Taalen Morphology

Nominals

Cases

Genitive and Possessive Structures

The marker of the genitive case is -(e)n in the singular, and ?? in the plural.

Taalen is dependent marking, meaning that the possessor is explicitly marked as such, while the possessum is marked with the case corresponding to its grammatical role in the sentence.

mau	Saran
mau-0	Sara-n
cat.PAT	Sara.GEN

Sara's cat

mau	men
mau-0	me-n
cat.PAT	1+2.GEN

Our cat

This structure is a generic situation, making no reference to the alienability of the relationship. Taalen does distinguish alienable from inalienable relationships, which can change the meaning of a word. Some words (notably relationships, parts of the body, and spiritual and magical concepts) always require overt alienability marking.

Alienable relationships are those which can be broken, and alienable possessions can be lost, given away, or otherwise destroyed. They are marked with suffixes corresponding to person. In cases where the possessor is explicitly mentioned, both the possessor (in the genitive) and the person marker are required.

mav Allative Ablative Locative Perlative and something else I haven't figured out yet Pronouns The pronominal system of Taalen distinguishes for person (1st, 2nd, 3rd, and an obviative 4th) and animacy (in the 3rd person), but not number. Number is instead handled by complex pronouns, wherein the semantics of the pronoun are concatenations of person: 1+2 : 'I and you'; inclusive 'we' 1+3 : 'I and s/he or them'; exclusive 'we' 2+3 : 'you and s/he or them'; you, pl. This is not quite the same as the usual 2nd pl. pronoun, as it does not address directly more than one person. Instead it focuses on one individual as representative of a group. 1+2+3 : 'I and you and s/he or them'; people, the ubiquitous "they", a generic plural 4 : the other, one, a generic singular Implies more time or location specific identity than 1+2+3 Each person has a characteristic consonant and epenthetic vowel, used when marking verbs and nouns. Person Consonant Vowel Prefixed (V-/C-) Suffixed (-V/-C) 1 n e n-/ne- -n/-en 2 t / h i t-/ti- -h/-ih 3an 0 (null) a 0-/a- -0/-a 3in s a s-/sa- -s/-as 4 r o r-/o- -r/-o 1+2 m e m-/me- -me/-amme 1+3 th e th-/the- -th/-atthe 2+3 v u v-/u- -v/-u 1+2+3 l o l-/lo- -l/-o As can be seen from the verbal complex, these pronominal affixes are agentive when suffixed, and patientive when prefixed. The prefix/suffix distinction holds on nouns as well, prefixed to indicate inalienable possession and suffixed for the alienable variety. Alternation between vowel or consonant initial or final roots, for both patientive/inalienable (prefixed) and agentive/alienable (suffixed) morphemes. Agentively, note that 4th and 1+2+3 are indentical, when affixed to a consonant-final root. mode shouva 'picture' ora 'water' tal 'tree' Pref. neshouva 'the picture I took' tora 'your urine' adal 'her tree that she planted' Suff. shouvan 'the picture of me' orah 'your water' tala 'her tree' Verbs Verbal Complex PAT ASP1 DER1 ROOT DER2 ASP2 AGT PAT : Patient: the patient or experiencer of the verb ASP1 : Aspect prefix: provides specialization of primary (ASP2) aspectual marker DER1 : Derivative prefix: instrumental and claassifying prefixes ROOT : the verb itself DER2 : Derivative suffix: directionals, applicatives, evidentials ASP2 : Aspect suffix: primary aspectual marker AGT : Agent : the agent or causative force of the verb Particles Links Phonology