Re: Some more Madzhi grammar

On Sun, 17 Mar 2002, Patrick Dunn wrote:
> >
> > Adjectives are not declined, They precede the nouns they modify.
> > Comparison:
> >         Positive
> >         Comparative: Ablative of noun + positive
> >         Superlative: -nuv
>
> Interesting.  With fifteen cases (thirty, if you count plurals) I'd expect
> adjectives to agree in case and number.
Both Mansi, the language which Madzhi is descended from, and Hungarian,
the closest language to Mansi, are like this (and Hungarian has 24 cases,
48 if you count plurals). For example:

Kilenc nagy kutya'tol elloptam   a    csontokat.
nine   big  dog-ABL   stole-1sg  the  bones-ACC
I stole the bones from nine big dogs.

Adjectives can, however, be declined in Madzhi, as in Hungarian and Mansi,
if only the adjective is used, e.g.

A   nagyoktol  loptam    el   a   csontokat
the big-PL-ABL stole-1sg away the bones-ACC
I stole the bones from the big ones.

So, I should have added that comment, that adjectives are not declined
only if the adjective and the noun are present.

>
> > PERSONAL PRONOUNS
> >
> >         1sg     2sg     3sg     1pl       2pl           3pl
> > Nom     am      nag     Tav     mien      nien          Tien
> > Acc     anym    nag@n   Tav@n   mienan    nienan        Tienan
> > Dat     an@vn   nan@vn  Tav@vn  mien@vn   nien@vn       Tien@vn
> > Abl     an@mn@l nag@n@l Tav@n@l mien@vn@l nien@vn@l     Tien@vn@l
> > Com     an@m@l  nag@l   Tav@l   mien@l    nien@l        Tien@l
>
> I notice a persistant lack of gender.
Madzhi has no grammatical gender, like all other Uralic languages.

>
> Why don't the pronouns have all the cases of the nouns?
There is a reason for it. I'll tell you when I figure it out exactly. ;)

>
> > VERBS
> >
> > Verbs hav an indefinite and a definite conjugation.
>
> What's the difference?  Why would someone use indefinite instead of
> definite conjugation?  I've heard of definite and indefinite nouns, but
> not verbs.
>
This exists in all the Ugric languages. In a sentence like "Tommorrow I
will buy a dog", one would use the indefinite conjugation, whereas if the
sentence is "Tommorow I will buy the dog (that I spoke of earlier)", one
would use the definite conjugation. Since Madzhi, Mansi and Ostyak do not
have articles (and Hungarian has them due to influence from other
languages), this is a way to distinguish between definite and indefinite,
"a dog" vs. "the dog".

> > noun to verb: -l2tS-
>
> In what sense?  in the sense of "house" to "to house?"  Or in the sense of
> "dog" to "to dog."
This is used in a sense like the former example. It is used to make a verb
which it is the characteristic of the noun to do - a house houses. But the
dog doesn't necessarily dog.

>
> > I'm not certain about word order yet, but I think it's fairly free, within
> > limits, meaning, different word order stresses a different thign, like in
> > Hungarian.
>
> With so many cases, that'd be almost inevitable, I'd think.  But there
> still ought to be an overarching "neutral" word order.  In Latin, word
> order is free but SOV is the "neutral" word order; if you mess with it,
> you're emphasizing something else.
>
Either SVO or VSO, but I'm not totally certain yet.

---ferko

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