Khulls nouns

From FrathWiki
Revision as of 20:14, 13 February 2017 by Poswob Rare (talk | contribs) (→‎Gender)
Jump to navigationJump to search

Khulls nouns inflect using a fusional declension system. Though not as complicated at that of Poswa, the declensions differ more from each other because Khulls uses a "discrete" declension system instead of deriving inflections based on every phoneme in the word, as does Poswa.

Noun declension tables

Primary vowel-stem declensions

Final unstressed short vowels

Nominative (English) Accusative Locative Possessive Dative Circumstantial Essive Instrumental
òṭa table, desk oṭà oṭâ oṭas oṭal oṭan oṭī oṭō
ḳĭri happiness, victory ḳirì ḳirî ḳiris ḳiril ḳirin ḳirĕ ḳiġʷ
nìto price, penalty nitò nitô nitos nitol niton nikʷ nitū


Nouns ending with final stressed short low-tone vowels follow the same patterns as above.

Final accent, high tone

This table shows nouns that are accented on their final syllable, with a short high-tone vowel at the end of the word:

Nominative (English) Accusative Locative Possessive Dative Circumstantial Essive Instrumental
egà daytime sky egaḳà egaḳâ egaḳas egaḳal egaḳan egaḳī egaḳō
gʷì beach gʷiḳì gʷiḳî gʷiḳis gʷiḳil gʷiḳin gʷiḳĕ gʷiḳʷ
makò seal (animal) makoḳò makoḳô makoḳos makoḳol makoḳon makoḳʷ makoḳū
ʕʷè tendril ʕʷeḳà ʕʷeḳâ ʕʷeḳas ʕʷeḳal ʕʷeḳan ʕʷeḳī ʕʷeḳō

Nouns ending in follow the pattern for , because they arose from labialization of a vowel that otherwise became /o/.

A "double essive" case is sometimes seen in the declension, where the final labialized consonant loses its labialization and adds .

Many nouns that end in a final high-tone short vowel historically ended with a final -ḳ. But after the vowel /u/, this consonant became a coarticulated labiovelar stop,[1] and was later retained as /ṗ/ when the velar stop otherwise disappeared. The same is true of the non-ejective version of this sound. Thus, words ending in -p or -ṗ decline following the patterns of the standalone word below, which means "teacher":

Nominative (English) Accusative Locative Possessive Dative Circumstantial Essive Instrumental
p teacher p pṡ pḷ pṅ

Nouns with word-final falling tone, long vowels

Nominative (English) Accusative Locative Possessive Dative Circumstantial Essive Instrumental
school pâs pâl pân
bottle bes bel ben
kʷō bed kʷaʕʷù kʷaʕʷû kʷaʕʷus kʷaʕʷul kʷaʕʷun kʷaʕʷ kʷaʕʷū

Secondary vowel-stem declensions

Nominative (English) Accusative Locative Possessive Dative Circumstantial Essive Instrumental
xʷèye curved claw
kʷăkʷ stone tablet
empĕ sword empyì empyî empyis empyil empyin empĕ empyŭ
ḳē wheel ḳê ḳê ḳês ḳêl ḳên ḳê ḳêʕʷ
milk


NOTE, possibly eliminate the first two rows of the secondaries, since final -e and final -u can only come from stressed positions even if in a compound where they are unstressed, except for when the /e/ follows /u/, in which case it comes from /u/ or /a/.

Tertiary vowel-stem declensions

Nominative (English) Accusative Locative Possessive Dative Circumstantial Essive Instrumental
atá spirit atakà atakâ atakas atakal atakan atakī[2] atakō
šonorí depravity, perversion šonorikà šonorikâ šonorikas šonorikal šonorikan šonorikī[2] šonorikō
flower petal lokà lokâ lokas lokal lokan lokī[2] lokō
diaper lekà lekâ lekas lekal lekan lekī [2] lekō
Nominative (English) Accusative Locative Possessive Dative Circumstantial Essive Instrumental
amâ whip amâ amâ amâs amâl amân amê amô
gʷî spy, thief gʷî gʷî gʷîs gʷîl gʷîn gʷê gʷŭ
swamp dôs dôl dôn daʕʷ
hʷê military road hʷê hʷê hʷês hʷêl hʷên hʷê[3] hʷê
ḳʷû urine ḳʷuʕʷù ḳʷuʕʷû ḳʷuʕʷus ḳʷuʕʷul ḳʷuʕʷun ḳʷuʕʷ ḳʷuʕʷū

Many words on the ^ tone can be declined using ´-style endings.

Final -ú might not exist because of retention of the final /kp/ cluster as /p/ rather than deletion.

Primary consonant-stem declensions

Nominative (English) Accusative Locative Possessive Dative Circumstantial Essive Instrumental
gis fruit tree gixì gixî gixis gixil gixin gixĕ gixʷ
maŋan prey maŋaŋà maŋaŋâ maŋaŋas maŋaŋal maŋaŋan maŋaŋī maŋaŋō

Number

Singular

Most nouns are singular in their unarmed form. Exceptions use the singulative affix .

Dual

The dual affix, -(C)o, is mostly confined to denoting human couples and certain paired objects such as double doors. The (C) indicates a consonant that reflects the gender of the noun. It does not generally function as a generic marker for two of an object. Note that this is the same word as ô "married couple", the only difference being the loss of stress.

Plural

The plural affix for all nouns is -yi. This is the same word, historically, as "book", because a book is a bundle of papers and this was extended by analogy to other objects. The parent language, Gold had no plural marker, and this is why the plural markers are different in the various languages derived from it.

Stem-final consonant mutations in the plural

The plural affix fuses to the word stem, and mutates according to the last sound in the word it modifies:

Conso Fused form Notes
yi
ʔ či This denotes words that end with the [à] tone, regardless of which vowel it is on.
p pyi
ṗyi
b bi Possibly survives as byi?
m bi See above
l lyi Some speakers pronounce this as a true palatal [ʎ], others as [ly]
s ši [4]
š ši
z ži
ž ži
ŋ ǯi
ʕ [5]
pʷi All labials "defeat" the palatal /y/, effectively reducing the affix to -i.
ṗʷ ṗʷi
bʷi
kʷi
ġʷ ġʷi
ʕʷ ʕʷi
hʷi
ḳʷ ḳʷi
xʷi
gʷi
ṁbi
ṅǯi
ŋ̇ ŋ̇ǯi
ṣ̌i
ṣ̌ ṣ̌i
ḷyi

Stems ending in syllabic consonants do not behave differently depending on whether the syllabic consonant is preceded by another consonant or by a vowel. Thus the plural of sṁ "dolphin" is sṁbi just as the plural of loṁ "womb, uterus" is loṁbi.

Gender and animacy

Gender

Khulls inherited the Gold gender system, based on consonants. In the Gold language, nearly all nouns had mandatory classifier prefixes that assigned them to a particular gender and animacy level. A sound change that removed all initial vowels made some of the noun classifier prefixes disappear, and this triggered a restructuring of the grammar, and soon the deletion of the remaining classifier prefixes followed, as they were no longer necessary. However, the concept of animacy and gender remained even though it was no longer overtly marked on nouns.

The classifier prefixes survived in a few nouns. Preservation of noun class prefixes happened for one of a few reasons:

  1. Noun classes were preserved when affected by sound changes that masked their form to such an extent that they were no longer recognizable as noun prefixes. In most cases, this referred to nouns whose stem was vowel-initial and accented on the first syllable, which meant that, with sound changes that happened early in Khulls, the classifier itself would come to be part of a stressed syllable, and therefore unlike all other classifiers. These words tended to survive intact. For example, the classifier prefix mi-, which appeared on most words for edible objects, was preserved in the Khulls word mṡ "salt" because it was not recognizable by the speakers as a prefix.
  2. Noun class prefixes were never deleted from their titular nouns; that is, the nouns that defined the class. For example, the classifier prefix sa-, which described words for objects found in the ocean, was not deleted from săpo "fish". Since these tended to be stressed syllables as well, the two cases of preservation could be united under the same rule.





Animacy

In a compound noun whose elements are of different genders, the gender highest in the animacy hierarchy dominates. If two morphemes are at the same level on the animacy hierarchy, the rightmost morpheme dominates. There are four tiers in the animacy hierarchy.

Notes

  1. as in Vietnamese
  2. 2.0 2.1 2.2 2.3 if analogy takes over, perhaps assisted by sḳī > kī
  3. hʷ + ya + ʕī
  4. Most words ending in -s are accented on the final syllable, and that stress remains, meaning this is pronounced [či]. However, this pronunciation has not been carried over by analogy to words where the final syllable is unstressed.
  5. This denotes words that end on an accented vowel of the [â] tone, some of which formerly ended in a true /ʕ/.