Hariiji

Noun phrase

Adjectives	Lexical	Reduplication	Particle	Demonstrative	Postpositions	Genitive	Number
Umu hé-hé ij uy iyyu ém ij na tye
umu	hé	-hé	ij	uy	iyyu	ém ij na	tye
red	house	~COMPL	PART	that	=DAT.CONST	man STAT=GEN	three
To all three of those red houses of the man

All noun phrases in Hariiji consist of at least one 'lexical word' and a particle, plus, potentially, any number of adjectives, one postposition, an embedded genitive phrase and a number.

Stative verbs

Stative verbs, or 'roots', are morphemes with basic lexical meaning equivalent to nouns and adjectives in other languages. Hé for example is a morpheme with the rough lexical meaning of 'house'. As a verb, it means 'to be a house': hé ij, 'it is a house'. However, this phrase - hé ij - may also be treated as a nominal, in which case it is translated as 'house': semi hé iz 'aa, 'the house was smoking' (note case marking on ij).

Used as modifiers, their meaning is generally 'alike to' or 'possessing the quality of':

Umu hé ij - a red house

These morphemes may be compounded head-finally:

lacáhé ij - an inn (travel-house)

Reduplication

The lexical root may be reduplicated morphologically. In noun phrases, this conveys a sense of totality: 'all the houses':

hé-hé ij - all the houses

If a root is longer than two syllables, in most cases only the last two syllables will be reduplicated:

lacáhé-cáhé ij - all the inns

Particle, demonstratives and postpositions

The particle is etymologically a third person pronoun but comes from a different case form to the contemporary iz. It is invariable for number and case but may be modified by, in this order, demonstratives, possession marking, and postpositions. In speech, the vowel is often elided and the particle affixes to the previous word (thus héj, lacáhéj, umuj from hé ij, lacáhé ij and umu ij).

hé ij uy - this house

hé ij ne - the house of...

hé ij yá - by the house

hé ij uy ne - this house of...

hé ij uy yá - by this house

hé ij uy ne yá - by this house belonging to...

There is only one demonstrative, uy, which may mean 'this', 'that' or 'yonder' depending on context.

The dative postposition, -uyyu and the possession marker ne elide together to produce the form iyyu:

hé ij uy iyyu - to this house belonging to...

The possession marker ne may or may not co-occur with na, the genitive postposition, depending on speaker preference and level of formality (at higher levels ne is likely to occur alone):

hé ij uy (ne) yá Juni ij (na) - by this house belonging to Johnny

Pronouns

The true pronouns are comparatively rarely used as pronouns in spoken Hariiji. They are acceptable only in the most informal situations. Elsewhere, noun forms like tála ij (servant) are used instead. The third person pronouns are used with stative verbs to form nominals.

	Ergative	Absolutive	Stative
1p	Uz	Us	Uj
2p	Ar	At	Ap
3p	Iz	Is	Ij

Ergative

Hariiji is an ergative language. The ergative marks the agent of a verb.

• An intransitive verb with an agentive argument treats it like a causative:

mutu iz tála is 'aa (die 3p.ERG servant 3p.ABS PRET) - 'he made the servant die' = he killed the servant.

• A transitive verb with an agentive argument has what would normally be considered the 'subject' in the ergative:

yé iz tála is (speak 3p.ERG servant 3p.ABS) - he speaks to the servant

• The ergative is also used to mark causatives. The original agent of a transitive verb is demoted to absolutive and the patient to dative:

yé iz is tála ij-uyyu (speak 3p.ERG 3ps.ABS servant 3p.STAT-DAT) - he makes her speak to the servant

Absolutive

The absolutive marks the patient of a verb.

• An intransitive verb with only one argument will only ever have an absolutive argument:

Mutu is (die 3p.ABS) - he dies

• A transitive verb's 'object' will always be in the absolutive:

Yé iz is (talk 3p.ERG 3p.ABS) - he talks to him

• Causative verbs demote their agent to an absolutive (and their object to a dative):

Yé iz is is-uyyu (talk 3p.ERG 3p.ABS 3p.STAT-DAT) - he makes her talk to him

Allocutive particles

The allocutive particles are a set of sentence-final particles that mark the listener's social status. When a group comprising members of different social statuses is being addressed, Hariiji defaults to the form appropriate to the most prestigious member of the group.

Particle	Level of formality
ca	Inferior
cáá	Friend
ut	Formal
cú	Respectful
sa	Worshipful

The particles are not compulsory in the lowest registers of informal speech but elsewhere are typically required. Even when neither the subject nor the object of a sentence is the listener, the allocutive will be present:

Ni cúma 'aa is hé ij sa (out come PERF 3p.ABS house 3p.STAT ALL.WORSH) - He came out of the house, o worshipful one

The inferior pronouns are used to address social inferiors generally. Social equals may also be addressed with these forms in banter in some extremely informal situations, but generally use of this pronoun is highly offensive. Ca is also used by parents to address their children. Use of cáá is usually restricted to close friends. Ut is the typical particle used when addressing others of similar social standing, whilst cú is used for those of clearly higher social standing. Sa is the most respectful and is used to address high nobility, higher members of the priesthood and royalty. Slaves typically address their masters with sa.

Adjectives

All ‘content’ adjectives follow the noun and may be used without morphological change as stative verbs:

Hé bala – red house

Bala hé – the house is red

Numbers follow content adjectives. Demonstratives follow numbers.

Hé bala súú – two red houses

Hé bala súú is – these two red houses