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Kash Morphology: Nouns and pronouns

From:Roger Mills <romilly@...>
Date:Saturday, February 3, 2001, 5:13
NOUNS:
There are two classes ("genders") of nouns:  1) animate:  all living things
capable of motion, including the Sun, Moons, the spirits,  'planet' and
certain violent weather conditions (but excluding microscopic things like
cells, bacteria)   2) neuter:  everything else.

These are declined with suffixes through 4 cases-- Nom. Gen. Dat. Acc.-- and
2 numbers sing. and plur.  The suffixes are:
Singular:
 Nom. - nothing.  bases may end in any cons. or vowel
    Gen. -  -i   (The writing system required a glide between ...V-i)
    Dat. -  -e   (ditto)
    Acc.  -  anim. -(V)n*     neut:  nothing; neut. Nom. and Acc. are
identical in both sing. and plur.

Plural (anim. and neut. differ):
    Anim.    Nom.   -(i)la    Neut:  -(V)sh*
                Gen.     -(i)li                -(V)shi
                Dat.      -(i)le                -(V)she
                Acc.      -(i)lan              -(V)sh

(*Notes:  1) Anim. -(V)n and neut. -(V)sh occur after consonants; (V) echoes
the preceding sylllable's vowel.   2) Anim. plur. (i) deletes after
base-final vowel). Stress shifts.   Some examples:  lopa 'an animal sp.' G.
lopáyi, D. lopáye, A. lopan; plur. lopala etc.  karun 'duke, lord' G.
karúni, D. karúne, A. karúnun; plur. karuníla etc.
NB. The acc.sing. of kash 'person' is irregular:  kashin.
Neut. nimu 'cooking pot' G. nimúwi, D. nimúwe, A nimu, plur. nimush nimúshi
etc.
forit 'torch' G. foríti, D foríte, A forit, plur. forítish, foritíshi etc.

PRONOUNS:  Personal pronouns exist for 1st and 2nd person, sing. and plur.
1st sing. mam, mami, mame ~me, man
2nd sing. hat, hati, hate ~te, han
1st plur.  mila, mili, mile, min
2nd plur. hila, hili, hile, hin
(me/te are the common pre-verbal forms; otherwise the Nom, Gen, Dat. forms
are emphatic.)
There is an old dual ('you and I') now used mainly in poetry and a few fixed
expressions.  Its forms are:  kila, kili, kile, kin.

Prefixed forms (subject of verb): ma-, ha-; mi-, hi-; ki-
Suffixed forms (possessive):  -mi, -ti; -mim, -hi; -kim (stress shifts)

Demonstratives:  iya 'that; also the 3rd pers. pron.;  taya 'this'.   In the
singular only, these distinguish Masc, Fem. and Neut.

Sing.  M. iya  F. iye  N. iyu        M. taya F. taye N tayu
  Gen.       ini                                        tani
   Dat.       ine ~ne                                tane
   Acc. M. yan F. yen N. yu            tan  ten  tayu
(iya/iye/iyu can be shorted to ya/ye/yu in many cases; ne is proclitic)
(iya etc. can also be used as a definite article, when necessary)

Plur. Anim. nila  Neut. nish           tala    tash
    Gen.      nili            nishi            tali    tashi
    Dat.       nile           nishe           tale   tashe
    Acc.      nin            nish             talan  tash

The 3rd pers. subject pfx. is:  sing. ya-, plur. i-.
The 3rd pers. possessive sfx. both sing. and plur. is: -ni, except with base
final nasal (which deletes) -ñi.

Interrogative:  The neut. interrog. is invariant:  kandri 'what?'
The anim. sing. is: kari, kariyi, kariye, karin. 'who?' (Plural forms
exist-- karila etc.-- but have fallen into disuse.)

(Indefinite pronouns yet to come)