Legend: Definitions, Terms, <Text>, [IPA], -Tags-, and "Glosses".
Note: clitics are mostly treated as affixes here.
The only syntactical word classes are verbs, nouns, and particles. Verbs are conjugated while nouns and particles are not inflected. The verb class includes quantities, relationals, and scalars as well as the more typical verbs. Each noun is either common or proper and either animate or inanimate; this figures in verb agreement. Note that a given noun root may be homophonous and a noun may even match a verb stem or form.
A verb root is scalar if it can be used to denote a scale of comparison.
While affixes, particles, and noun roots may have any form, almost all verb roots consist of 3 consonants (including i, u, and o). These have different phases depending on where the vowel /a/ is inserted, which may be after any one of the consonants or not at all. The choice of phases is controlled by certain affixes: either derivational or the inflectional suffix. Where wyz represents the consonants of a verb root, the phases are Wyz, wYz, wyZ, and wyz; this notation is used in the stem morphology subsections.
A verb consists of a mandatory verb root and a number of optional affixes. The structure of a verb is as follows:
A verb may have 2 arguments: an explicit one represented by this suffix and an implicit one used for coreference. The semantic roles of the arguments is determined by the verb's argument structure class. When the suffix is null, the implicit argument takes on the role otherwise assigned to the explicit argument; its original role becomes unavailable.
| Phase | Suffix | Tag | Description | Type |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| wyz | -i | -A | common animate | Common Agreement |
| -u | -I | common inanimate | ||
| wyZ | -i | -AP | proper animate | Proper Agreement |
| -u | -IP | proper inanimate | ||
| wyZ | -n | -Rfx | reflexive | Other Pronoun |
| Wyz | -m | -1S | 1st person singular | Personal Pronoun |
| -r | -1XP | 1st person exclusive plural | ||
| -q | -1NP | 1st person inclusive plural | ||
| -s | -2 | 2nd person | ||
| -k | -3 | 3rd person (anaphoric) | ||
| wYz | -K | -Ind | indefinite | Non-personal Pronoun |
| -ti | -Prox | proximal demonstrative | ||
| -su | -Medi | medial demonstrative | ||
| -lo | -Dist | distal demonstrative | ||
| -co | -CQ | content question | ||
| wYz | no pronoun or noun | Null |
The mood prefixes also change the verb's argument structure, making the normally implicit argument take the agent role and the explicit argument, if any, take the patient role. The normally implicit argument is 2nd person if imperative and 1st person inclusive plural if hortative.
| Prefix | Tag | Name | Group |
|---|---|---|---|
| Present | Tense | ||
| x- | Pst- | Past | |
| m- | Fut- | Future | |
| S- | Imp- | Imperative | Mood |
| Q- | Hor- | Hortative |
| Prefix | Tag | Description |
|---|---|---|
| Positive | ||
| P- | Neg- | Negative |
The link type is syntactically significant. It must be null if a mood prefix appears. As with null agreement, the link type may affect the grammatical voice of the verb.
| Prefix | Tag | Description |
|---|---|---|
| Initial | ||
| Post-conjunctional | ||
| Attributive | ||
| d- | Dir- | Direct coreferential |
| L- | Inv- | Inverse coreferential |
| k- | Obl- | Oblique |
| I- | Adv- | Adverbial |
A verb with adverbial link type is an adverb of manner when the verb root is scalar; the gender agreement or pronoun must be null.
A verb with adverbial link type is an adverb of degree when the verb root is one of quantity, which must agree with a noun specifying the unit used for measuring (common inanimate).
The verbs in the ditransitive class have a 3rd argument, which is personal. This argument is infixed before the last consonant of the root and becomes wy while the last consonant remains z:
| Suffix | Tag | Description |
|---|---|---|
| <mo> | <1S> | 1st person singular |
| <ro> | <1XP> | 1st person exclusive plural |
| <qo> | <1NP> | 1st person inclusive plural |
| <so> | <2> | 2nd person |
| <ko> | <3> | 3rd person (anaphoric) |
The personal genitive verbs are used instead of the generic genitive verb with personal pronoun suffixes. The following table shows the irregular and defective verbs. The suffixes are regular.
| Copula | Genitive | Discourse | Type |
|---|---|---|---|
| to | sn | - | Common Agreement |
| tO | sN | - | Proper Agreement |
| tO | sN | - | Other Pronoun |
| to | - | - | Personal Pronoun |
| To | Sn | Ui | Non-personal Pronoun |
| - | Sn | - | Null |
The locational derivations apply to spatial verbs and change the semantics of the location argument (which is otherwise static). They are the allative M- All-, which makes the location a destination, the ablative X- Abl-, which makes the location an origin, and the perlative T- Per-, which makes the location a place on the route.
Verb roots may be divided into 3 action types: there are state, event, and process roots. Derivation may change the verb's action type from that of the verb root.
If a verb denotes a process composed of multiple steps, the semelfactive Sem- derives an event verb denoting a single step.
The inchoative Inch- derives verbs denoting the entry to a state or the start of a process. The terminative Term- derives verbs denoting the exit from a state or the completion of a process. These aren't used with spatial verbs.
The passive potential Do- derives scalar verbs from action verbs denoting the ability to affect the patient argument.
Derivations applying to scalar verbs include the normative Bi- Norm-.
A compound noun consists of a head noun root and a noun modifier, which is either a noun root or a verb root. The head noun determines the gender of the noun. The type of modifier and its relationship to the head noun are, in general, ambiguous, although some head nouns specialize in one type of modifier.
Participant nouns are a subset of those compound nouns where the noun modifier is a verb root. Some of the derivations denote agents, instruments, patients, results, and locations. An animate or inanimate patient derivation of a quantity verb is used as a partitive.
A superlative noun identifies a subset according to superiority of some scalar quality. It's formed using the prefix go- Sup- on the wYz phase of a scalar verb.
An ordinal number is a noun formed using the prefix go- Ord- on the wYz phase of a quantity verb (specifically, a cardinal number).
page started: 2017.Dec.25 Mon
current date: 2017.Dec.29 Fri
content and form originated by qiihoskeh
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