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Peshpeg: Difference between revisions
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Peshpeg is classified as a language isolate. Any similarities to the Minhast language are due to language contact, with most of the influences being unidirectional; only a handful of Peshpeg words, most of them related to the fauna and flora of their original homeland, have been adopted by the Wolf Speaker and Stone Speaker dialects. However, Minhast has had an enormous impact on the Peshpeg language; close to 70% of the Peshpeg lexicon comes from Minhast, the original base-10 numerical system has been supplanted by the vegisimal system of the dominant language, and most noticeably the original morphosyntactic alignment has shifted from a nominative-accusative type to an ergative-absolutive one. Some linguists have explored the possibility of a relationship with [[Ín Duári]], another endangered, non-Minhast language, but plausible evidence for such a relationship has not been demonstrated. | Peshpeg is classified as a language isolate. Any similarities to the Minhast language are due to language contact, with most of the influences being unidirectional; only a handful of Peshpeg words, most of them related to the fauna and flora of their original homeland, have been adopted by the Wolf Speaker and Stone Speaker dialects. However, Minhast has had an enormous impact on the Peshpeg language; close to 70% of the Peshpeg lexicon comes from Minhast, the original base-10 numerical system has been supplanted by the vegisimal system of the dominant language, and most noticeably the original morphosyntactic alignment has shifted from a nominative-accusative type to an ergative-absolutive one. Some linguists have explored the possibility of a relationship with [[Ín Duári]], another endangered, non-Minhast language, but plausible evidence for such a relationship has not been demonstrated. | ||
===Characteristics=== | |||
Peshpeg is classified as an SOV language, with an ergative-absolutive morphosyntactic alignment. The language apparently had an extensive vowel harmony system, which has been preserved to some extent in its present-day form. Aglugginative and fusional features appear in various areas of the grammar. The verb system is divided into two subsystems: an older agglutinative system which distinguished aspect, number, and person. The pronominal agreement affixes co-index with the subject only, and behave according to a nominative-accusative pattern. Although most ergative-absolutive languages are split, rarely does the split occur based on the preservation of older forms; splits in ergative languages typically occur based on tense/aspect (as in various Iranian languages, notably Kurdish), free versus bound pronominal forms (as in Minhast, and certain Australian languages like Murinypata), and clause types (e.g. Yup'ik, Inuktitut, and other Eskimoan languages). The verbal subsystem that preserves the original nominative-accusative alignment is limited to a handful of verbs, mostly auxiliary verbs such as ''rui'' "to do" and ''joa/jora'' "to go" (used to express the future tense), as well as one perceptual verb, ''bu'' "to see". | |||
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