Kijeb (Sohlob)
Kijeb (Proto-Sohlob) grammar
Sound system
Vowels
| Front | Central | Back | |
| High | i | u | |
| Low | a |
Consonants
| Labial | Dental or Alveolar |
Palatal | Velar | Labiovelar | |
| Voiceless stops | p py | t ty | ky | k | kw |
| Voiced stops | b by | d dy | gy | g | gw |
| Voiceless fricatives | f fy | s sy | xy | x | |
| Nasals | m my | n ny | (ŋy) | ŋ | ŋw |
| Liquid | r ry | ||||
| Semivowels | y (IPA [j]) | w wy |
The absence of **xw is somewhat remarkable. Some Sohlaçan grammarians note that Heleb and Kidilib x was in fact redundantly labialized, and suppose that this was the case also in Kijeb. Others propose a Pre-Kijeb merger with f; there are however no homonyms with f to support this theory.
The cardinal palatal nasal ŋy does not contrast with dental/alveolar ny in roots, but appears in inflexion and derivation. This is shown by the fact that its reflex in the daughter languages is [j] while the reflex of ny is [ɲ].
Palatalization
An y after a consonant or cluster is realized as palatalization of the consonant, or all consonants throughout the cluster.
Sandhi
There were some assimilatory and dissimilatory changes that probably applied synchronically in Kijeb:
| Underlying | Condition | Result | Example(s) |
|---|---|---|---|
| t | before voiced stops and nasals | d |
*kitbyu > *xidbyu > CS: xefd, K: sijd, L: xirz "heart" |
| y | between a vowel and an i | g | |
| y | between an i and an a or u | gy | |
| w | between a vowel and an u | b | |
| w | between an u and an a or i | gw | |
| n | before p, b, f, m | m | |
| n | before k, g, x, ŋ | ŋ | |
| mm | in inflection | mb | |
| nn | in inflection | nd | |
| ŋŋ | in inflection | ŋg | |
| rr | in inflection | dr | |
| m, n, ŋ | between an t, d or s and a consonant other than r, w, y | deletes | |
| tt, dd | in inflection | st, [z]d | |
| r | between an s and a consonant other than r, w, y | ir | |
| s | before voiced stops | [z] |
Underlyingly as many as three nasals may occur after one another in verb inflection. Such a cluster becomes a nasal + voiced stop at the point of articulation of the last ("rightmost") nasal in the original cluster, e.g. **-n-n-m- > -mb-, **-n-n-n- > -nd-, **-n-n-ŋ- > ŋg.
Root structure
A Kijeb nominal or verbal root has the following structure:
- (s) (C) (r) V (D) C (r)
where
- slots in parentheses are optional
- V is any vowel (a, i, u)
- C is any consonant
- D is any dental (t/d, n, s, r)
There are some restrictions on possible phoneme sequences, including:
- Geminates do not occur. Thus e.g. if there is an s in a C slot there can be no s in the preceding s or D slot, resulting in an *ss, and similarly no *rr, *ww, *yy, *tt. *dd, *nn.
- n + a nasal does not occur (no *nn, *nm, *nŋ).
- Labial + w does not occur.
- None of *yi, *iy, *wu, *uw can occur.
- Palatalization or y may occur either in the consonant(s) before the V or in the consonant(s) after the V or not at all, but not both before and after the V. A cluster is either palatalized throughout or not at all.
- In nominal and verbal roots
- the same consonant may not occur twice,
- no two stops or fricatives (other than s) at the same point of articulation may occur within a single root,
- no two nasals may occur within a single root.
- The nominal stems mama "mother" and papa "father" are the only known exceptions to these restrictions among nominal and verbal roots. In pronoun and determiner stems, on the other hand, shapes like tat, kak, nan, sas are allowed and even favored. (There is also the numeral stem sas "one", but this may be a determiner in origin.) It may be that these stems were originally CV stems that became reduplicated.
- Roots consisting only of VC are extremely rare.
- Roots with a heavy cluster both before and after the V are rare.
In order to function as a stem such a root must be followed by a vowel. In nouns (including adjectives) this second vowel is a random extension, while in verbs it is an inflectional morpheme.
Morphology
Unlike the daughter languages, which are split-ergative, Kijeb is entirely nominative-accusative.
Nominal morphology
Core cases
| Singular | Animate plural | Inanimate plural | |
| Nominative | -Ø (unmarked) | -n | -r |
| Accusative | -s | -ns | -rs |
| Dative | -t | -nt | -rt |
(In the daughter languages the accusative is derived from *-si and the dative from *-tu.)
Other cases
| Singular | Animate plural | Inanimate plural | |
| Locative | -tyu | -ntyu | -rtyu |
| Allative | -sya | -nsya | -rsya |
| Ablative | -yu | -nyu | -ryu |
| Instrumental | -ri | -nri | -dri |
The ergative of the daughter languages derives from *-rya and is certainly derived from the instrumental.
Adverbs
Local adverbs
Locale adverbs are formed by adding local case endings to the three deictic roots proximal *i "this", medial *a "that" and distal *u "yon".
| ityu | "here" | atyu | "there" | utyu | "yonder" |
| isya | "to here" | asya | "to there" | usya | "to yonder" |
| igyu | "from here" | ayu | "from there" | uyu | "from yonder" |
Pronouns
Kijeb pronouns have several unique morphological characteristics. Most basic pronoun roots have the shape CV. Such a root cannot stand on its own, but attaches clitically to a noun or verb stem. A clitic pronoun functions as a possessive marker when attached to a noun and as a person agreement marker when attached to a verb.
Free standing pronouns are emphatic, and are formed by reduplicating the CV root.
Plural pronouns are formed either suppletively or by infixation of the plural marker -n or -r between the syllables of the reduplicated CV root. For this reason plural emphatic pronouns take simple case markers -s, -t etc., thus the accusative of anda is andas rather than **anans or **andans.
Personal and demonstrative pronouns
First and second person
| Singular | Plural (animate) | |||||
| Clitic | Emphatic | Clitic | Emphatic | |||
| First person | -ta | tata | "I" | -di | didi | "we (exclusive)" |
| -pu | pupu | "we (inclusive)" | ||||
| Second person | -ba | baba | "thou" | -gi | gigi | "you (pl.)" |
Third person clitic pronouns
| Singular | Plural | |
| Masculine | -na | -nda |
| Feminine | -mi | -mbi |
| Rational | -ŋka | |
| Irrational | -ŋu | -ŋgu |
| Inanimate | -ru/-ur | -dru |
Third person emphatic pronouns
These are formed by compounding three deictic roots — proximal *i "this", medial *a "that" and distal *u "yon" — with the third person pronominal stems. These deictic roots do not occur independently, although they are also used in local adverbs, and neither are there any non-clitic third person pronouns not including these deictic stems.
| Proximal "this" | Medial "that" | Distal "yon" | ||||
| Singular | Plural | Singular | Plural | Singular | Plural | |
| Masculine | ina | inda | ana | anda | una | unda |
| Feminine | imi | imbi | ami | ambi | umi | umbi |
| Rational | iŋka | aŋka | uŋka | |||
| Irrational | iŋu | iŋgu | aŋu | aŋgu | uŋu | uŋgu |
| Inanimate | iru | idru | aru | adru | uru | udru |
Possessive pronouns
There are no special clitic forms for possessive pronouns. The clitics listed above have a possessive meaning when attached to nouns.
First and second person emphatic
| Singular | Plural (animate) | |||
| First person | tatya | "my, mine" | didya | "our (exclusive)" |
| pupa | "our (inclusive)" | |||
| Second person | babya | "thy, thine" | gigya | "your (pl.)" |
Third person emphatic
| Proximal "of this" | Medial "of that" | Distal "of yon" | ||||
| Singular | Plural | Singular | Plural | Singular | Plural | |
| Masculine | inya | indya | anya | andya | unya | undya |
| Feminine | imya | imbya | amya | ambya | umya | umbya |
| Rational | iŋkya | aŋkya | uŋkya | |||
| Irrational | iŋwa | inŋgwa | aŋwa | aŋgwa | uŋwa | uŋgwa |
| Inanimate | irwa | idrwa | arwa | adrwa | urwa | udrwa |
Reflexive pronouns
Reflexive pronouns are formed by adding the clitic -ŋi to the personal and demonstrative pronouns, e.g. tataŋi "myself" anaŋi "himself". There is also a possessive version -ŋya, e.g. tataŋya "my own", anaŋya "his own". These clitics can also be attached to nouns, e.g. snupuŋi "the man himself", snupuŋya "the man's own".
"Each other" is -ŋgi and "each othrer's" is -ŋgya.
Interrogative pronouns
| Basic | Possessive | ||||||
| Emphatic | Clitic | Emphatic | Clitic | ||||
| Animate | singular | gwigwi | -gwi | "who?" | gwigwa | -gwa | "of whom? |
| plural | gwiŋgwi | -ŋgwi | gwiŋgwa | -ŋgwa | |||
| Inanimate | singular | gugu | -gu | "what?, which?" | gugwa | -gwa | "of what?, of which?" |
| plural | gurgu | -rgu | gurgwa | -rgwa | |||
Note that the clitic singular possessive is the same for animate and inanimate. There is no trace of them ever having been differentiated.
Indefinite pronouns
Indefinite pronouns are formed by adding the clitic -fu to the interrogatives: gwigifu "someone" gugufu "something". This clitic can also be attached to nouns, e.g. snupufu "some man".
Verbs
Finite verb forms
Verbs are inflected for aspect, inverseness, tense or mood and person, all of which are expressed as suffixes to the verb root. The buildup of the verb word is:
- root - aspect - (inverseness) - tense/mood - subject - (direct object) - (indirect object)
Aspect
There are two aspects in Kijeb, viz. perfect, marked by -u-, and imperfect or non-perfect, marked by -i-.
Inverseness
The inverse marker -s- signals that the subject of the verb is inanimate and the direct object animate. A verb that is not inverse is said to be direct, but there is no overt directness marker in Kijeb.
Tense and mood
There are two tenses, present and past, and three moods, realis and irrealis and imperative. However marking of tense and mood overlap, so that any given verb form is marked either for present tense -n-, past tense -r-/-ir- or irrealis mood -t-/-s-/-z-.
A verb form marked for tense cannot be marked for mood, but is always realis, and a verb form marked for irrealis mood cannot be marked for tense, but can function as any tense. The irrealis performs such functions as future, subjunctive, optative and hortative.
The imperative is signalled by the absence of a tense/mood marker.
Examples:
(1) sab -u -Ø -r -na -ru -mi give -PERF -DIR -PAST -3.sg.masc. -3.sg.inan. -3.sg.fem. saburnarumi
"He had given it to her"
(2) sazb -i -Ø -n -ta -ŋka see -IMPF -DIR -PRES -1.sg. -3.pl.rat. sazbintaŋka
"I see/am seeing them"
(3) pant -i -s -n -ur -ba hit -IMPF -INV -PRES -3.sg.inan. -2.sg. pantisnurba
"It hits you"
(4) dirn -u -Ø -t -ur fall down -PERF -DIR -IRREALIS -3.sg.inan. dirnutur
"It will/might/should have fallen down"
(5) basn -u -Ø -Ø -gi go out -PERF -DIR -IMP -2.pl. basnugi
"Go out, you all!"
The only constituents that are really "optional" are object markers. The absence of the inversion marker is best seen as the presence of a zero directness marker, and the absence of a tense/mood marker is best seen as the presence of a zero imperative marker.
Note that the third person singular inanimate ending takes the allomorph -ur when in subject position, except before plural agreement markers beginning in two consonants.
Sandhi in verb forms
The sequence of morphemes is often obscured by sandhi, giving rise to portmanteau morphemes, e.g.
| Underlying form | Surface form | Gloss |
|---|---|---|
| **pant-i-s-r-ru-n-ka | pantizdruŋka | "It hit them" |
| **pant-i-s-r-r-ru-n-ka | pantisridruŋka | "They (inanimate) hit (past) them" |
| **pant-i-s-nr-r-ru-n-ka | pantizdruŋka | "They (inanimate) hit (present) them" |
| **sasb-i-Ø-t-n-na-ta | sazbizdata | "the men will see me" |
| **sasb-i-Ø-t-ta | sazbista | "I will/should/would/might/ see" |
| **sazb-i-Ø-n-n-na | sazbinda | "The men see" |
The past tense allomorph -ir arises as a sandhi phenomenon when the past tense morpheme -r- is preceded by the inverseness marker -s- and followed by the inanimate plural subject marker -dru- (itself ultimately a sandhi of *-r-ru-). Apparently the past-tense -r- which had come to stand between the two non-sonorant consonants s and d became realized as a syllabic [r̩] which then in turn resolved into [ir].
The irrealis allomorphs -s- and -z- arise when the irrealis marker is followed by a subject marker beginning in a dental stop (**-t-t- > -s-t- and **-t-d- > **-d-d- > -z-d-). It is not really possible to confuse them with the inverseness marker, since the latter always takes inanimate subject markers.
Infinite verb forms
The gerund
There is also an gerund stem formed by adding -a to the verb root. By taking different case endings this stem can express various infinite functions.
Participles
Participles are verb forms inflected for aspect and tense/mood, but which take nominal number and case endings rather than person suffixes. Pariciples are used chiefly to form relative clauses, as there are no relative pronouns in Kijeb, and each sentence may have only one finite verb. Examples are sabura "Having given", pantina "hitting" and basnura "gone out".
Syntax
(Scattered notes so far)
Word order is SOV, with everything that entails.
The "rational" plural gender is used for mixed masculine/feminine groups. The reason it isn't called "human" is that it is used for gods, ghosts, demons and the like as well as for humans. Besides I'm not sure yet if the Sohloçan are human!
There is no genitive case. The possessive construction is like this:
- giwri-t tadgu-na-n king-DAT elephant-his-PL "The king's elephants".
Negation is made with the auxiliary paxya "not do", e.g. sazba paxintaŋka "I don't see them". This is quite possibly the main use of the infinitive/gerund!
BPJ 12:16, 29 March 2006 (PST)
