Shemspreg pronouns and other particles

Pronouns are words which can stand in for other words and phrases. There are several different types of pronouns in Shemspreg which are discussed in this section: personal pronouns (4.1), demonstratives (4.2), interrogative and relative pronouns (4.3), and indefinite pronouns (4.4). In addition, I also discuss numerals (4.5), conjunctions (4.6), and quantifiers (4.7).

Personal pronouns

The personal pronouns distinguish three persons and two numbers. They are also inflected for case. They are given in the table below.

	nom	gen	obl
1sing	ej	me	me
2sing	tu	te	te
3sing	so	sos	som
1plur	we	nos	nos
2plur	yu	wos	wos
3plur	to	tos	tom

Reflexive pronouns are formed by suffixing -swe to the genitive pronoun stems; the plural and third person singular pronouns delete -s before suffixation of -swe.

1sing	meswe	‘myself’
2sing	teswe	‘yourself’
3sing	soswe	‘him/her/itself’
1plur	noswe	‘ourselves’
2plur	woswe	‘yourselves’
3plur	toswe	‘themselves’

In possession, the reflexive pronoun is attached as a clitic to the end of the noun phrase it possesses.

so gwegumi ad domomswe.

so	gwe-	gum	-i	ad	dom	-om	=swe
3s:NOM	PERF-	come:0	-PAST	at	house	-OBL	=REFL

‘He arrived at his (own) house.’

When the regular third person possessive pronouns are used, they are understood as not being coreferential with a previously mentioned third person.

so gwegumi ad sos domom.

so	gwe-	gum	-i	ad	so	-s	dom	-om
3s:NOM	PERF-	come:0	-PAST	at	3s	-GEN	house	-OBL

‘He1 arrived at his2 house.’

Demonstrative pronouns

Demonstrative pronouns in Shemspreg distinguish between two degrees of deixis corresponding to English ‘this’ and ‘that’. The inflection of the proximal demonstrative (‘this’) is given below, while that of the distal demonstrative (‘that’) is given in (6). Note that the distal demonstrative is identical to the third person pronouns.

(5) ‘this’ sg pl NOM id ya GEN is yas OBL im yam (6) ‘that’ sg pl NOM so to GEN sos tos OBL som tom

Interrogative and relative pronouns

The interrogative pronouns are formed from the stem kwi, meaning ‘who’ or ‘what’ (7).

(7) kwi who, what kwinu when (lit: ‘what now’) kwicho where (lit: ‘what there’) kwimod how (lit: ‘what manner’) kwige why (lit: ‘what because’)

The interrogative kwi ‘who, what’ is inflected for case in the same manner as the demonstrative pronouns; i.e., kwi, kwis, kwim. The other interrogatives are not inflected for case. Examples of their use are provided in (8).

(8) a. kwi api abelesom? kwi a- p -i abel -es -om who PERF- pick:0 -PAST apple -PL -OBL ‘Who picked the apples?’

b. kwim tu eskwi? kwi -m tu e- skw -i who -OBL 2s PERF- see:0 -PAST ‘Who did you see?’

c. kwis kwon edi shuum? kwi -s kwon e- d -i shuu -m who -GEN dog PERF- eat:0 -PAST fish -OBL ‘Whose dog ate the fish?’

d. kwinu so wiro gweguni? kwinu so wiro gwe- gun -i when that man PERF- come:0 -PAST ‘When did that man arrive?’

e. kwicho wech es? kwicho wech es where village be:PRES ‘Where is the village?’

f. kwige Jan woses kwonom? kwige Jan wos -es kwon -om why John sell -PRES dog -OBL ‘Why is John selling the dog?’

g. kwimod so wiro gweguni? kwimod so wiro gwe- gun -i How that man PERF- come:0 -PAST ‘How did that man arrive?’

The interrogative pronouns are also used as relative pronouns. The case of a relative pronoun is determined by its function in the subordinate clause. In (9a), the relative pronoun functions as the subject of the embedded clause and is in nominative case, while in (9b) the relative pronoun functions as the object of the embedded clause and is inflected for oblique case.

(9) a. ej eskwi wirom kwi dodoi patatom ad Sinanom. ej e- skw -i wiro -m 1s IMPF- see:0 -PAST man -OBL kwi do- do -i patat -om ad Sinan -om REL:NOM PERF- give:0 -PAST potato -OBL to Sinan -OBL ‘I saw the man who gave Sinan the potato.’

b. ej edi patatom kwim dodoi Hasan ad Sinanom. ej e- d -i patat -om 1s:NOM PERF- eat:0 -PAST potato -OBL kwi -m do- do -i Hasan ad Sinan -om REL -OBL PERF- give:0 -PAST Hasan to Sinan -OBL ‘I ate the potato that Hasan gave to Sinan.’

Indefinite pronouns

Indefinite pronouns are formed from the stems oi- ‘some’ and e- ‘any’. Indefinite pronouns use many of the same stems as the interrogative/relative pronouns discussed above. Some examples are given in (11).

(11) oi ‘someone, something’ oinu ‘sometime’ oicho ‘somewhere’ oimod ‘somehow’

e ‘anyone, anything’ enu ‘anytime’ echo ‘anywhere’ emod ‘anyhow’

Numerals

The numerals in Shemspreg comprise a relatively small set of roots which are the source for a number of derivational patterns. When the roots are used alone, they are equivalent to ordinary cardinal numbers; there are additional derivational patterns which yield ordinal numbers, numerical adverbs, fractions, and multiplicative verbs. These are discussed in turn below.

Cardinals

The cardinal numbers of Shemspreg are given below. Note that for twenty and its derivatives there are alternate forms. Numerals past the single digits + 10 are formed by compounding for the most part; there are also separate roots for twenty, hundred, thousand, and half.

(12) one oino two dwo three tree four kwetwer five penkwe six sweks seven septim eight okto nine newin ten dechim eleven dechim-oino twelve dechim-dwo thirteen dechim-tree fourteen dechim-kwetwer fifteen dechim-penkwe sixteen dechim-sweks seventeen dechim-septim eighteen dechim-okto nineteen dechim-newin twenty wichimti (dwodechim) twenty-one wichimti-oyno (dwodechim-oino) thirty treedechim forty kwetwerdechim fifty penkwedechim sixty sweksdechim seventy septimdechim eighty oktodechim ninety newindechim hundred chimtom thousand sheslo one half seemi

Ordinals

Ordinals are formed by suffixing -to to the cardinal numbers (13). (13) first oinoto second dwoto third treeto etc.

Numerical adverbs

Numerical adverbs indicating the number of repetitions of a particular action are formed by suffixing -s to the cardinal numbers (14).

(14) once oinos twice dwos three times trees etc.

Fractions

In Shemspreg, the phrase x apo y is used to express the fraction ‘x/y.’ Thus, 3/4 is rendered as tree apo kwetwer and 5/19 is rendered as penkwe apo dechim-newin. When the numerator is ‘1’, the fraction may be expressed by simply referring to the denominator as an ordinal (15).

(15) kwetwerto ‘fourth, one fourth’ newinto ‘ninth; one ninth’

The only exception to this construction is for seemi ‘one half’.

Multiplicative verbs

Shemspreg creates multiplicative verbs by incorporating the cardinal numerals into the verb pel-. This construction is similar to the prefixed verb construction discussed in 5.7.3; the imperfective past tense form is marked only by the suffix -i; the imperfective prefix e- is not present on the verb. Examples are given in (16).

(16) dwopel ‘double’ treepel ‘triple’

dwopeles ‘doubles, is doubling’ dwopli ‘was doubling’ dwopepli ‘doubled’ dwopelent ‘doubling’ dwopeplent ‘doubled’

Conjunctions

Conjunctions are particles which serve to join two or more constituents together; these constituents may be single words or whole phrases or sentences. There are two coordinating conjunctions in Shemspreg; =kwe ‘and’ and =we ‘or’. These conjunctions are clitics; when coordinating words in a simple list, the conjunction attaches to the last element of the list (17a, b).

(17) a. we seskwi owim, taurom, echwosomkwe. we se- skw -i 1p:NOM PERF- see:0 -PAST owi -m tauro -m echwo -s -om =kwe sheep -OBL bull -OBL horse -PL -OBL =and ‘We saw (a) sheep, (a) bull, and (some) horses.’

b. ed abelom kirnosomwe! ed abel -om kirno -s -om =we eat:IMP apple -OBL cherry -PL -OBL =or ‘Eat (an) apple or (some) cherries!’

When coordinating phrases or clauses, the conjunction attaches to the end of the initial element (18).

(18) sos gwer wezho-, sos mej gem-deukentom, soskwe oochu shem-ferentom so -s gwer wezho- that -GEN heavy wagon- so -s mej gem- deuk -ent -om that -GEN large load- pull -PTC -OBL so -s =kwe oochu shem- fer -ent -om that -GEN =and quickly human- bear -PTC -OBL that (one) pulling a heavy wagon, that (one) a large load; and that (one) bearing a human quickly. In (18), the conjunction =kwe is attached to the initial word sos of the final element in the conjoined structure (note that the first two elements share the verb deukentom).

Quantifiers

Quantifiers are like numerals in that they give information about the number of elements in a noun phrase. Quantifiers can stand alone as noun phrases, much as pronouns can. The most common quantifiers are given in (19).

(19) all plino few pau many pli some oi any e

• Introduction to Shemspreg
• Shemspreg sounds
• Shemspreg nouns
• Shemspreg pronouns and other particles
• Shemspreg verbs
• Shemspreg adjectives
• Shemspreg sentences