Quiet Words

Last Edited: 2006.Mar.19 Sun

General Morphological Notes

Noun declensions will probably go in this entry. In preparation, I've started on a table showing different consonant stems combined with some sample suffixes. This will apply to verb suffixing too. More sample suffixes, and rows for vowel stems, will be added eventually. ( Read more... )
There will probably be some analogy applied.

Verb Inflections

Conjugation

Verbs take an inflection indicating what kind of clause the verb is head of, shown in the following table. The table now shows the endings for the four conjugations.
( Read more... )

Actants

Verb actants are not affixes, but clitic pronouns. They're always proclitic, except in the Imperative Mood, when they're enclitic.

Verb Stem Formation

A verb stem is formed from a verb root plus a number of MEA's (Modals, Evidentials, and Auxiliaries). Most MEA's have specific time relationships with the verb-stem to which they're applied; the others are "transparent", with the time which for the others would be applied to the MEA is applied directly to the stem. The negative and interrogative markers are included with the MEA's.

The interrogative appears last if it appears. In an assertion (i.e. not an imperative, not a WH-question, and not interrogative (a yes/no question)), a final verb must have an evidential at the end, unless there is a 1st person exclusive or 2nd person inclusive participant, or there is a modal (which implies 1st person in an assertion).

MEA's to which the Stem is Relatively Present
These include the evidentials, which include verbs of perception, such as "see", "hear".

MEA's to which the Stem is Relatively Future
Some of these are "desire", "expect", etc.

Transparent MEA's
These include contrafactual and potential as well as interrogative.

Additional Aspects:

  * Process Phases:
    * begin
    * interrupt
    * resume
    * complete
  * Iterative
  * Habitual (may be modal)

Noun Inflections

Nouns are marked for number, then case. For most nouns, the plural is unmarked, while the singular takes the suffix -i. The cases are shown in the following table. Protoforms are given since the actual form depends on the stem, but the most common forms are also given.
( Read more... )

Pronouns and Determiners

Personal Pronouns

The stems are used by themselves as proclitic forms.
( Read more... )

Pronominal Verbs

These include the demonstratives and the possessives. The stative demonstratives shown in the table are derived from a morpheme specifying location. There are also demonstrative verbs derived from morphemes of origin, destination, and path. ( Read more... )

Special Nouns

The generic nouns aren't really pronouns, but it's convenient to place them here. A generic noun is used as the noun of a phrase that otherwise doesn't have one. One usage is with the adjectival form of the identity verb used to make a phrase definite. The query pronoun is used in WH-questions and acts like a phrase. ( Read more... )

Last edited: 2006.Mar.10 Fri

The ending of the verb indicates its tense and aspect and whether the clause is final, non-final, relative, adverbial, or a complement.

This should be rewritten without the confusing terms "subject" and "object".

Agreement Classes

Clepsil is Split-S due to a few involuntary intransitives taking an inverse or object-marked argument instead of a direct or subject-marked argument.

3 DV Ditransitive Verbs (S A O DV)
2 TV Transitive Verbs (S O TV)
2 PN Nouns with Inalienable Possessors (??? PN)
1 IV Involuntary Intransitive Verbs (O IV) *
1 VV Voluntary Intransitive Verbs (S AV)
1 AV Adjectives and Most (?) Stative Verbs (O SV) *
1 SV Other Stative Verbs (S SV)
1 SN Nouns without Inalienable Possessors (SN)

* Subject pronouns must be marked as inverse to be used here (???).

Syntax

Mostly SOV. Interrogative pronouns are fronted. Relative pronouns are null. Personal Pronouns are proclitic, in the order Subject-IndirectObject-DirectObject.

Voice is -Dir (direct) or -Inv (inverse); direct is unmarked after pronouns.
1st and 2nd person occur only as subject, if only one of them appears. Indirect objects are also case-marked.

Ditransitives:

Transitives:

SubjectPhrase-Voice ObjectPhrase Verb
SubjectPhrase-Voice ObjectPronoun-Verb
SubjectPronoun(-Inv)-ObjectPronoun-Verb
ObjectPhrase SubjectPronoun(-Inv)-Verb
SubjectPhrase-Voice Verb (omitted object)
SubjectPronoun(-Inv)-Verb (omitted object)
ObjectPhrase Verb (omitted subject)
ObjectPronoun-Verb (omitted subject)

Intransitives:

SubjectPhrase-Voice Verb
SubjectPronoun(-Inv)-Verb
ObjectPhrase Verb
ObjectPronoun-Verb

Noun Suffixes

Nouns are inflected for number (singular and plural) and case. Sort of. The suffixes apply only to the noun, which is the last word in the phrase; they mark: direct voice subject, inverse voice subject, indirect object, identity, and definition, the last not distinguishing between singular and plural. The forms not marked for case are used as direct objects or objects of postpositions. The suffixes for identity and definition make the word act like a verb stem.

Auxiliary Morphemes

Evidentials and Modals appear as suffixes to verbs of assertion. The yes/no interrogative morpheme also appears as such a suffix. The evidentials include the verbs of perception.

A final verb of assertion always has an evidential or a modal suffix, which have an implied 1st person argument. For yes/no questions, the interrogative suffix is used instead. If none of these suffixes are present, the verb is imperative. The interrogative can be used after an evidential or a modal; in this case, the implied argument is 2nd person.

Non-final verbs normally don't take their own evidential or modal suffixes, and never take an interrogative suffix, since any interrogative on the final verb applies to the whole verb chain.

The rules for other verb forms are different; most often no such suffixes are used.

There are also a few non-suffix auxiliaries: one kind (telling and asking) sets up context. The other kind (giving and taking) take a complement clause as the first argument instead of a direct object; if one of the other arguments is omitted, it coreferences one of the complement clause arguments.

What about relativization?

Possibly, the second type will instead be implemented using applicatives, with different morphemes used depending on which argument is coreferenced (give/do for, help/allow, take/not do for, prevent/not help). This eliminates the problem caused by argument omission. The non-suffixed forms should still be useful, with complement clauses, when no argument is coreferenced.