User:Masako/sandbox

grammar

noun phrases

The basic noun phrase in Kala is PREPOSITION DETERMINER NOUN DESCRIPTIVE-VERB RELATIVE-CLAUSE. Depending on context, this is fairly predominant with a few exceptions.

determiners

Determiners includes various particles, demonstratives, and quantifiers. Most nouns will have exactly one of these. They usually come before their nouns. Possessives are semantically determiners, but they can't carry determiner inflections, so an appropriate particle or pronoun is brought in for them.

demonstratives

Kala makes a three-way distinction. Typically there is a distinction between proximal or first person (objects near to the speaker), medial or second person (objects near to the addressee), and distal or third person (objects far from both).

• itla (i-) - this (near me)
• uatla (ua-) - that (near you)
• yetla (ye-) - that (over there)

The demonstratives can be prefixed to any noun to show deixis.

• imita taha

PROX-dog be.big

This dog is big.

• uaneko tamyo ka

MED-cat 2pl.POSS Q

Is that cat (near you) yours?

• yetsakam ahi

DIST-house-PL be.small

Those houses (over there) are small.

pronouns

Kala agent pronouns are often omitted when the person is obvious from context. Kala personal pronouns also encode clusivity. That is, there are different words for "we" depending on whether the speaker is including the person spoken to or not. Pronouns do not inflect for gender; if gender is significant, one can use words like naka, tlaka, nahi, tahi (the woman, the man, the girl, the boy), etc.

nkalo

	Agent	Patient	Reflexive	Possessive	Reciprocal
1sg	na	ena	na'i	nayo
2sg	ta	eta	ta'i	tayo
3sg	ha	eha	ha'i	hayo
4sg	tla	etla	tla'i	tlayo
1pl 1pl exclusive	nam na'am	enam ena'am	nami na'ami	namyo na'amyo	nanku na'anku
2pl	tam	etam	tami	tamyo	tanku
3pl	kam	ekam	kami	kamyo	kanku
4pl	tlam	etlam	tlami	tlamyo	tlanku

verbs

tense

Kala has three simple tenses; past, present, and future. Present tense is unmarked. However, past and future tenses can be modified to include immediate future ("is about to..."), distant future ("will...in a long while"), recent past ("just ..."), and remote past ("...a long while ago"). These distinctions are made with the augmentative and diminutive endings -ha and -hi.

aspect

The progressive, also called the continuous [CONT], this is used to express an incomplete action or state in progress at a specific time. It is marked with -nko, from nkoso - "to continue; proceed; progress". The perfecive aspect indicates that an action is completed [PFV]. It is often translated by the English present perfect (have done some-thing). It is marked with -pua, from opua - "to end; finish; complete". The inchoative aspect refers to the beginning of a state [INCH]. It is marked with -mu, from mula - "to begin; start; initiate". The frequentative aspect refers to a repeated action [FREQ]. It is marked with -nua, from nua - "frequent; often; regular".

ti'a

	Kala	gloss	English
Progressive	mita inanko	dog eat-CONT	The dog is eating.
Perfective	mita inapua	dog eat-PFV	The dog has eaten.
Inchoative	mita inamu	dog eat-INCH	The dog begins to eat.
Frequentative	mita inanua	dog eat-FREQ	The dog eats often.

mood

The negative mood (always marked finally) is indicated by the suffix –k or –nke (when the last syllable contains /k/).

• mita inayek - dog eat-PST-NEG - The dog did not eat.
• mita mokunke - dog sleep-NEG - The dog does not sleep.

syntax

The basic structure of a Kala sentence is:

AGENT--PATIENT--VERB (or SOV)

The agent is the person or thing doing the action described by the verb; The patient is the recipient of that action. The importance of word order can be seen by comparing the following sentences:

• mita tlaka anya - dog man see - The dog sees the man.
• tlaka mita anya - man dog see - The man sees the dog.

In both sentences, the words are identical, the only way to know who is seeing whom is by the order of the words in the sentence.