Note: Mar18 is a successor to the originally scheduled language. _____________ TEXT IN MAR18 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~ ne kubandi ta kintro ne wesko rasre qozbotlux par ne fouhi burqo yasqix sraasik. ta kxendilta ne yasqi hurix son kudoka fouhistik, "ta saakto son lamulqa mai gomi soik." ta kudoka sraasik, "ta slaasleijo 'anne gomix fouhistik." "so k'aixa ner zolox tlota menci soix par sanjibok; ma kompi ta waxxo kono soixk." "wisu jo ta waxxo kono maik; ma kubandi ta kintro ne wesko rasre qozbotluxk." ta kubilta par qaso tasi fouhistik. _______ LEXICON ~~~~~~~ The argument structure class label is given for each verb; C = complex and/or persistent. aff Affix (other than postverb) conj Conjunction det Determiner post Postverb pron Pronoun bandi 2 walk bilo 1 still, calm burqo 1 cold doki 2 say, tell fouhi 3 wind, blow gomi 4C hair (of) huri 1C person, sapient -ibo post [anticipatory state] -isti post [situation rather than participant] jo 3 [copula] kintro 4C center (of) kompi 2 seek k(u)- aff [past tense] kono 4 keep to one's self la- aff [subject-object role swap] ma det [1st person singular] mai pron [1st person singular] menci 4C sibling (of) mulqa 2 claim ne det [indefinite] ner det [indefinite + plural] par conj after, before, while, when ? qaso 2 hear qozbo 1C dirt rasro 1 red saako 1 long (horizontal) sanji 2 eat slaa- aff [negative polarity] sleijo 2 need so det [2nd person singular] soi pron [2nd person singular] son conj and sraasi 1C shaman ta det [definite] tasi pron [distal demonstrative] tlo- aff [locative case] -(u)ti post [entry to state] waxxo 1 secret wesko 1C path wis(u) det [proximal demonstrative] xendilo 4 image (of) yasqi 1 adverse, competing, demonic zolo 1C word 'aixi 2 teach, show 'anne det [existential quantifier] __________ MORPHOLOGY ~~~~~~~~~~ Determiners, pronouns, and verbs take case prefixes (that of the verb behaves like an inversion marker). Verbs also take negative polarity and past tense prefixes as well as postverb and aspect suffixes. The postverbs are quasiderivational and change the action type of the verb. ARGUMENT STRUCTURE CLASSES L Name Subject Role Object Role Examples ____________________________________________________________ 1 Intransitive Descriptee x hot Locatee x here 2 Transitive Agent Patient eat, cook Actor Route walk Perceiver Image see Donor Theme say 3 Relational Location Locatee in 4 Possessive Possessum Possessor mother, hand ASPECTS, ACTION TYPES, AND CITATION FORMS The aspect suffixes are: -o Static Imperfective (can be resulting or anticipated state as well) -a Dynamic Perfective (culminative, inceptive, singulative) -i Dynamic Imperfective (progressive or other non-static durative) -e Modifier (precedes modified word) Type Aspects Examples L Description ______________________________________________________________________________________________ State o hot, see T transient, simple property rock P persistent (usually glossed by nouns -> non-living entities) Event a/o find, break E culmination, inception, etc. Process i/a/o walk, eat U unitizable (can be broken down into steps) cook, heat C culminating cat X complex (usually glossed by nouns -> living entities) The citation form of a verb or postverb ends in -o for states, -a for events, and -i for processes. The stem is formed by removing that vowel. POSTVERBS -(u)ti Inchoative (state -> culminating process) -isti Situational (verb denotes situation rather than a participant) -ibo Prospective (anticipated action) CASES la- Inverse (verb only) tlo- Locative (including indirect objects) OTHER VERB PREFIXES slaa- Negative polarity (otherwise, positive) k(u)- Past tense (otherwise, present) Tense is relative except after certain conjunctions, such as "and". ______ SYNTAX ~~~~~~ CONSTITUENTS The 2 major constituents are the determiner construction and the verb construction; either of these can be the top-level constituent. A verb construction consists of a verb followed by optional adverbs + any number of arguments (limited by the set of cases). The arguments may appear in any order. Each argument is either a pronoun or a determiner construction. A determiner construction consists of a determiner followed by an optional quantity + any number of verb constructions. Each determiner construction is terminated by an enclitic closing bracket particle; there's one for each nesting level, with B0 being the outermost. =k B0 =x(u) B1 =tl(u) B2 A verb construction is either predicative or attributive. It's predicative if it's either the first one of the sentence or the first one following a conjunction; otherwise, it's attributive. So far, we have verbs, adverbs, pronouns, determiners, quantities, brackets, and conjunctions. There is at least one additional particle. Note that verbs include words that are glossed as nouns, adjectives, and prepositions as well as those glossed as verbs. SUBJECT AND ARGUMENTS The subject of each verb construction is specified by the determiner construction immediately enclosing the verb construction. However, this may be null for the main constituent, marking either an impersonal sentence or an imperative one. The semantic role of the subject with respect to each verb is specified by the verb's case. If none, the subject takes the 1st role and the object (i.e. the null case argument) takes the 2nd role. The inverse case swaps the subject and object roles. TEMPORAL ADJUNCTS Temporal adjuncts, which specify the temporal relationship between an adjunct verb construction and its preceding matrix, are those introduced by . If the adjunct verb is anticipatory, the matrix situation precedes the adjunct situation, while if the adjunct verb is a resulting state, the matrix situation follows the adjunct situation (Note that stative forms of dynamic verbs specify resulting states). Otherwise, the situations are cotemporal in some manner. EXAMPLE ta knuuzi par sanjo ne qanix kittik. "The cat slept after eating a fish." The subject is common to "sleep", "eat ...", and "cat", the last being attributive. _____ HINTS ~~~~~ Possibly the first thing to do is to match up each bracket particle with the matching determiner.