Suwáá/Morphology
This article covers High Sjowaázh morphology.
Nouns
Number
High Sjowaázh has singular, dual and plural numbers. Outside of High and Classical Sjowaázh, 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- | gyeé- | jhé- |
| 2 | mé- | ze- | ólo- |
| 3 (an.) | wa- | boñ- | da- |
| 3 (inan.) | éñ- | ||
| Impersonal | 'a'- | ||
Relational nouns
Sjowaázh uses relational nouns instead of adpositions.
- c'áakh 'next to, near'
- páañgy wac'áakh 'next to the man'
Noun clitics
- ='áh: focus ("it is X that...")
Obligatory possession
Obligatory possession is used for family members.
Examples:
- 'mother': kheemáñ, méemáñ, weemáñ, gyeemán, zemáñ, boñmáñ, cheemáñ, óleemáñ, deemáñ, 'a'eemáñ
- 'father': khány, mány, wány, gyeény, zány, baány, chány, ólany, dány, 'a'ány
- 'son': kha'ízh, mé'izh, wa'ízh, gyeé'izh, ze'ízh, boñ'ízh, ché'izh, ólo'ízh, da'ízh, 'a'ízh
- 'daughter': kháziil, méziil, wáziil, gyeéziil, zéziil, boziil, chéziil, ólosyiil, dáziil, 'áziil
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)
- causative
- reflexive/reciprocal
- TAM
- 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.
- 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:
- lyo-: 'forming a line'
TAM inflection
A characteristic feature of Sjowaázh verbs is stem ablaut in various TAM and voice forms. These paradigms tend to be quite complex.
Most Sjowaázh lects have a fixed (large) number of regular ablaut patterns. The number of ablaut patterns, and which verb stems fall into which ablaut patterns, depends on the lect.
- Tenses: present, past
- Aspects: continuative, inceptive, conclusive, cessative, resumptive, iterative
- Moods: potential, necessitative, permissive, desiderative, imperative, optative
- necessitative also means "it is logically necessary", permissive also means "it is possible that"
Example:
- I love you = lisjhógy
- I loved you = alisjhégy
- I will love you = lóosjheyáñ (li-óo-sjheyáñ)
- I fall in love with you (inceptive) = lisjhódagy
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- | gyeé- | jhé- |
| 2 | mé- | ze- | ólo- |
| 3 (an.) | wa- | boñ- | be- |
| 3 (inan.) | 0- | ||
| Impersonal | 'a'- | ||
Bipersonal
These prefixes are used with transitive verbs only.
- li-: 2 > 1
- zyi-: 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 Sjowaázh morphosyntactic alignment is hierarchical alignment, verbs do not have a canonical voice. Instead there are detransitivizers and transitivizers.
Here are the morphological voices:
- transitivizer/"causative"
- detransitivizer/"passive"
- reciprocal
Discourse affixes
Sjowaázh 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 Sjowaázh normally uses discourse affixes less often than do other Sjowaázh lects, and uses "degree of surprise" affixes more frequently than attitudinal affixes. On average, female High Sjowaázh speakers use attitudinal affixes more frequently than male speakers.
Poetic High Sjowaázh may use archaic discourse affixes used in Classical Sjowaázh.
Incorporation
Incorporation is no longer productive in High Sjowaázh and is considered a poetic device.
Numerals
Numerals are really verbs: "one", "two", etc. are verbs meaning "to be one", "to be two", etc.