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 is éé, (smoke house 3p.ABS PERF) 'the house smoked' (note case marking on ij).

Used as modifiers - that is, preceding a nominalised stative verb - they act as adjectives and 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 ij is etymologically a nominaliser but was during an earlier phase of the language followed almost invariably by the phonologically similar third person pronoun iz/is and inherited that pronoun's inflectional forms. 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 occur with or without a genitive. Without a genitive, it is equivalent to a possessive adjective with the person assumed from context: hé ij ne - my/your/his/our/their house. With the genitive, it may or may not co-occur with the genitive postposition na. Most situations allow co-occurrence, but higher registers of the language prefer ne alone (na is a comparatively recent addition to the language, originally meaning 'from', and does not appear in older literature).

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 ustála 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 ustála 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 ustála 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 ustála 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 cúta '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.

Conjunctions

Hariiji only has four conjunctions which can be split into a syntactic category of their own. These conjunctions are ke, 'and' (coordinates two nominals), yu, 'and' (coordinates two phrases or two verbs), sa, 'if' (introduces counterfactual statements - much more widely used than English 'if'), and na, 'but'. Ke has two forms, yu, se and na four, which are discussed below.

Neutral forms

These forms (yu, na, sa) are used to link two sentences where the absolutive argument is the same, without any particular emphasis:

Ni cúta is yú yá cúta is - he comes and he goes (TOWARDS come 3ps.ABS and.COOR AWAY go 3ps.ABS)

Ke is used to coordinate two nominals:

lacáhé ij ke hé ij tye - an inn and three houses

Switch forms

These forms (yú, ná, sá) are used to link two sentences where the absolutive arguments are different, without any particular emphasis. Ke has no switch form.

Ni cúta is yú yá cúta is - he comes and he (someone else) goes (TOWARDS come 3ps.ABS and.SWITCH AWAY go 3ps.ABS)

Emphatic forms

These forms (yut, nat, sat) are used to link two sentences where the absolutive argument is the same but the second element is emphasised or unexpected:

Ni cúta is nat yá cúta is - he came, but then he went! (TOWARDS come 3ps.ABS but_EMPH AWAY go 3ps.ABS)

Ket is used in a similar way with two nominals:

lacáhé ij ket hé ij tye - an inn AND three houses!

Switch emphatic forms

These forms (yus, nas, sas) are used to link two sentences where the absolutive argument is different and the second element is emphasised or unexpected. Ke obviously has no switch emphatic form.

Ni cúta is yus yá cúta is - he came, and then HE (another person) went (TOWARDS come 3ps.ABS and_SWITCH.EMPH AWAY go 3ps.ABS)

Use of sa

Sa is used to introduce almost all non-factual propositions. It can often be translated as 'if':

Mutu is uz sa ni cúta is - I will kill him if he comes (kill 3p.ABS 1p.ERG if TOWARDS come 3p.ABS

However, there is no distinction made between factual and hypothetical conditionals (e.g. 'if he came tomorrow' and 'if he comes tomorrow' in English). The above sentence may equally be translated as 'I would kill him if he came'. The interpretation depends on context.

Verbal system

Directional prefixes

Two postpositions may be found as enclitics to the verb to add directional information. With verbs of motion these are compulsory. These postpositions are ni (towards the deictic centre), yá (away from the deictic centre):

Ni cúta is - he comes

Yá cúta is - he goes

Morphology

Dynamic verbs, that is, those describing actions, have three morphological forms. The -é or -a form is the least marked form and has no specific meaning attached to it. Removal of the final -é or -a produces an intensive form, used for various different purposes detailed below. Affixation of an -ú to the intensive form produces a subordinate form, used in nominal clauses. Adverbial clauses use the unmarked form plus a postposition, such as én, which creates temporal adverbials with the meaning 'at'.

Unmarked form

This form, marked by -é or -a in most verbs, is used in the vast majority of situations where the verb is not intensive (see below). It is found in main clauses and adverbial clauses, accompanied by a nominalising preposition which attaches to it as a clitic. Alone it has a perfective meaning:

Ni cúta is - he comes

Ni cúta-én is - when he comes

Reduplicated form

Verbs may be reduplicated. Most verbs, if more than two syllables long, will only reduplicate the last syllable in the second half of the compound, and many common verbs also reduplicate partially. Only the second half takes morphological marking. Reduplicated forms are typically have an occasional or distributive meaning:

Ni cúta-ta is - he comes now and again

Yéna-na is iz - he puts them here and there

Yé-yé is iz aa - he spoke to each of them in turn

Intensive form

The intensive form is derived from an unmarked or reduplicated form by removing the final vowel. It gives the sense that someone did something with more effort than usual:

Ni y' is - he spoke powerfully

Ni yé-y' is - he spoke powerfully to each of them

It can be used in contrast with other statements or to place emphasis on the verb:

Yá cúta is, é? - Yá cút' is! - Did he go? Yes, he did go!

It is also used to mark new information which surprises the speaker:

May' is! - and he can play the piano, too!

Relative form

The relative form is used in adjectival and nominal clauses. It is derived from the intensive form with the suffix -ú. There is no conjunction or equivalent to 'that', so the -ú form is the only marker of the presence of such clauses:

Kétis yá cút-ú is - they say that he went

Relative clauses are typically PAV in order (note that the directional prefix precedes the arguments):

Émi ij yá is cút-ú - the man that went

Aspect

There are a number of particles indicating aspect. These inflect to show the interrogative, which is used to ask yes-no questions (i.e. closed questions). The first particle form given is the stative form, the second the interrogative.

Particle	Name	Example	Translation
'/un	Continuous	Yé ar is	You are speaking to him
'aa/'ii	Perfect	Yé ar is 'ii?	Have you spoken to him?
ús/úú	Habitual	Yé ar is úú	You speak to him all the time.
út/útú	Stative	Yé at	You (can) speak.
rá/lá	Inchoative	Yé at lá?	Did you start speaking?
sú/súú	Durative	Yé is sú	He talked for hours.
rúú/lúú	Continuative	Yé is rúú	He was still talking
náá/yáá	Intentive	Yé uz is náá	I plan/want to speak to him

None of these aspects really imply any kind of tense, apart from debatably the intentive which implies futurity. All of them may be used in any tense based on context and the tense is typically disambiguated by use of temporal adverbs like 'yesterday'.

Unmarked (continuous) form

This marks ongoing action or an action without any particular aspectual characteristics.

Perfect

To a degree, this is equivalent to both the English 'have' perfect and the English past tense in general. It is not necessarily past, however - it simply notes that an action has occurred before the point of reference:

Yé uz is, na yéti is - I spoke to him, but he's still unhappy

Habitual

This marks habitual action.

Durative

This implies a long-lasting action. It often although not necessarily implies boredom or is used to convey a sense of time passing in stories:

Ténu is sú - many years passed (pass_a_year 3ps.ABS DUR)

Continuative

The continuative resumes a former description of an imperfective action - for example 'he was walking, I went away, I came back, he was still (durative) walking'. It often, but not always, can be translated with the English adverb 'still':

Yí is lacáá rúú - he was still there

Preverbal slot

There is a syntactic slot present before the verb in which any argument may be placed. This is done for a variety of reasons, including emphasis or contrast:

Júún is yé uz - I'm speaking to John (of all people)/I'm speaking to John (not someone else)!

There are also concerns of respect. Typically arguments significantly higher on the hierarchy than a speaker are fronted without the argument being particularly marked:

Júún is yé uz - I was speaking to John (the much-respected individual who is one of my betters)

When this slot is not filled by an argument, one of the aspect particles may be (and usually is) placed there instead, cliticising to the verb:

Lúú-yé at? - were you still speaking?