Erdaníla -- an Euro-Iroquoian-clone

[Ares Land]

Irregular transitives and agentives

We'll begin with the worst of them: -skalaa-, 'to say, to count, to recount'

Let's run it through the present tense transitive paradigm:

	>1p sg & pl	>2p sg & pl	>3p sg. masc/3p inan	>3p sg. fem/anim	>3p pl. animate
1sg	****	-skalássú	-skalásso	-skalássʌ	-skalássuhé
2sg	skalajen	***	skalajea	skalajei	skalajéssé
3sg	-skalaʌ	-skalaá	-skalaaj	-skalaé	-skalaahé
1pl	****	-skalajó	-skalajoa	-skalajoi	-skalajóssé
2pl	-skalássʌ	****	-skalássá	-skalássé	-skalássahé
3pl	-skalajiʌ	-skalajé	-skalajia	-skalajii	-skalajéssé

OK, so that's just a table with barely distinguishable pronominal suffixes -- what of it?
Well, what is happening is that -skalaa- has a slightly different form for each different agent, as reflected in the table below:

1sg	-skaláss-
2sg	-skalaj-
3sg	-skala-
1pl	-skalaj-
2pl	-skaláss-
3pl	-skalaj-

The third person singular uses the -skala- variant, the first person singular and second person plural use -skaláss-, and the second person singular, first person and third person plural use -skalaj-.


Now, the root -skala- forms agentive verbs:
[*] mésséskalae, 'he is a prophet' > mésséskalássu 'I am a prophet', mésséskalajá 'they are prophets'.
And transitive verbs:
goolʌ́skalássú 'I promise you', goolʌ́skalaʌ, 'he promises me'.


That last example allows me to point out another irregularity: the 3sg > 1sg suffix is -ʌ, instead of the usual -n.

In the past tense, the stem becomes skalaj for all persons:
mésséskalajae 'he was a prophet', mésséskalajao, 'I was a prophet'
goolʌ́skalajaó 'I promised you', goolʌ́skalajaan, 'he promised me'.

And the future stem is skalát (with a future marker in -t):
goolʌ́skalátan, "he'll promise me', mésséskaláto 'i shall be a prophet'

Other than this, most verbs alternate between two stems, using both in different persons of the present tense, and reserving one of each for past and future. To wit:
-rél-, 'to have' has the following stems in the present tense:

1sg	-rée-
2sg	-rél-
3sg	-rél-
1pl	-rél-
2pl	-rée-
3pl	-rél-

The stem is -rée- for 1sg and 2pl, -rél- everywhere else.
The past stem is -rél-, and the future -réet- (with a future marker in -t)

-ks-, 'to know'

The stem is -sk- for 1sg and 2pl, -ks- everywhere else.
The past stem is -ks-, and the future -sket- (with a future marker in -t)

-skat-, 'to have'
The stem is -skad- for 1sg and 2pl, -skat- everywhere else.
The past stem is -skat-, and the future -skadat- (with a future marker in -t)

-lad-, 'to make'
The stem is -lad- for 1sg and 2pl, -lat- everywhere else.
The past stem is -lat-, and the future -làt- (with a future marker in -t)

-àgí-, 'to make'
The stem is -àgì- for 1sg and 2pl, -àgí- everywhere else.
The past stem is -àgí-, and the future -àgìt- (with a future marker in -t)

And, finally, -ìd- 'to hold' has regular present and past tenses with the stem -ìd-, but the future stem is -ìtt- (including the future marker in -t)

And we're done with tense/person marking! Next time we'll start looking into aspect.

[Ares Land]

On second thought, let’s not talk about aspect. ‘Tis a silly grammatical category.
Let's talk about voice instead.

The middle voice.

The middle voice is formed with the suffix -k-, just after the verb stem -- with an epenthetic -e- added where added the prefix would lead to an irregular cluster.
The good news is, it also as the effect of turning all stems into regular, class I-II stems.

For the most part, it's used with agentive suffixes, and the meaning is reflexive:

Active:
nʌ́nsʌ'I wash her'
nʌ́-ns-ʌ
cheek-wash-1S>3SFA
Middle:
nʌ́nseku 'I wash myself, I bathe'
nʌ́-ns-ek-u
cheek-wash-AGT-1S>3SFA

WIth irregular verbs, you pick the 3rd person singular present stem.

goolʌ́skalássú 'I promised you' > goolʌ́skalakao 'I make a promise to myself'.

Used with patientive suffixes the meaning is decausative/passive: it reduces the valence of the verb by one; in effect turning a transitive verb into a patientive one.

iwappá jéksíají 'he peels the potatoes' > iwappa jéksíkué 'the potatoes are being peeled'.

But when applied to a patientive verb, it implies a change in state:

iaŋsé sʌ̀tté 'the apples are black' > iaŋsé sʌ̀tteké 'the apples are turning black'

And finally, you can also use the middle voice with transitive suffixes, in which case the meaning is that the agent undergoes the action to his own benefit:

aneloí lít iwappá

anel-o-í lít i-wappá

boil-1s>3sinan-PART namely inan-potatoes

'I'm cooking some potatoes'

anergoí lít iwappá

aner-g-o-í lít i-wappá

boil-MIDDLE-1s>3sinan-PART namely inan-potatoes

'I'm cooking potatoes for my dinner.'

Note, by the way, that l + the middle voice suffix -k- > /rg

One final use of the middle voice: as it turns any stem into a class-II stem (the most common and easiest one), it's often enough applied to borrowings:

Tarandim arpas, 'he elects' > Erdaníla apaskaj 'she votes for him'
Tarandim doŋwe, 'he inspects' > Erdaníla roŋuke (same meaning)
Tarandim ɓambras, 'he gambles' > Erdaníla wʌpsaske (same meaning)

[Ares Land]

The dynamic voice

OK, the dynamic voice is not exactly a voice; or rather it may be used as an imperfective, or as an antipassive, or as a passive with imperfective aspect.

It's formed by adding the suffix -s-, -es-,

With transitive verbs, the meaning is purely aspectual.
Although there also are aspect markers, the meaning of the plain past, future and present tenses is generally understood to be perfective by default.
The dynamic voice turns it into an imperfective:


dùgeaj 'she has cut it' > dynamic: dùgeseaj, 'she was cutting it'.

With agentive verbs, the meaning is similar:

gár, she sits > gáres, she's sitting down, she's beginning to sit.

It can be used as an antipassive, turning a transitive verb into an agentive one (thus dropping the patient out completely).

dùgaj, 'she cuts it' > dùges, 'she's cutting.'

The meaning is still imperfective, though.

But with transitive verbs, you can use the dynamic to form a kind of passive voice, by using patientive suffixes:

dùgeaj 'she has cut it' > dynamic: dùgeseaj, 'she was cutting it'.
or dùgeaj > dynamic passive: dùgesihé 'it is being cut'.

Now, if you apply the -s- dynamic suffix to patientive verbs (not terribly current), the change is purely semantic. It implies a kind of temporary condition:

méi, she's great -- by nature > mési, 'she is great -- at this moment'.

In such cases, it's best treated as a derivational process, as the resulting meaning is subject to fairly unpredictable semantic drift:

òmi, 'she's heavy' > òmesi, 'she's being unnecessarily difficult'.

The stative voice

The stative voice is marked with the suffix -a-

It has, likewise, characteristics of an aspect and a voice: it combined perfective and passive.

It applies to transitive verbs, but you need to add the patientive suffixes.
(Hm, well, strictly speaking, if you apply it with transitive or agentive suffixes, you get a past tense; etymologically the past tense is really a perfective).

dùgeaj > dynamic passive: dùgesihé, 'it is being cut' > stative passive: dùgaihé 'it has been cut'.

mésséskalae 'he is a prophet' > stative passive: mésséskalajae 'it has been foretold'.

Oh, and it's only used with present tense markers: mésséskalajae 'it has been foretold', 'it's foretold', 'it will be foretold'.

The dynamic and the stative voices turn all verbs into regular class II verbs. For irregular verbs, use the past tense stem.

[Ares Land]

To conclude the last series of post, I think a quick summary of voices might be in order.
So to recup the different voices, the pronominal suffixes they can be used with, and the resulting function:

	Middle voice + Agentive/Transitive	Dynamic voice + Agentive/Transitive	Dynamic voice + Patientive verb	Stative voice
Suffix	-(e)k-	-(e)s-	-(e)s-	-a-
+ Agentive suffix	Reflexive	Imperfective	N/A	identical to past tense
+ Patientive suffix	Passive (unmarked as to aspect)	Antipassive (imperfective)	Semantic drift, unpredictable	Passive (perfective)
+ Transitive suffix	Action undertaken to the agent's benefit	Passive (imperfective)	N/A	Identical to past tense

Verb structure


OK, from now on we're really going to pile up some morphemes, and so some charts might be handy:

Verbal morphology can be understood as a sequence of follows:

Phatic prefix

Aspect prefixes

Verb stem

Tense/pronominal suffix

Post-pronominal suffix

The mandatory parts, in bold are the verb stem and the tense/pronominal suffix. We've already covered the t/p suffix.
The verb stem itself can be decomposed as follows:

Positional prefix

Incorporated noun

Root or irregular variant

Derivational suffix

Voice suffix

The root is mandatory of course and some roots (such as skala, 'to say, to speak', as we've seen) may require a positional or an incorporated noun.
Roughly speaking, stem prefixes and suffixes belong to derivational morphology more than they belong to inflectional morphology. Voice suffixes kind of straddle the line between derivational and inflectional.

Should I've had begun with these charts? Umm, yeah, definitely. I should have done that.

Well, anyway, we've covered tense/pronominal suffixes, and we certainly needed to get these out of the way. We've covered irregular root variants as well, and voice. We'll save derivational suffixes for later, as well as incorporation and positional.

[Ares Land]

Post-pronominal suffixes.

Post-pronominal suffixes are unimaginatively named for their position in the verb complex: just after the pronominal suffixes.

They occur in two main varieties: modal suffixes and quantifier suffixes.

Modal suffixes.

Erdaníla marks three moods on the verb: the aorist, the debitive, and the potential.

The aorist

The aorist mood is marked with the suffix -sson, with an allomorph -ion after consonants:

udewuhésson

ude-wuh-é-sson

fish-slap-3SG>3SG;F;PRES-AOR

He slapped her with a fish.

gogesion,

gog-e-s-ion

walk-3SG;PRES-DYN-AOR

She was walking

òmesasson

om-es-a-sson

heavy-DYN-3SG;MASC;PRES-AOR

He was annoying.


But, if the aorist is a mood, why am I translating it with a past tense? Also, isn't 'aorist' a gross misuse of linguistic terminology?
Besides, if you check the interlinear gloss, you'll see that all these verb are present tense. So what's going on?

The aorist is used to express the speakers' certainty that the event occur.

In practice, the factual nature of the event is often established by the fact that it has already occurs.
So, in addition to the modal meaning (which is that of a factual), the aorist has a temporal / aspectual meaning. It acts, in many ways, like a completive. gogesion, 'She was walking' is an imperfective: we focus on the process of walking, but the aorist carries the additional meaning that the action is over, when I'm reporting that fact.

The aorist is also used for actions that the speaker is currently a witness to, or with action simultaneous with the act of speaking:

Gahudóskeisson lít haauá.

gahudósk-ei-sson lít ha-au-á

annoy-2SG>3SG;FEM;PRES-AOR namely FEM-sister-3SG>2;PRS

You're annoying your sister.

Jer, enanion hanadi.

jer / en-an-ion ha-nadi

yes / see-3s>1;PRES-AOR ANIM-cat

Yes, I see the cat

The aorist can also be used to express general truths and recurrent events:

Hemʌhé èsteóʌhéstion.

he-mʌ-hé è-steóʌ-hé-st-ion.

PL;ANIM-be.person-3PL INCEP-dead-3PL;FUT-all-AOR

All man are mortal

Orgon hàsuké hàwlʌ́sékion

orgon hàsuké hà-wlʌ́s-é-k-ion

Urkoŋ_river spring;LOC water-swell-3s.ANIM -one-AOR

The Urkoŋ river floods every spring.

All of our examples so far used the present tense, but the aorist may also be used with the past tense.
This has several meanings:
[*] the action is completed before the main action (in the past tense occurs), in which case we have a kind of past anterior.

Wégàttenaésson sìagogao

wégà-tten-aé-sson sì-a-gog-ao

sheep-kill-3PL;PAST-AOR PUNCT-in-walk-1SG;PAST

They had already killed the sheep when I arrived.

It's also used for habits, recurrent events or general truths that are no longer true:

Hedaandin moŋkeʌsson Erdaní

he-daandin moŋ-k-eʌ-sson Erdaní

PL;ANIM-Tarandim rule-MIDDLE-3PL>1;PAST-AOR Erdaní

The Tarandim used to rule Erdaní

Finally, the aorist can be used (quite infrequently) with future pronominal suffixes, to stress certainty about a future outcome:

Lakkoŋkojion!

lakkoŋ-k-oj-ion

pleasant-MIDDLE-3SG;INAN;PAST-AOR

Of course it's going to be OK!

To be continued... Next time we'll talk about the debitive and the potential.

[Ares Land]

The debitive and the potential

The debitive suffix is -r- (-ér- after a consonant):

Komweŋkʌr.

komweŋ-k-ʌ-r

obey-MIDDLE-1SG>3SG;FEM;PRES-DEBITIVE

I must obey.

ʌganeloulajér

ʌgane-loul-aj-ér

hair-wash-3SG;MASC;PRESENT-DEBITIVE

He must wash his (someone else's) hair.

The potential suffix is -s- (-és- after a consonant)

Gaenajés.

gaen-aj-és

idiot-3SG;MASC;PRES-POTENTIAL

Maybe he's an idiot.

Oamʌrahʌs.

oam-ʌ-rah-ʌ-s

tree-INST-be.tied-1SG;PRES-POTENTIAL

I could be tied to a tree.

The debitive suffix expresses obligation -- you can usually translate it with 'must' or 'have to'
The potential expressive capacity or permission -- most often, it'll be translated with 'can', 'could' or 'be able to'.

But, in a development that should be familiar to English speakers, the debitive came to be used for inferences, or strong probabilities:

Metalutaksihaer.

meta-lu-taksih-ae-r

finish-fire-use.hatchet-3SG;PAST-DEB

He must be done chopping up the firewood.

Joóʌhés

joóʌ-hé'-s

giant-3PL;ANIM;PRS-POT

They might be giants.

Debitive and potential future.

Erdaníla frequently completes future tense personal suffixes with a modal. We've seen above that the aorist may be used for this purpose, but it's not the preferred mood.
The future is considered, by nature, uncertained, and so it's completed with:
The debitive future for events or states considered very likely, by deduction or obligation:
Sʌ̀or.

sʌ̀-o-r

rain-3SG;INAN;FUT-DEB

It will rain

Hùáégeʌr.

hùáég-eʌ-r

marry-1SG>3SG;FEM;FUT-DEB

I shall marry her.

The potential future is used for events or states considered less likely, or depending on a condition:
Enis Lewéèoj, hèrnesʌ̀oseaj.

en-i-s Lewé=èoj, hèrne-sʌ̀os=eaj

see-3SG;ANIM;PRS-POT Arba=if / soon-rain-3SG;INAN;FUT-POT=then

If you see Arba, then it will rain soon.

Mewméos.

mew-mé-o-s

person-be_great-2SG;FUT-POT

Maybe you'll be a great woman / a great man.

And we're done with modal suffixes. Next up,well, the rest of the postpronominal suffixes.

[Ares Land]

Quantifier suffixes.

Quantifier suffixes also occur after the pronominal suffixes and often complete them; they compensate, for instance, for the lack of plural marking for inanimate patients in transitive verbs.

Now, the modal suffixes that we've reviewed are mutually exclusive: you can't have, say, aorist and debitive at the same time. Each modal suffix indicates a particular level of certainty associated with the verb.

Quantifier suffixes, though, may coexist with each other and with modal suffixes, even though in practice it's rare to find more than two or three suffixes on the same verbs.

We'll first review each quantifier, used individually and cover later on ways in which they are combined.

The negative suffix.

After a vowel the negative suffix is -n:

worwekʌ 'I'm a soldier' > worwekʌn 'I'm not a soldier'.

After a consonant, the suffix becomes -ʌ
worwekaj 'he's a soldier' > worwekajʌ 'he's not a soldier'

The meaning of the negative is fairly straightforward:

hadoon 'i didn't have sex with him'
jéksíají 'he peels them' > jéksíajín 'he doesn't peel anything'.


The partitive suffix.

After a vowel, the partitive is always -a-. It means that the verb applies to part of a whole.

For agentive and transitive verbs, the meaning is fairly straightforward:

Agentive: hòhu 'I run' > hòhua 'I run (in) some (races)'.
Transitive: roŋukaja > 'he inspects some'

WIth patientive verbs, the suffix isn't applicable in the singular.
*ennódʌa 'some of me sleeps?' but ennódʌ́ 'some us slept'.

The suffix, in fact, implies that the patient is a whole, or a set, to which the verb applies in part. For transitive verbs, this applies to the marked patientT
For instransitive verbs it applies to an unspecified patient, often an incorporated root, although an unstated locative will do in a pinch, as in hòhua 'run in some races'.

In patientive verbs, the patient is marked on the verb, and the partitive isn't applicable to singular, which can't really be construed as a whole or a set.

The iterative suffix.

The iterative suffix may be translated with 'each' or 'every': here the verb applies to a series of patients in turn.

The suffix has two allomorphs: -éd after a consonant, -d after a vowel. In the latter case, the preceding vowel shifts to high tone:

dùgo 'I cut them/each' > dùgód 'I cut each of them'
worhískuhéd 'I performed the birth ceremony for each of them'

As with the partitive, the iterative implies that there's a plural patient. You can apply it to intransitive verbs:
udeksihúd 'I prepared every fish'.
hòhúd 'I run (in every race)'

The iterative has another important use: combined with the mediopassive voice and plural agentive suffixes, it forms a reciprocal:

Hùáégeʌ 'I will marry her'

hùáég-eʌ

marry-1SG>3SG;FEM;FUT

Hùáégekéad 'We will marry each other'

hùáég-ek-éa-d

marry-MIDDLE-3PL;FUT-ITER

The plural-completive

The plural completive implies two things: that the patient is plural (so, then again, you can't use it with patientive verbs in the singular) and the action applied to all patients.
It has one form: id, but after a vowel, the preceding vowel is raised (e becomes i, o becomes u) and shifts to high tone:

dùgo, 'I cut them' > dùgúid 'I cut them all'
ennódʌ́id, 'All of us sleep'.
gané, 'They are blue' > ganíid 'All of them are blue'

Attenuative

The attenuative lessens or softens the meaning of the verb.

It has two allomorphs: da after a vowel, -eda after a consonant.

deganu 'I jump' > deganuda 'I jump a little, I hop'
ganaj 'It's blue' > ganajeda 'It's kind of blue, pale blue, bluish-grey'

Intensive

The intensive is, well, pretty much the attenuative's opposite number. It amplifies the meaning of the verb, or implies that the action was more successful, or more zealously undertaken:

It only has the one form -we-

sʌ̀rdaj, 'it's black' > sʌ̀rdajwe 'it's pitch black'
àwenéla, 'I plow a field' > àwenélawe 'I plowed the entire field'

sàlewokao 'I fought' > sàlewokaowe 'I fought to the death'.

The repetitive

The repetitive is an equivalent of re-, or 'again'.
It has two allomorphs: -ode in most cases, -de after two vowels.

sàlewokao 'I fought' > sàlewokaode 'I fought again'
ennódoode 'You're sleeping again'.

Okay, enough with the suffixing! Next time we'll see how to combine these.