![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
Alpha1 Notes
This will be something like a trigger language, with the case/role of one of the arguments, which I'm calling a subject, indicated by a prefix on the verb. It's not clear yet under which circumstances the subject precedes the verb and under which it comes after, but when it does come after, it takes the trigger preposition. All other arguments come after the verb. Other cases/roles are indicated by prepositions; there are three for core cases and an extended set of oblique prepositions. In addition, lexical verbs can take a prefix making them act like prepositions. When used as subjects, the core cases lose their case/role prepositions, since this information is marked on the verb. The objects of prepositions aren't otherwise marked for case/role, and one argument of relational nouns and verbs may also be unmarked for its case/role when it comes first after the verb. This allows personal pronouns to be enclitic (pronouns come first after the syntactical verb).
The voice prefix is omitted on lexical nouns and syntactical prepositions when the voice is the one designated as least marked.
There will be a way of differentiating (1) nullified subject, (2) same subject, (3) different subject, (4) main subject, and (5) implied subject. (1) is used for syntactical nouns and adjectives, (5) for prepositions, (4) for main syntactical verbs, and (2) and (3) for everything else. (2) and (3) always follow conjunctions and aren't otherwise marked. (5) is either marked be the adverbial prefix or indicated by the head word being a preposition. (1) shouldn't be marked. Lexical prepositions take a prefix to function as the head of (1), (2), (3), or (4).
The Indicative and Subjunctive modalities are unmarked; they're distinguished from each other by context, such as an auxiliary verb (evidential vs. modal).
The Contrafactual mood is marked by a prefix (placed between Voice and Aspect).
There are two groups of aspect prefixes. The first group includes relative past, relative future, retrospective, prospective, and imperfective. The second group includes iterative, habitual, continuing, and the process phases, which are inceptive, pausative, resumptive, and cessative. Words which can take tense and aspect marking are divided into two classes: those for which the unmarked aspect is perfective (the active class) and those for which the unmarked aspect if imperfective (the stative class). The tense of an unmarked active verb is past in a main non-imperative clause; otherwise the unmarked tense is present.
There will also be an evolutive prefix Evo-, applied to lexical adjectives, indicating an increase in the designated quality.
1X 1st person eXclusive,
1N 1st person iNclusive,
2X 2nd person eXclusive,
3A 3rd person Animate,
3I 3rd person Inanimate,
Ind Indefinite, and
Rfx Reflexive.
1N has no singular form. 1N, 2X, 3A, and 3I take noun plurals. There's also an extended plural, referring to those not present as well as those present, taken by 1X, 1N, and 2X. The enclitic forms drop the vowel in the singular. Possibly, these forms also cliticise to case markers. The plural forms are enclitic only where the stress won't be affected.
Other pronouns are:
Rel Relative,
NR Non-Restrictive,
WhQ Wh-Question (or query), and
demonstratives.
All of these are marked for gender (animate and inanimate), as is the dummy noun. Some of the demonstratives are derived from and are relative to 1X, 1N, and 2X. There's also an anaphoric-relative demonstrative and a distal demonstrative.
A-case, P-case, C-case, Trigger-case, Oblique-case
A-voice, P-voice, C-voice, Oblique-voice
definite article(s)
interrogative particle
complement clause conjunction
other conjunctions ...
The voice prefix is omitted on lexical nouns and syntactical prepositions when the voice is the one designated as least marked.
There will be a way of differentiating (1) nullified subject, (2) same subject, (3) different subject, (4) main subject, and (5) implied subject. (1) is used for syntactical nouns and adjectives, (5) for prepositions, (4) for main syntactical verbs, and (2) and (3) for everything else. (2) and (3) always follow conjunctions and aren't otherwise marked. (5) is either marked be the adverbial prefix or indicated by the head word being a preposition. (1) shouldn't be marked. Lexical prepositions take a prefix to function as the head of (1), (2), (3), or (4).
Articles
Definite and indefinite phrases will be distinguished, by the use of articles (probably, the indefinite article is null). There may be a form of article indicating that the phrase is a proper noun. There may also be forms, both definite and indefinite, indicating that the noun doesn't take any adjectives (like proper nouns and pronouns, which also don't take adjectives). For certain relational nouns, the definiteness is determined by its argument's definiteness. 3rd person pronouns are possibly derived from the definite article(s).Subordinate Clauses
There will also be relative clauses and non-restrictive clauses, where the relative or non-restrictive subject pronoun precedes the syntactical verb. In WH-questions, the interrogative will be the subject and also precede the syntactical verb. Yes/no questions will begin with an interrogative particle. When either of these is embedded, the complement clause conjunction can be omitted.Argument Structure Groups
In the following table, "0" indicates which argument may drop its case/role preposition. Note that monovalent words are split into an A-Case group and a P-Case group.| A-Case | P-Case | C-Case |
|---|---|---|
| A-Case Groups | ||
| Donor | Recipient | Theme 0 |
| Agent | Patient 0 | |
| Actor | ||
| P-Case Groups | ||
| Perceiver | Image 0 | |
| Subject | ||
| Possessum | Possessor 0 | |
| Mobile | Stabile 0 | |
Moods
The Imperative mood prefix replaces the A-Voice prefix. The subject phrase may be omitted, in which case it's 2nd person eXclusive with indeterminate number. It can be used only with verbs in an A-Case group; P-Case group words require a modified stem with the imperative (e.g. "look" rather than "see").The Indicative and Subjunctive modalities are unmarked; they're distinguished from each other by context, such as an auxiliary verb (evidential vs. modal).
The Contrafactual mood is marked by a prefix (placed between Voice and Aspect).
Tense and Aspect
The temporal points of reference suffixes may cause the stress to shift. If none appear, the temporal point of reference is determined from the context. The suffixes are for absolute present, definite past, definite future, and maybe relative to previous verb.There are two groups of aspect prefixes. The first group includes relative past, relative future, retrospective, prospective, and imperfective. The second group includes iterative, habitual, continuing, and the process phases, which are inceptive, pausative, resumptive, and cessative. Words which can take tense and aspect marking are divided into two classes: those for which the unmarked aspect is perfective (the active class) and those for which the unmarked aspect if imperfective (the stative class). The tense of an unmarked active verb is past in a main non-imperative clause; otherwise the unmarked tense is present.
| Aspect | Tense | Actives | Statives | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Imperfective | Definite | Present | Ipf-STEM | STEM |
| Past | Ipf-STEM-APst | STEM-APst | ||
| Future | Ipf-STEM-AFut | STEM-AFut | ||
| Indefinite | Past | RPst-STEM | ||
| Future | RFut-STEM | |||
| Perfective | Definite | Past | STEM-APst | |
| Future | STEM-AFut | |||
| Indefinite | Past * | (RPst-)STEM | ||
| Future | RFut-STEM | |||
State Change Prefixes
There will be prefixes applied to stative words to indicate changes to, from, or via the state. The resulting stems are active. These can apply to prepositions and demonstratives as well as verbs. Possibly, the process phase prefixes will be used for changes to and from states.There will also be an evolutive prefix Evo-, applied to lexical adjectives, indicating an increase in the designated quality.
Pronouns
The pronouns which have clitic forms are:1X 1st person eXclusive,
1N 1st person iNclusive,
2X 2nd person eXclusive,
3A 3rd person Animate,
3I 3rd person Inanimate,
Ind Indefinite, and
Rfx Reflexive.
1N has no singular form. 1N, 2X, 3A, and 3I take noun plurals. There's also an extended plural, referring to those not present as well as those present, taken by 1X, 1N, and 2X. The enclitic forms drop the vowel in the singular. Possibly, these forms also cliticise to case markers. The plural forms are enclitic only where the stress won't be affected.
Other pronouns are:
Rel Relative,
NR Non-Restrictive,
WhQ Wh-Question (or query), and
demonstratives.
All of these are marked for gender (animate and inanimate), as is the dummy noun. Some of the demonstratives are derived from and are relative to 1X, 1N, and 2X. There's also an anaphoric-relative demonstrative and a distal demonstrative.
List of Markers Needed
A-case, P-case, C-case, Trigger-case, Oblique-case
A-voice, P-voice, C-voice, Oblique-voice
definite article(s)
interrogative particle
complement clause conjunction
other conjunctions ...