Dimpurani Actant Morphology

[qiihoskeh]

I have to name this project, so I'm calling it "Dimpurani". This will probably change.
Last Edited: 2006.May.22 Mon

This system applies to lexical nouns as well as lexical verbs, and determines syntactical class.

The positions of all these affixes hasn't been determined yet, although part-of-speech marking is at least as close to the stem as role-to-argument mapping, which is closer than person and number. A proposed order is:

Person--Number--Stem--POS--Voice

Valence and Argument Structure

R1, R2, and R3 identify the arguments' roles, while A1, A2, and A3 identify the arguments. A lexical verb can be mono-, di-, or tri-valent. A lexical noun can be mono- or di-valent.

(Possibly add Argument Structure Classes.)

Part of Speech Marking (POS)

Each word base has an inherent part of speech. These are noun, non-finite verb, and finite verb. Nouns are either animate or inanimate. The affixes listed here change the part of speech of a word base from the inherent one to something different. Where relevent, finite verbs are singular unless marked plural (the number applies to A1; number isn't marked on nouns).

Affix	Tag	Makes	Applies to
???	Ani	Animate Noun	all but Animate Noun
???	Ina	Inanimate Noun	all but Inanimate Noun
???	Crf	Non-finite Verb	all but non-finite verb
???	S	Singular Finite Verb	all but finite verb
???	P	Plural Finite Verb	all

Mapping Roles to Arguments (Voice)

These all apply to divalent and trivalent words. Those that are used with monovalent words are notres under Mono.

Affix	R1	R2	Tag	Name	Mono
	A1	A2	Dir	direct	yes
???	A2	A1	Inv	inverse
???	A1, A2	A2, A1	Rcp	reciprocal
???	A2	A2	Rfx	reflexive
???	none	A2	Ant	antipassive
???	A2	none	Pas	passive	yes

Personal Actant Marking (Person)

For divalent words, each of these actants specifies the person for both arguments. For trivalent words, the actants specify the person for the first two arguments. For monovalent words, only one argument is specified. This argument is A2 when a prefix is used, which must be with a finite verb stem, and A1 otherwise.

	Di- and Tri-valent Usage			Monovalent Usage
Affix	Tag	A2	A1	Tag	A2
???	2X.1X	2X	1X
???	2X.3	2X	3	2X	2X
???	2N.3	2N	3	2N	2N
???	1X.3	1X	3	1X	1X
???	U.3	Uns	3	U	U
	3P.3O	3P	3O	3	3

1X = 1st person, eXclusive
2X = 2nd person, eXclusive
2N = 2nd person, iNclusive
3P = 3rd person, Proximate
3O = 3rd person, Obviative
U = unspecified

Number

For divalent and trivalent words, this specifies whether A2 is singular (unmarked) or plural (tag P). For monovalent words, it applies to A2.

Trivalent Words

A3 is always 3rd person, inanimate; the only marker is for when it's unspecified.