Trentish Morphology
Morphological typology
Trentish is a highly polysynthetic language. The verb word itself can have up to eight components, some of which themselves may be comprise multiple morphemes:
| § | imenggrrnoqukwauhglathanyxr |
| i-mel-grq-noqukwa-uhg-latha-ny-xr | |
| FICT-CUMUL-DIS-president-MIDD-mess:up-1-3 | |
| "for the president to continue making himself worse (in a way I don't approve of)" |
It is predominantly agglutinative, as morphemes can generally be easily isolated.
Morphological processes
- Infixation, stem modification (such as ablaut), and suprasegmental modification do not play roles in Trentish morphology.
Prefixation
Trentish is predominantly prefixing. Most derivation is formed by prefixes, and most verbal morphology is prefixed.
| § | noikaƛi |
| no-ikaƛi | |
| OCCUPATION-trade | |
| "trader" |
Some prefixes, which may have once had a strong stress accent, cause a following vowel to drop, and appropriate assimilations to be carried out:
| § | ixliiƛan |
| ixli-gùƛan | |
| REVERSE-find | |
| "misplace" |
Suffixation
Some grammatical operations are carried out with suffixes.
| § | rlrswum yetshenlyu | |
| rlrswu-m | yetshe-ny-lu | |
| dish-PAT | steal-1-2 | |
| (I know) "you are stealing a plate" | ||
Reduplication
Reduplication is used to produce resultative nouns from verbal roots.
| § | malimali |
| mali-mali | |
| REDUP-speak | |
| "speech, message" |
In reduplication, no more than the first two syllables are reduplicated. Also, some complex segments are subject to simplification: ejective stops become plain stops, and ƛ becomes l.
| § | igaikaƛi |
| iga-ikaƛi | |
| REDUP-trade | |
| "transaction" |
| § | lohƛoh |
| loh-ƛoh | |
| REDUP-worry | |
| "concern" |
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.
