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Peshpeg: Difference between revisions
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Peshpeg has four formal word classes: nouns, verbs, adjectives, and particles. Of these four parts of speech, nouns and verbs exhibit the most complex parts of the grammar of the language. | Peshpeg has four formal word classes: nouns, verbs, adjectives, and particles. Of these four parts of speech, nouns and verbs exhibit the most complex parts of the grammar of the language. | ||
The nominal system is divided into a three-way declension system based on natural gender, animacy, and countability and concreteness. The declension system underlies Peshpeg's unusual split-ergative alignment system. Unlike other split systems, which either display tense-aspect based ergative marking (e.g. Hindi and most Indic languages), or pronominal-based splits (e.g. Minhast and Dyirbal), Peshpeg applies nominative-accusative and ergative-absolutive marking based on noun class. This noun class system is based on an animacy hierarchy. Class I nouns, ranked as the most animate in the animacy hierarchy, takes nominative-accusative marking, whilst Class II nouns, which lie lower in the animacy hierarchy, take ergative-absolutive marking. The final group of nouns, falling under Class III, receive no overt marking and therefore show direct alignment. | The nominal system is divided into a three-way declension system based on natural gender, animacy, and countability and concreteness. The declension system underlies Peshpeg's unusual split-ergative alignment system. Unlike other split systems, which either display tense-aspect based ergative marking (e.g. Hindi and most Indic languages), or pronominal-based splits (e.g. Minhast and Dyirbal), Peshpeg applies nominative-accusative and ergative-absolutive marking based on noun class. This noun class system is based on an animacy hierarchy. Class I nouns, ranked as the most animate in the animacy hierarchy, takes nominative-accusative marking, whilst Class II nouns, which lie lower in the animacy hierarchy, take ergative-absolutive marking. The final group of nouns, falling under Class III, receive no overt marking and therefore show direct alignment as these nouns fall lowest in the animacy hierarchical spectrum. | ||
Verbs fall under two broad classes. One class, which is partially or fully synthetic, derives from an older system. These verbs are usually high-frequency words, such as ''ru'' ("to go"). The other verb class involves a construction based on an unmarked verbal noun and an auxiliary which takes person, tense, and aspect marking. | Verbs fall under two broad classes. One class, which is partially or fully synthetic, derives from an older system. These verbs are usually high-frequency words, such as ''ru'' ("to go"). The other verb class involves a construction based on an unmarked verbal noun and an auxiliary which takes person, tense, and aspect marking. | ||