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, demonstratives, interrogative and relative pronouns, and indefinite pronouns. In addition, I also discuss numerals, conjunctions, and quantifiers.

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

'He[1] arrived at his[2] house.'

Demonstrative pronouns

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

'this'	sing	plur
nom	id	ya
gen	is	yas
obl	im	yam
'that'	sing	plur
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'.

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 below.

kwi api abelesom?

kwi	a-	p	-i	abel	-es	-om
who	PERF-	pick:0	-PAST	apple	-PL	-OBL

'Who picked the apples?'

kwim tu eskwi?

kwi	-m	tu	e-	skw	-i
who	-OBL	2s	PERF-	see:0	-PAST

'Who did you see?'

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?'

kwinu so wiro gweguni?

kwinu	so	wiro	gwe-	gun	-i
when	that	man	PERF-	come:0	-PAST

'When did that man arrive?'

kwicho wech es?

kwicho	wech	es
where	village	be:PRES

'Where is the village?'

kwige Jan woses kwonom?

kwige	Jan	wos	-es	kwon	-om
why	John	sell	-PRES	dog	-OBL

'Why is John selling the dog?'

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 the first of the following two examples, the relative pronoun functions as the subject of the embedded clause and is in nominative case, while in second example the relative pronoun functions as the object of the embedded clause and is inflected for oblique case.

ej eskwi wirom kwi dodoi patatom ad Sinanom.

ej

e-

skw

-i

wiro

-m

kwi

do-

do

-i

patat

-om

ad

Sinan

-om

1s

IMPF-

see:0

-PAST

man

-OBL

REL:NOM

PERF-

give:0

-PAST

potato

-OBL to Sinan -OBL

'I saw the man who gave Sinan the potato.'

ej edi patatom kwim dodoi Hasan ad Sinanom.

ej

e-

d

-i

patat

-om

kwi

-m

do-

do

-i

Hasan

ad

Sinan

-om

1s:NOM

PERF-

eat:0

-PAST

potato

-OBL

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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-.

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.

we seskwi owim, taurom, echwosomkwe.

we	se-	skw	-i	owi	-m	tauro	-m	echwo	-s	-om	=kwe
1p:NOM	PERF-	see:0	-PAST	sheep	-OBL	bull	-OBL	horse	-PL	-OBL	=and

'We saw (a) sheep, (a) bull, and (some) horses.'

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.

sos gwer wezho-, sos mej gem-deukentom, soskwe oochu shem-ferentom

so

-s

gwer

wezho-

so

-s

mej

gem-

deuk

-ent

-om

so

-s

=kwe

oochu

shem-

fer

-ent

-om

that

-GEN

heavy

wagon-

that

-GEN

large

load-

pull

-PTC

-OBL

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.'

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 below.

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