Trentish Morphology

From FrathWiki
Revision as of 11:09, 20 June 2004 by Muke (talk | contribs) (new)
(diff) ← Older revision | Latest revision (diff) | Newer revision → (diff)
Jump to navigationJump to search

Reduplication

Reduplication produces resultative nouns from verbal roots.

  • /mɑli/ "speak" → /mɑli-mɑli/ "speech, message"
  • /pʼɑlɑŋ/ "hate" → /pʼɑlɑŋ-pʼɑlɑŋ/ "hatred, grudge" (i.e., [pʼɑlɑxpʼɑlɑŋ])

In reduplication, no more than the first two syllables are reduplicated:

  • /ikʼɑtɬi/ "barter" → /ikʼɑ-ikʼɑtɬi/ "transaction"

Voice

Trentish verbs are marked for voice.

There are five voices, active, unergative, unaccusative, passive, and middle. Their use depends on the presence of and importance given to the agent and patient.

agent patient voice marker
high low active / middle ∅ / /ʊk-/
high none unergative /tɬi-/
low high passive / middle ∅ / /ʊk-/
none high unaccusative /ʔuu-/

The middle voice is used if the agent and patient refer to the same entity (me and myself) or an entity and a part of itself (me and my nose).

The high agent or patient is marked with the topic marker /-pɑ/. The low agent or patient is marked with /-(ɔ)m/.

Aspect

There are at least six aspects, which are focuses on the status of the event.

aspect description marker
imperfective seen as in progress
perfective seen as completed /po-/
iterative seen as happening many times together /tʰø-/
cumulative iterative with cumulative effect /mel-/
reluctative seen as happening with reluctance /ɑk-/
effrenative? seen as happening without reluctance
(either in a good or bad way)
/pʰli-/

Mood

mood description marker
indicative seen as real
probable seen as expected or inevitable;
future
/tʷo-/
fictive seen as hypothetical;
subjunctive, infinitive, (negative)
/i-/

Number

Trentish nouns are unmarked for number. There is, however, optional number marking, along two axes:

paucal plural
separate /me-/ /ʔlu-me-/
aggregate /el-/ /ʔl-el-/

A singular can be emphasized with /s(ʌ)-/.

Aggregate and separate refer to whether the plural things are physically grouped together (aggregate), or not (separate).

Adjectives

There are two types of adjective in Trentish, scalar and binary. Scalar adjectives are always marked for degree (the simplest form is the positive /ʔo-/). Adjectives can be used nominally.