correlative | Other |
la= | lō | - | 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):
Determiner | Spatial | Anim. | Inan. | Tag | Description |
---|---|---|---|---|---|
vī | vā | vām·a | vāt·a | Ind | indefinite |
sī | sā | sām·a | sāt·a | Prox | proximal demonstrative |
sū | sæ | sæm·a | sæt·a | Medi | medial demonstrative |
tā | tō | tōm·a | tōt·a | Dist | distal demonstrative |
čā | čō | čōm·a | čōt·a | CQ | content question |
pen | pen | pemm·a | pent·a | Sat | satisfactive |
hō | - | Rel | relative | ||
- | - | hūm·a | hūt·a | IRP | indefinite relative |
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" |
The simple cardinal numbers are shown in the following table:
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 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.
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).
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.
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.
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.
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.
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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