| Glossary/mini dictionary |
-' vt > n. A suffix which is affixed to verbs in deriving agentive nouns. e.g.
«saliyaá-'» (Free translation: ‘person who is eating/drinking, consumer’).
-' A suffix which is affixed to functional adjuncts (deictic postpositions,
quantifiers) in the nominal domain. e.g. «’ursa-ła ‘á-‘ » (Free translation:
‘regarding dogs’).
'a= /ʔa/ A functional clitic which may be procliticized to a nominalized
(patientive) verb when the agent follows in an oblique phrase (+si). e.g.
«'a=saliya-ra-la 'araá si-'» (Free translation: ‘the thing eaten by the
woman’).
a- Absent deixis for object.
aa- Abstract deixis for object.
l- (1) near deixis for subject (2) abstract deixis for subject.
l- Potential mood, for possibilities and potentialities.
-la(yaa) /la.jaa/ n. Inanimate animacy.
ł- Immediate deixis for subject.
ł- Conditional mood, for events conditioned on each other (because, if, since,
when, etc.) [Note: Both the protasis and apodosis are marked with this mood when
used.]
-ła /ɬa/ n. Animate animacy.
łaa- /ɬaa/ v. Verbal affix expressing inferential evidentiality, also used for
negative epistemic assertions. (Note: speaker feels the statement is probably
untrue or unlikely.)
r- Absent deixis for subject.
r- Inverse. Indicates that a noun of lower status on the animacy hierarchy is
the agent and a noun higher on the animacy hierarchy is the patient. Order of
the noun phrases makes this unclear because the patient must appear first due to
constraints from the animacy hierarchy.
raa- /ɹaa/ v. Verbal affix expressing inferential evidentiality, also used for
positive epistemic assertions and for irrealis clauses.
raa'- /ɹaaʔ/ v. Verbal affix expressing reportative evidentiality (hearsay,
sounds, etc.).-rV Derives a patientive noun from a verb, e.g. ‘the thing that is
x-ed’ [Note: the vowel is harmonious with the preceding syllable’s vowel.]
saa- Occupies the morphological slot for both S and O deixes, indicating
non-referentiality (the S/O are not specific referents, but general ones) or
gnomic truths, e.g. ‘The sun rises.’ or ‘Dogs bark.’
-saá /saá/ n. Abstract animacy.
siya- Collective/plural adverbial which expresses that there are multiple
subjects or the subject is a group.
ur- Inchoative/inceptive aspect, for the initiation of or entrance into an event
or state.
uur- Terminative aspect, for the end or conclusion of an event, and also to
express telic completion or attainment of the action’s goal.
'á /ʔá/ deic.pp. (1) Used for expressing alienable possession in which the
possessum is not really the possessor's (borrowed, stolen, etc.). e.g. «'ar-la
ł-u-'á» (Free translation: ‘my car (rented, e.g.)’) «'isilisi-la li-' (sałaa')
l-i-'á yaá!» (Free translation: ‘That book there is not yours!’)
«satłi-la 'á-'» (Free translation: ‘borrowed things’). (2) (Idiomatic) Used as
an oblique postposition marking the beneficiary of transitive verbs. e.g. «sayuu
l-i-'á salar-layaa ł-u-raa-'ir sa.» (Free translation: ‘I'll cut this fruit here
for Sayuu.’) «salaár 'á-' la' ł-aa-saliyatłií'.» (Free translation: ‘I feed
(things) to babies.’). (3) (Idiomatic) Used as an oblique postposition marking
the topic of speech verbs. e.g. «sayuu l-a-'á l-aa-raa'-sii.» (Free translation:
‘I can hear them talking about Sayuu.’) «łasa-łá 'á-' l-aa-raa'-'isii yaá.»
(Free translation: ‘They're presenting about birds.’).
'a' /ʔaʔ/ (1) prt. (Presentential) tomorrow, a day after tomorrow. e.g. «'a'
silii'i-la tłasa ł-a-raa- tłili sa.» (Free translation: ‘Tomorrow I'm going to
the city.’) «'a' ri!» (Free translation: ‘Bye!’). (2) adv. (Preverbal) an
emphatic marker of the future or unrealized states. e.g. «łá la' 'a' ł-aa-
raa-yiru yaá.» (Free translation: ‘Later I will cook (something).’). (3) det.
(Postnominal) Temporal particle of things as they will be in the future. e.g.
«lisa-saá 'a' łi'á r-u-ya'li'aar='a.» (Free translation: ‘Come here tomorrow
night.’) «saá 'a' łá l-u-si l-aa-łaa-sa'ra.» (Free translation: ‘Future people
are probably not like us.’).
'atła /ʔá.t ɬa/ vt. (1) to wish or hope for something to occur (lirsa). e.g.
«si'luya l-u-yasaa lirsa ł- aa-'atłá.» (Free translation: ‘I hope that our
biosphere is protected.’). (2) to dream of/about something or someone. e.g. «ri
sayuu lila r-a-raa'-'atła yaá.» (Free translation: ‘I heard that Sayuu dreamt
about Lila yesterday.’). (3) to imagine something. e.g. «satłi-saá
l-aa-raa-'atła?» (Free translation: ‘What are you imagining?’).
'ii'ursa /ʔií.ʔuɹ.sa/ (an) n. general term for those of the genus Vulpes, FOX.
laya /lá.ja/ (Pre-sentential) then, thus, so.
laayiyár /laa.ji.jáɹ/ adv. Used to show the cause of a conditioned event,
BECAUSE, SINCE.
lir /liɹ/ pp. Postposition used to show detachment of deixis from speaker to
another entity.
lirsa /líɹ.sa/ pp. Nonveridical complementizer used for subordinating clausal
arguments whose truth-conditions are neither true or false. [Note: Verbs in a
lirsa phrase do not have to be marked for evidentiality because they have not
occurred.]
lu'ii' /lú.ʔiiʔ/ n. (1) (ab) knowledge which brings about understanding or
awareness, EXPLANATION, BREAKTHROUGH. (2) (ab) answers to a complex situation,
usually about the origin or reasoning for its inception.
łá pn. Deictic pronoun for an IMMEDIATE , SENTIENT antecedent.
łałuu' /ɬá.ɬuuʔ/ vt. (1) to control, administrate or manage something. (2) to
rule over somebody or some domain. (3) to administer or declare something
official.
łuru /ɬú.ɹu/ (1) vns. to feel a sense of guilt or shame, TO FEEL GUILTY. (2) vt.
to punish someone.
rá /ɹá/ pn. Deictic pronoun for an ABSENT , SENTIENT antecedent. rutła’a’si
/ɹú.t ɬa.ʔáʔ.si/ A name of a king created for this text.
sa /sa/ prt. Clause-final particle which asserts a point, declaration, or
observation with emphasis.
sá /sá/ n. (1) (s, an) a living being, something which is animate and possesses
life-force. (2) (in) corpse.
sa' /saʔ/ v. (1) to be many, multiple. (2) to be clustered, to concentrate a
group of something into one area. (3) to be diverse. [Note: Can be used as an
adjective.]
sa'luu /sáʔ.luu/ n. (1) (an) the root of a plant (generically or when alive).
(2) (in) the root of a plant (when dried and used for food or medicinally). (3)
(ab) the crux of an issue or a point. saliya /sá.li.ja/ v. to eat, drink, or
consume something (physical or abstract).
si /si/ deic.pp. (1) Used primarily to show inalienable possession between the
whole and its parts or the origin and its product. e.g. «yasaa'-łá lar-ła
tł-ii-si» (Free translation: ‘that tree's branch’) «lar-ła yasaa'-łá si-'» (Free
translation: ‘branches of trees, tree branches’) «yayaa-ła yaa-ła tł-ii-si»
(Free translation: ‘(that animal's) spit’). (2) (Idiomatic) Oblique postposition
which marks an argument of certain verbs which cannot take an object directly.
e.g. «sayuu raayar-la yir'u-lá l-a-si r-a-raa'-'iłaa yaá!» (Free translation: ‘I
heard that Sayuu turned some dirt into gold!’) «'u-łá si-' l-i-'aa'-la'ri sa.»
(Free translation: ‘You look like a turtle.’).
sí /sí/ deic.pp. (1) Used for expressing inalienable relationships between an
object and one of its qualities, such as a person and their name, or an object
and its size. e.g. «sayuu yaraá r-aa-sí yuusa sa.» (Free translation: ‘Sayuu's
nickname is Yuusa.’) «yali-ła liya-layaa tł-u-r-sí» (Freetranslation: ‘the smell
of the food over there’) «yala'ilaá' riyaár sí-'» (Free translation: ‘the
appearance of the younger brother (when in water)’). (2) Used as a relativizer
for clauses which modify a head noun, like English "that" or "which". e.g. «yaá
tł-ii-'aár l-ii-sí 'ursa-ła tł-ii-r- 'aa'-yár.» (Free translation: ‘I saw the
man who is walking over there get bitten by that dog.’) «'arusasaá raár
saa-l-i-raa-tłatłii' sí-' saa-sár sa.» (Free translation: ‘Mothers who often hug
(their) children are good.’).
su'ii' /sú.ʔiiʔ/ (1) vns. to be especially meaningful, especially of objects
which are purported to possess mystical or magical qualities, TO BE ENCHANTED.
e.g. «sisi'lu l-u-'aa'-su'ii' sa.» (Free translation: ‘[I can tell] the Earth is
enchanted.’). (2) vt. to imbue something with special meaning, TO ENCHANT.
su'lar /súʔ.laɹ/ n. (1) (s) a leader who is admired. (2) (an) (Mythological)
dragon or other large reptile, DINOSAUR. (3) (in, ab) an object which is
beautiful (cannot be used in reference to animate things). (4) (ab) beauty.
tła'ar /t ɬá.ʔaɹ/ v. (1) to find something by accident, TO DISCOVER. (2) to
uncover something that was hidden, TO REVEAL.
tła'rá /t ɬaʔ.rá/ vt. to fight.
tłará /t ɬa.ɹá/ vd. to physically give an item to someone as a gift with no
malicious intent.
tłariyasa /t ɬá.ɹi.já.sa/ n. (1) (s, an) leader of a large community, PRESIDENT,
KING, MONARCH, CHAIRMAN, CHIEF, PRIME MINISTER, ALPHA. (2) (in, ab) the physical
foundation of something (e.g., a building), or on analogy, the basis of some
abstract notion. (3) (ab) rules, process, and structure of an organization or
entity, MAKEUP, COMPOSITION; also the ruling body of a nation, GOVERNMENT.
yaá /jaá/ prt. Clause-final particle used when letting the hearer know something
that they didn't know prior but should, usually with the intent of spurring them
into action or clarifying some point without being forceful. |
| Grammar notes |
Quick Morphosyntax
Nouns are all suffixing.
Verbs are all prefixing.
Relative clauses come after nouns.
Postpositions come after noun or verb phrases.
Underlying syntax is SOV, and is almost always SOV. But syntax is dependent on
the following animacy hierarchy: sentient > animate > inanimate > abstract
Something higher on the scale (sentient being the highest) will appear first in
the clause. There are only two exceptions to this in the text.
Noun morphology is like this: ( FUNCTIONAL PROCLITIC =)noun- ANIMACY
Animacy is like a mixture of grammatical gender and noun classes. As stated in
(4) above, there are 4 degrees of animacy represented on nouns. The sentient
animacy is shown by ablaut to –aá- of the final syllable’s nucleus. (lar > laár,
la > laá).
Noun phrase syntax is like this (where PP is postpositional phrase) [ PP [ NP
[Noun+Suffix][ NP [Relative Clause, verbs, etc.]][Postposition]]]
A limited set of monosyllabic verbs can be used prenominally as adjectives.10.
Verb morphology is like this (where italics are optional):
deixis(S)-deixis(O)-valence-mood-aspect-evidentiality-adverbial-root
Important Details
łaá siri does not mark or distinguish person. Instead, it distinguishes deixis.
There are 5 degrees of deixis: immediate – near – distant – absent – abstract
These values indicate how near or far the agent/patient or subject/object are
from the speaker. It’s a little different in written texts because there’s no
speaker or deictic space, so instead, the postposition lir is used to mark the
deictic center for the text. Then the values are relative to the new center.
łaá siri has an important and highly productive pitch accent system. Vowels with
H pitch are shown with an accute accent (á, í, ú). This is particularly
important for the inflection of verbs (see below).
In addition to the hearsay and inferential evidentials, there is another one
(very frequent) called the DIRECT evidential. It is used for (1) events which
are known or assumed by the speaker to have occurred (2) as an “anaphoric
evidential,” that is, as having the same default interpretation as a verb
earlier in the clause. For instance, if a verb is REPORTATIVE and then the
following verb is DIRECT , the latter may be interpreted as REPORTATIVE also,
without repeating the REPORTATIVE evidential. The direct evidentiality is shown
by a suprasegmental morpheme called a “pitch toggle.” It changes the underlying
pitch structure of the verb, indicated by the lack/presence of an accute
morpheme over the last mora of the last syllable (laa > laá, saá > saa). If
theverb has no accute to begin with, it will get one, and vice versa if the
underlying verb doesn’t have one. (That’s the simple explanation!)
Rules for agentive and patientive verb nominalization (both of which are
inflected for animacy): agentive: verb-‘- ANIMACY (la > la-‘- ANIMACY ) If the
verb has a closed syllable, then the glottal stop suffix metathesizes with the
syllable coda. (lar > la-‘- ANIMACY -r) Note that the sentient ablaut will
change the surface form of derived agentive/patientive nominals. (lala >
lal{aá}-’ ) patientive: verb-rV- ANIMACY Where V represents a vowel identical to
the vowel of the preceding syllable. (la > la-ra- ANIMACY , LU > lu-ru- ANIMACY
)
Deictic postpositions (deic.pp in the lexicon) express (1) possession; (2)
oblique case; (3) relativization. Deictic postpositions can either behave like
defunct verbs (only taking S/O deixis prefixes) or as adjuncts to the noun
phrase, in which case they get a glottal stop suffix. They can be used to mark
the patient of derived agentives or the agent of derived patientives, wherein
the syntax is: agentive patient OBL patientive agent OBL |
