Suwáá/Morphology

This article covers High Sowaár morphology.

There are five main parts of speech in Sowaár:

• nouns
• determiners
• verbs
• Wackernagel clitics
• other clitics
• interjections

Usage

Extremely posh people use the impersonal form instead of using the 1sg form.

Nouns

Number

High Sowaár has singular, dual and plural numbers. Outside of High and Classical Sowaár, the dual is only found in some isolated dialects.

Grammatical number is not marked on nouns, rather verbs index the number of their argument nouns.

Possessive prefixes

Person	Singular	Dual	Plural
1	kha-	jeé-	dré-
2	mé-	xe-	ólo-
3 (an.)	wa-	bon-	da-
3 (inan.)	ém-
Reflexive	ge-
Reciprocal ("each other")	'a'(a)-
Impersonal ("one")	na-

Relational nouns

Sowaár uses both postpositions and relational nouns.

• od 'in, at'
  • khod, mod, wod, yod, émod, joód, sod, boód, drod, olod, dod
• hasr 'to, for'
  • khasr, masr, wasr, yasr, pasr, jaásr, sasr, paásr, trasr, olasr, tasr
• c'áakh 'arm' = 'next to'
  • páanj wac'áakh 'next to the man'
• hasjoo' = "belly" = 'inside'
• hertr'ah = "shell" = 'outside'
• sbiih = "back" = 'on'

Noun clitics

• =(w)áa: vocative
• ='ah: focus ("it is X that...")

Obligatory possession

Obligatory possession is used for family members.

Examples:

• 'mother': kheemám, méemám, weemám, jeemám, semám, boomám, dreemám, óleemám, deemám, 'a'eemám
• 'father': khány, mány, wány, jeény, sány, baány, deány, ólany, dány, 'a'ány
• 'son': kha'ír, mé'ir, wa'ír, jeé'ir, se'ír, bon'ír, dré'ir, ólo'ír, da'ír, 'a'ír
• 'daughter': khájiil, méjiil, wájiil, jeéjiil, séjiil, bojiil, dréjiil, ólojiil, dájiil, 'ájiil

Emphatic pronouns

• khabóoh 'I'
• mé'aj 'you (sg)'
• wojhá' 'he/she'
• jhée'i 'we'
• ólosdo 'you (pl)'
• bajaá' 'they'

Verbs

The number of the subject and object is indexed on the verb if the noun is animate.

Verb template

• mood/adverbial
• global directional/shape
• local directional
• personal affix
• inverse person marker
• STEM/(TAM & voice ablaut)
• voice
• TAM
• degree
• negative
• discourse marker/nominalizer

Adverbial preverbs

• shii-: again and again, one after another
• gladly
• unwillingly
• all of a sudden

Directional preverbs

Directionals fall into two types:

• Global directionals describe movement towards a final destination or describes a global shape. These fall into multidirectional/indefinite vs unidirectional/definite distinction, like Russian.
• Local directionals describe movement from the speaker's point of view or from a small-scale perspective. These directionals are used especially for fluids and for individual behavior in groups of people or animals. Ex: "locally inwards", "locally outwards", "shearing", "with turbulent motion", "with some local movement opposite to the global direction", etc.

Some directional preverbs:

• lo-: 'forming a line'

TAM inflection

For a complete list of High Sowaár verbal ablaut paradigms, see Sowaár/Ablaut classes.

A characteristic feature of Sowaár verbs is stem ablaut in various TAM and voice forms, involving stem vowel changes, consonant gradation, reduplication, and infixes. These paradigms tend to be quite complex. Most Sowaár lects have a fixed (large) number of regular ablaut classes. The number of ablaut paradigms, and which verb stems fall into which ablaut classes, depends on the lect. High Sowaár has 57 classes.

• Tenses: present, past
• Aspects: continuative, inceptive, conclusive, cessative, resumptive, iterative
• Moods: potential, necessitative, permissive, desiderative, imperative, Classical imperative, optative
  • necessitative also means "it is logically necessary", permissive also means "it is possible that"
  • -hw- or -ho- = continuative

Example:

• I love you = lihosjhógy
• I loved you = alisjhégy
• I will love you = lóosjheyám (li-óo-sjheyám)
• I fall in love with you (inceptive) = lisjhódagy

There are two different imperative forms: the modern imperative form, and the archaic Classical imperative form. In Sowaár the two forms are called "requesting form" and "commanding form", respectively, because the modern one originated from a polite request form. The Classical imperative form is used in poetry, prayers, and in ceremonial situations such as in legal language.

Personal affixes

Grammatical number is not marked on nouns, rather verbs index the number of their argument nouns.

Unipersonal

These prefixes are used with intransitive verbs or transitive verbs where the subject, or the object, or both are 3rd person.

Person	Singular	Dual	Plural
1	kha-	jeé-	dré-
2	mé-	xe-	ólo-
3 (an.)	wa-	boN-	be-
3 (inan.)	0-
Reflexive	ge-
Reciprocal ("each other")	'a'(a)-
Impersonal ("one")	na-

Bipersonal

These prefixes are used with transitive verbs only.

• li-: 2 > 1
• syi-: 1 > 2
• gi-: inverse marker for verbs with a third person; comes between the personal suffix and the stem. Usage follows the animacy hierarchy 2 > 3; 1 > 3; 3AN > 3INAN; PROX > OBV. By default the direction of the action is assumed to go down from the "more animate" constituent to the "less animate" one. The inverse marker is used when the action goes up the hierarchy.
  • Example: khasjhógy = I love him/her (the object is implied by the transitivity); khagisjhógy = s/he loves me

Voice

As the subject and object of a verb are determined by the animacy hierarchy, verbs do not have active or passive voices. Instead there are affixes that raise or lower the verb's valence, i.e. make the verb take one more or one less argument.

Here are the morphological voices:

• transitivizer/"causative"
• detransitivizer/"passive"
• reciprocal

Negation

• -óom = negative

Discourse affixes

Sowaár lects use discourse verbal affixes to reflect the speaker's attitude, degree of surprise, or other things; not using them may come across as clinical, stilted, or overly posh. High Sowaár normally uses discourse affixes less often than do other Sowaár lects, and uses "degree of surprise" affixes more frequently than attitudinal affixes. On average, female High Sowaár speakers use attitudinal affixes more frequently than male speakers.

Some of these affixes were evidentials in Classical Sowaár.

Poetic High Sowaár may use archaic discourse affixes used in Classical Sowaár.

• INTERROGATIVE: -'é
• TRUTH VALUE FOCUS: -íi (used for answering questions)
• ASSEVERATIVE: -síi ("I/we know that...", from the Classical visual evidential)
• HEARSAY
• POSITIVE SURPRISE
• NEGATIVE SURPRISE
• LACK OF SURPRISE

Incorporation

Incorporation is no longer productive in High Sowaár and is considered a poetic device.

Numerals

Numerals are really verbs: "one", "two", etc. are verbs meaning "to be one", "to be two", etc.

Numbers 1-10: khám, sdred, yíin, mól, sraáh, k'al, khax, 'ont, pidr, soóm (change some of these numbers)

Derivational morphology

Sanskrit-style compounds in poetry? (mainly dvandvas and bahuvrihis)