pi: Morphology

Last Edited: 2006.Dec.03 Sun

Argument Roles

Project pi uses accusative pronoun alignment.
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Pronoun Prefixes

The referents of extended plurals include persons associated with the base referents, but which are not present. Note that the only way to form a 1st person exclusive plural is with the extended plural.
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The order of the pronoun prefixes is A1-A2-A3-Stem.

All inflected words are formed using these prefixes, including those that act syntactically like participles and infinitives.

Stem Formation

The form of the lexical verb stem is:
Root(-Aspects)-Mood(-TPoR)
where TPoR is Temporal Point of Reference.
Lexical noun stems consist only of roots and derivational suffixes.

Lexical verb roots are mostly CVCC or CVVC. Lexical noun stems are usually CVCCV(C) or CVVCV(C).
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The Permanent mood is used for forming semantic nouns from lexical verbs.

Aspect and Temporal Points of Reference

If no aspect is marked, the lexical verb is perfective for the 1st and 2nd classes and imperfective for the 3rd class. If no TPoR is appended, the time is determined from the context.
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Probably, absolute present time will instead be marked by an adverb men.

Sample Word Forms

bi-ki-kamb-al-e
1XS-2XS-see-Ipf-Ind
"I see you."

ji-ma-si-tân-e-s
3TS-1NP-3IS-give.Prf-Ind-Pst
"He gave it to us at that time."

ki-n-g-e
2XS-Un2-want.Ipf-Ind
"You want something."