Legend: Definitions, Terms, <Text>, «apa», -Tags-, and "Glosses".
A phrase is either a pronoun or a noun phrase. A noun phrase consists of an optional determiner, a noun, an optional quantity, any number of attributive verbs, and an optional relative clause. The determiner position may instead be occupied by a genitive phrase (the case of a phrase is that of its noun or pronoun). Unless the phrase is a partitive or superlative construction, the genitive specifies the possessor.
Strictly speaking, there are no compound phrases; instead, clauses are conjoined with non-compounded constituents are factored out.
If no determiner appears, the phrase is anaphoric. The contextual and specific determiners are proclitic.
| Word | Tag | Description |
|---|---|---|
| la | Ctx | contextual definite |
| vi | Spc | specific indefinite |
| 'er | Exi | non-referential |
| sî | Prox | proximal demonstrative |
| sû | Medi | medial demonstrative |
| tau | Dist | distal demonstrative |
| ĉau | QD | interrogative |
These constructions select a subset of some whole referent, which is specified by a genitive phrase. The partitive specifies only the cardinality of the part while the superlative provides the criterion with which the subset is selected. A partitive phrase is completed by a nominalized quantity specifier while a superlative phrase contains a deverbal noun derived from a scalar verb. The latter is either an animate patient, an inanimate patient, or a locational noun, according to the gender of the whole. A superlative optionally contains a quantity specifier for the cardinality of the subset.
A clause consists of an optional polarity particle, a predicative verb, an optional temporal adverbial, an optional oblique argument, and up to 2 core argument phrases, the last of which may be replaced by a complement clause. The order of arguments and adverbials is not syntactically determined, except that all precede any complement clause. Some kinds of clauses are preceded by conjunctions. The number of argument phrases depends on the valence of the verb; a univalent verbs permits only one argument phrase.
Each verb belongs to an argument structure class. The classes are mostly the same syntactically, but differ semantically. There are 2 argument roles: alpha and beta, such that the beta role referent "acts on" the alpha role referent, notated alpha < beta.
The argument structure class interacts with the action type; only dynamic forms of a descriptive verb can have a cause argument.
| Label | Name | Alpha Role | Beta Role | Examples |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| V1_ | Descriptive | Descriptee | Cause | "hot" |
| V2_ | Actional | Route | Actor | "walk" |
| Possessive | Possessum | Possessor | "have" | |
| Perceptual | Target | Experiencer | "see" | |
| Transitive | Patient | Agent | "eat" | |
| Relational | Location | Locatee | "in" |
The argument of a bivalent verb form that is marked on the verb is the object and the other core argument is the subject; both orders can appear, since one of them has a marked case. The verb is inflected to indicate which of alpha and beta is the subject and which is the object. A univalent verb form has only a subject, the object being unspecified.
The case of a univalent core argument is omitted.
A bivalent relational verb has a location argument and a locatee argument while any other bivalent verb has an agent-like argument and a patient-like argument. The cases used for each phrase depends on the gender of the phrase, as shown in the following table:
| Animate | Inanimate | Location | Role | Verb Class |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Nominative | Absolutive | Accusative | Locatee | Relational |
| Locative | Locative | Absolutive | Location | |
| Nominative | Ergative | Ergative | Agent-like | Other |
| Accusative | Absolutive | Absolutive | Patient-like |
An oblique argument always has a marked case, either ergative or locative. A locative phrase is oblique if and only if the verb is not relational. An ergative phrase is oblique if the verb is relational; if the verb is not relational, it might have any role: a core argument if and only if the verb agrees.
The argument of a clause may coreference one of the preceding clause by either marking peron on the verb, using a pronoun, or using an anaphoric noun phrase.
A relative clause is preceded by the relativizer Rel and contains an instance of the relative pronoun.
A complement clause is an argument of the preceding matrix clause, whose verb is called an auxiliary. The referent of a complement clause is the situation rather than a participant. The auxiliary may be a descriptive scalar verb or a perceptual verb or a verb reporting speech. It may be univalent or bivalent. If bivalent, the complementizer particle Cpl must appear between the object of the auxiliary and the complement clause; otherwise, it isn't used.
The mood and aspect of a temporal adjunct clause specifies the temporal relationship between the its referent and that of the preceding host clause. The verb of the adjunct clause has relative tense. If the adjunct verb is perfect and realis, the host situation occurs after the adjunct situation. If the adjunct verb is durative and realis, the host situation and the adjunct situation are cotemporal. If the adjunct verb is durative and irrealis, the host situation occurs before the adjunct situation. Adjunct verb that are perfect and irrealis aren't used.
A depictive specifies the state or process current when some action occurs. Cotemporal adjunct clauses are used for depictives.
A purpose clause specifies the purpose for some action and a means clause specifies the means. The action is treated as the main clause with the purpose or means being a subsequent subordinate clause introduced by a conjunction. The conjunction is For in a purpose clause and By in a means clause. The verb of a purpose clause has irrealis mood but that of a means clause has realis mood. In both cases, the tense is relative.
A resultative specifies the state or process resulting from some action. The action is treated as the main clause with the result being a subsequent subordinate clause introduced by the conjunction Rst. A state verb used as the result has durative aspect while an event verb has perfect aspect. A process verb can have either aspect, depending on the semantics.
A reason clause specifies the reason some action occurs. The reason is treated as the main clause with the action being a subsequent subordinate clause introduced by the conjunction Rst. Any tense, mood, or aspect combination may be used in the reason clause. The irrealis mood in the action clause represents a future action.
A conditional sentence consists of 2 sentences: a condition, introduced by If, and a conclusion, introduced by Rst. Although often the same, the tense, mood, and aspect of the 2 sentences are independent except that whenever one sentence is contrary-to-fact, the other must also be.
There are 3 types of conjunctions, called Context A, Context B, and Context C, indicated by the conjunction. Main clauses are also Context A; noun phrases constitute Context C. Clauses conjoined by Context A conjunctions are temporally independent from each other, unlike clauses conjoined by Context B conjunctions.
| Word | Tag | Description | Context |
|---|---|---|---|
| Rst | result | A | |
| And | independent AND | ||
| IOr | inclusive OR | ||
| POr | preclusive OR | ||
| If | condition | ||
| reason | |||
| Sim | simultaneous AND | B | |
| Seq | sequential AND | ||
| For | purpose adjunct | ||
| By | means adjunct | ||
| Tmp | temporal adjunct | ||
| Cpl | complementizer | ||
| Rel | relativizer | C |
The conjunctions described as "AND" or "OR" in the table are coordinating. Clauses that are separated by them form a series. There may be more than 2 clauses, in which case the same conjunction is used throughout the series.
Factoring out is when constituents that are common to all the clauses of a series appear only once. This may be the verb along with one of the argument phrases (if the clause is bivalent). Note that the argument phrases remaining conjoined must have the same gender if they function as objects.
page started: 2022.Mar.05 Sat
current date: 2022.Mar.07 Mon
content and form originated by qiihoskeh
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