Difference between revisions of "Arskovaa grammar"

Revision as of 14:03, 21 September 2010

Arskovaa grammar is the set of rules which governs the formation of utterances in Arskovaa. Nominal grammar is characterized by a binary animate-inanimate gender system, an ergative system of case, coexisting plural and singulative number systems, definiteness and classes of possession. Verbal morphology is characterized by nominative-accusative polypersonal agreement, simple binary tense and aspect systems and a robust system of modality and evidentiality. Grammatical information for both nouns and verbs is primarily encoded by affixation. These affixes are usually suffixes, but several prefixes also exist. The allomorphy of these affixes are subject to a set of common rules. Individual affixes may also present additional, idiosyncratic allomorphy. Grammatical information is also carried by auxiliary verb, grammatical particles and adpositions. Syntax is typically head final with SOV word order in most clauses, with key exceptions which instead use VSO order. Word order is also often changed for topicalization. Arskovaa grammar is partially integrated with the language's complex system of honorifics.

Nouns

Animacy

All nouns belong to one of two grammatical genders, animate or inanimate. Which class a noun belongs to affects both its own inflection and that of any verbs which must agree with it. The gender a given noun is assigned is usually based on pure semantics. The majority of animate nouns denote people or animals while most inanimate nouns denote objects. There are however nouns whose class is counter-intuitive. Animacy is also key to the language's system of honorifics. A typically inanimate noun may be treated as animate to express respect and an animate noun may be treated as inanimate to express humility.

Case

The morphosyntactic alignment of case marking in nouns is typically absolutive-ergative. Some sentences with a first or second person argument are an exception. There are five cases, the absolutive, ergative, genitive, dative and instrumental. Case is indicated by suffixation, except for the absolutive case, which is always unmarked. The suffixes for the remaining four cases are wholly different for animate and inanimate nouns.

The absolutive is the most basic case. It is unmarked for both animate and inanimate nouns and is used as the citation form of nouns. Its primary grammatical functions are marking the sole argument of an intransitive verb and marking the patient of a transitive verb. It is also sometimes used to mark the agent of a transitive verb. This occurs only when the agent is a first or second person pronoun and the verb is in the direct construction (see Verbs: Agreement).

The compliment to the absolutive case is the ergative case. It is primarily used to mark the agents of transitive verbs, except when the agent is a first or second person argument and the verb uses a direct construction. In these cases the absolutive case is used instead.

The genitive case is primarily used to mark possession. In modifies the possessor, which is placed before the possessed noun. The same syntax is used to indicate composition, origin or type. The genitive is also used for a number of adpositions. When used with an adposition, the genitive typically assumes an ablative meaning, indicating movement away from a point or the start of some span of time. By metaphorical extension, it may also mark a cause.

The signature function of the dative case is marking the indirect object of a bitransitive verb of giving or receiving. In this capacity the dative can also be used to mark the beneficiary of an action who conceptually receives some final product, even if the verb is not necessarily bitransitive. The other common function of the dative is to mark the perceiver for verbs which describe the sensory or emotional impression produced by some second argument, explicitly identified or unknown. A key extension of this construction is used to describe instances of possession using an existential verb. The dative is also used with some pronouns. When it is, it typically expresses motion towards something, the passage of time up to a certain point or an aim or purpose.

The instrumental has two basic functions. When used with inanimate nouns or some animate nouns, it marks the means of an action. When used with other animate nouns, especially those describing people, it instead usually assumes a comitative meaning, describing in whose company something is done. It is with this sense that the instrumental is used to coordinate animate nouns in place of an independent conjunction. The instrumental also has several additional functions. It is used with certain inherently passive verbs to introduce a second argument to which the circumstances described can be causally tied. The instrumental may also assume a temporal meaning when used with certain nouns describing times, or a locative one when used with certain adpositions.

Demonstratives

Demonstratives which modify nouns occur not as independent lexical items but as suffixes. There are two types of demonstratives, proximal and distal. The is used for items near the speaker while the distal is used for items by neither the speaker or the addressee. Which demonstrative is appropriate for an item near the addressee depends on the nature of the relation between the speaker and addressee (see Arskovaa honorifics). In the absolutive case animate and inanimate nouns use different suffixes, while the remaining oblique cases use a third set of suffixes. For inanimate nouns in the ergative case, these suffixes wholly replace the normal ergative case suffix.

The proximate demonstratives also function as definite articles. This use is grammatically obligatory for any definite noun, unless it is marked by another distal or a possessive suffix, or is a proper noun.

Possessives

Nouns which do not bear a demonstrative suffix may bear a possessive suffix instead. Such a suffix indicates a pronominal possessor of the marked noun. Possessive suffixes may only be used in cases of inalienable possession, and are obligatory in all such instances. Items which can be relatively trivially gained and lost may not be inflected for possession. Whether or not a noun meets the appropriate criteria is not lexically fixed, and the absence or presence of a possessive suffix can be used to create meaningful alterations.

ktaṛv	"my fur [as part of my body]"
våx ktah	"my fur [from an animal]"

In cases of alienable possession the only manner in which to indicate ownership is with the genitive case. Any pronominal genitives are typically dropped if a noun is marked for possession. This is not obligatory, and the pronoun may be retained, typically for emphasis. Like the demonstrative suffixes, the first and second person possessive suffixes have special, gender specific forms unique to the absolutive case, and the inanimate ergative case suffix is dropped when the oblique suffix is added. There is no such complication for the third person possessive suffixes.

The number of the possessor is marked simply by vowel length. A short vowel indicates the singular, while a long vowel indicates the plural. The first person inclusive suffixes are an exception. They are necessarily plural, and the vowel used is always short.

Number

There are two systems of grammatical number present in Arskovaa. The dominant of the two is a typically singular-plural system. The singular is unmarked, and the plural is indicated by lengthening the first vowel of the first lexical morpheme in a noun. The second system of marking number in Arskovaa is the collective-singulative. For nouns which fall under this paradigm, the unmarked collective denotes multiple instances of the noun while the marked singulative indicates a single item. The singulative is marked by the suffix -uc. There is no way to predict with absolute certainty which paradigm any given noun will belong to. Collective-singular nouns are usually things which are expected in groups while singular-plural nouns are those which are typically found on their own, or not found in groups significantly often.