Peshpeg

Introduction

The Peshpeg language, or Peshpeg humbi todak inlak "true humans speak this way", is a highly endangered language in the valleys of the Kilmay Rī Mountains and the prefectures of south-central Minhay. The language is considered moribund: according to the last census, only about ninety fluent speakers remain, all older than sixty years. Younger generations speak only Minhast, from either the Wolf Speaker, Stone Speaker, or City Speaker dialects. Efforts to revitalize the language have been largely unsuccessful; with the exception of the City Speakers, most Minhast are either apathetic or even actively hostile to revitalization efforts. Social and economic discrimination towards the Peshpegs has only accelerated the decline of the language.

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 a split ergative one, with the evolution of the ergative subsystem clearly driven by Minhast's ergative-absolutive alignment. 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 an SOV language. The language apparently had an extensive vowel harmony system, which has been preserved to some extent in its present-day form. Aggluginative and fusional features appear in various areas of the grammar.

The language is head initial: modifiers such as adjectives usually follow their head noun; prepositions are used in adpositional phrases, and relative clauses follow the NP they modify, attributes associated with head-initial languages. Once again, however, the influence of Minhast has introduced a certain level of fluidity, such as numerical modifiers precede their noun heads; this was probably facilitated by the replacement of the original decimal system with Minhast's vegisimal system.

Phonology

Prosody

Stress

Nouns are generally stressed on the penult or antipenult syllable, but a number of them receive final-syllable stress. The romanized orthography marks final stress with an acute accent. Antepenultimate stress occurs if the syllable is closed, otherwise the word is pronounced on the penult syllable.

Morphology

Peshpeg was originally a nominative-accusative language. The language also had several noun classes that eventually collapsed into the present three-way declension system based on natural gender, animacy, and countability and concreteness. Today, the language has developed into a split ergative system, based on the animacy hierarchy of the noun class system. Nominative-accusative marking appears in first second pronominal forms, and Class I pronominal forms. These pronominal forms lie on the upper end of the animacy hierarchy, while all other forms are considered low animacy forms. Class II nouns were originally indeclinable and fell lower on the animacy scale, although they displayed some level of agency and thus took different affixes to denote their noun class. As Minhast expanded into Peshpeg-speaking lands, agent marking developed in these lower animacy nouns through the incorporation of the Minhast ergative marker =de, realized in Peshpeg Class II nouns as the submorpheme -d-. Agency for low animacy nouns is considered a marked condition, hence this explains the use of ergative morphology to indicate the marked condition. The unmarked form was reinterpreted as the absolutive case.

As for the Class III nouns, they remained unmarked for both case and number. This is unsurprising as these nouns are inherently uncountable, and statistically speaking, their role as agents is an uncommon, if not rare occurrence. The nominative-accusative marking of Class I nouns and the ergative marking of Class II nouns are sufficient to disambiguate the semantic role a Class III noun when it is a core argument. Ambiguity arises when two Class III nouns occupy both agent and patient roles in a transitive clause. In those cases, it is usually assumed that if one of the nouns was mentioned in discourse before the other, that noun functions as the agent. This indicates that in clause chains, Peshpeg employs an S/A pivot, in contrast to Minhast's S/O pivot.

Nouns

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Noun Classes

Peshpeg nouns fall into three declensions, or classes, simply called Class I, Class II, and Class III. The noun classes roughly coincide with natural gender and/or animacy.

Class I nouns, which preserve the original nominative-accusative system, are typically male, or consist of nouns that are associated with male attributes, particularly weapons. Divinities, supernatural events, horses, and moving bodies of water also fall within this class.

Class II nouns contain all other nouns that can be counted. These nouns, under Minhast influence, have developed an ergative-absolutive pattern: they take the ergative -du/-dumu markers, the -d- submorpheme etymologically derived from the Minhast ergative clitic =de. These nouns follow along biological gender for female and neuter animate nouns. Some inanimate nouns are also found in this category, such as trees, household items e.g. tonkul "crockpot", or farming implements, e.g. vulpat "hoe". These nouns are lower in the animacy hierarchy than the Class I nouns.

Lastly, Class III nouns, which occupy the lowest level in the animacy hierarchy, take no marking for case or number. Nouns falling in this class include certain body parts, most plants, mass nouns, inanimate objects, and abstract nouns.

Case and Number

Peshpeg displays a three-way split in its morphological alignment, reflecting the nominal system's animacy hierarchy. The nominal class system follows a nominative-accusative pattern among Class I nouns, an ergative-absolutive pattern in Class II nouns, and a direct alignment in its Class III nouns. The nominative-accusative pattern marks direct objects with the submorpheme -j-. The ergative-absolutive system is distinguished by the submorpheme -d- for ergative arguments. The direct alignment system has zero-marking on all core arguments, and makes no number distinction at all.

	Class I		Class II		Class III
	Sg	Pl	Sg	Pl	Sg	Pl
Ergative			-du	-dunu	-ri/-rin/-in
Nominative-Absolutive	-∅	-mu	-∅	-na
Accusative	-jor	-jomu

Kodzorin iruni daltashi.
'kodzoɾɪn ɪɾ'uni dal'taʃi
kodzorin-∅ i-ru-ni daltashi
hammer_PN.CL1.S-NOM PST-go-CL1.S alone
Kodzorin went unaccompanied.

Torzha irumvi daltashi.
torzha i-ru-mvi daltashi
girl.CL2.S.ABS PST-go-CL2.S alone
The girl went unaccompanied.

Torzhadu Kodzorinjor gumbiri jorlu.
torzha-du kodzorin-jor gumbiri jorlu.
girl.CL2.S-ERG hammer_PN.CL1.S-ACC AUX.CL2.S.PST hit
The girl struck Kodzorin.

Golahátin irunki daltashi.
golahát-in i-ru-nki daltashi
in_duari-CL3 PST-go-CL3.S alone
The Ín Duári (man) went unaccompanied.

Irudak gajak gambi.
i-ru-dak gajak gambi
PST-go-INF foolish AUX.CL3.S.PRS
Going there was foolish (lit. "Having gone there is foolish.")

Plurality is marked on Class I and II nouns with a suffix beginning with nasal, -m- for Class I nouns, and -n- for Class II nouns, e.g:

Pešpegmu torzhana humbiri jorlu
pešpeg-mu torzha-na humbi-ri jorlu.
human.CL1-NOM.PL woman.CL2-ABS.PL AUX.CL1.P-PST hit
The men struck the women.

Number marking in Class III nouns is neutralized, e.g:

Tazhin abimon kor vendakrin dezhak gambi.
tazh-rin abi=mon kor vendan-rin dezhak gambi
obedience-CL3 all=CONN virtue-CL3 supercede AUX.CLS3.PRS
Obedience outweighs all (other) virtues.

The -in allomorph of the Class III suffix is favoured when the preceding phoneme is a palatalized consonant.

Pronouns

Independent Pronouns

The independent pronouns show a consistent ergative-absolutive pattern, identifiable by the suffix -du attached to the absolutive form of the pronoun. The suffix is derived from the Minhast ergative clitic =de, incorporated into the language sometime during the start of the Wolf Speaker invasions in the early to mid 1700's. This apparently led to the rearrangement of the verbal system and shift from its original nominative-accusative alignment to its present-day morphosyntactic alignment.

Verbs

Peshpeg verbs consist of an inflected auxiliary usually followed by a verbal noun, although the verbal noun may precede the auxiliary. Only particles may occur between the verbal noun and auxiliary, and even then this phenomenon occurs rather infrequently, restricted to a closed set of discourse particles, such as emphatic ladi, or time adverbials, such as peldak "immediately".

The auxiliary developed from the fusion of a bound pronominal marker to the connective particle mon, ultimately derived from the Minhast connective min. This complex in turn is attached to the locative suffix -bi¹, plus a tense-aspect marker. The verbal noun contains the semantic content of the verb phrase.

Orun mon golach on nodórji gomboji uzan.
/'oɾum mon 'golatʃon nod'oɾd͡ʒi 'gombod͡ʒi 'uzan/
orun=mon golach=mon nodor-ji gor-mon-bi-ji uzan
many CONN Ín_Duári CONN to.serve-NMLZ.AGT CL2-LOC-FUT riot
Many of the Ín Duári slaves will revolt.

If the verb is transitive, an object agreement clitic attaches to the beginning of the auxiliary, before the initial pronominal affix which occupies the subject position. In the example below, the object clitic gi= is obligatory, even if an overt object (e.g. tonkul "crockpot") is expressed:

Tonkul gisumbiri yilár.
/'toŋkyl gɪ'sumbɪɾi jɪ'la:ɾ/
tonkul gi=su-mon-bi-ri yilár
crockpot CL2.PL=1S-CONN-LOC-PST break
I broke the crockpots (lit. "Crockpot them-I-of-in-past breakage")

Norvadu tonkul gugombiri yilár.
/'norvadu 'toŋkyl gu'gombɪɾi jɪ'la:ɾ/
norva-du tonkul gi=gu-mon-bi-ri yilár
PN.CL2-ERG crockpot CL2.PL=CL2.S-CONN-LOC-PST break
Norva broke the crockpots (lit. "Crockpot them-she-of-in-past breakage")

Tovavat tonkul guyodombori yilár.
/'tovavat 'toŋkyl guyo'dombɪɾi jɪ'la:ɾ/
tovavat tonkul gi=yod-mon-bi-ri yilár
icicle.CL3 crockpot CL2.PL=CL3-CONN-LOC-PST break
Icicles broke the crockpots (lit. "Crockpot them-she-of-in-past breakage")

The pronominal affixes do not differ in form regardless of whether they occupy the subject or object positions. The auxiliary thus has full polypersonal marking and serve to disambiguate core arguments. Ambiguity arises in number marking in the Class II affixes in their pre-vocalic forms due to phonologic mergers. Class III affixes, like their independent forms, make no distinction in number.

The pronominal agreement markers appear in the following table:

Peshpeg Verb - Pronominal Agreement Affixes

	First Person		Second Person		Class I		Class II		Class III
	Sg	Pl	Sg	Pl	Sg	Pl	Sg	Pl	Sg	Pl
Before a consonant:	su-	ve-	mu-	jo-	ne-	hu-	gu-	gi-	ye- e- (precedes /j/, e.g. e-yódori)
Before a vowel:	s-	v-	m-	jor-	n-	h-	g-		y-

Auxiliaries

Present

Person	Number
	Singular	Plural
1	sumbi	vembi
2	membi	jombi
Class I	nembi	humbi
Class II	gumbi/gombi	gindombi/gidombi
Class III	yódori yadombi

Past

Person	Number
	Singular	Plural
1	sumbiri	vembiri
2	membiri	jombiri
Class I	nembiri	humbiri
Class II	gumbiri gombiri	gidombori
Class III	yódori yodómbori

Future

Person	Number
	Singular	Plural
1	sumboji	vemboji
2	memboji	jomboji
Class I	nemboji	humboji
Class II	gomboji	gidomboji
Class III	yodóroji ójori

Synthetic Verbs

Unlike compound verbs, which require two separate verbs, an auxiliary verb plus a verb root, synthetic verbs encode all verbal inflections on the verb root itself. Synthetic verbs are conservative, preserving the original Peshpeg verbal paradigms. Nevertheless, they represent the minority of verbs. Moreover, most synthetic verbs are typically semantically "light" verbs.

Three tenses are distinguished: present (unmarked), past (marked with the prefix i-), and future (prefix ta-). Aspect marking is distinguished by null-marking for the perfect, and the prefix dal- for the imperfect. The prefixes show vowel harmony with the first vowel of the verb root.

The suffix -dak derives infinitives, used mainly to serve as the verb of a purposive clause. They inherit the tense and aspect of the verb of their matrix clause:

Kogan voridak Kodzorin iru.
/'kogan 'voɾɪdak 'kodzoɾɪn ɪ'ɾu/
kogan vori-dak kodzorin i-ru
deer.CL2 hunt-INF hammer_CL1.NOM PST.CL1-go
Kodzorin went out to hunt deer (lit. "In order to hunt deer, Kodzorin went out")

Infinitives may also serve as verbal nouns, falling under Class III:

Irudak gajak gambi.
i-ru-dak gajak gambi
PST-go-INF foolish AUX.CL3.S.PRS
Going there was foolish (lit. "Having gone there is foolish.")

Causatives take the -run /ryn/ suffix.

• ru- to go

Present

Person	Number
	Singular	Plural
1	runi	runti
2	ruzi	rusti
Class I	ru	ruti
Class II	rumvi	rumvit
Class III	runki runkik

Past

Person	Number
	Singular	Plural
1	iruni	irunti
2	iruzi	irusti
Class I	iru	iruti
Class II	irumvi	irumvit
Class III	irunki

Future

Person	Number
	Singular	Plural
1	turuni	turunti
2	turuzi	turusti
Class I	turu	turuti
Class II	turumvi	turumvit
Class III	turunki turunkik

• ye- to do

Present

Person	Number
	Singular	Plural
1	yeni	yenti
2	yezi	yesti
Class I	yi	yeti
Class II	yemvi	yemvit
Class III	yenki yenkik

Past

Person	Number
	Singular	Plural
1	iyeni	iyenti
2	iyezi	iyesti
Class I	iye	iyeti
Class II	iyemvi	iyemvit
Class III	iyenki iyenkik

Future

Person	Number
	Singular	Plural
1	tayeni	tayenti
2	tayezi	tayesti
Class I	taye	tayeti
Class II	tayemvi	tayemvit
Class III	tayenki tayenkik

• tor- to want

Present

Person	Number
	Singular	Plural
1	torni < tor-n-i	torunti < tor-n-t-i
2	torzi < tor-z-i	toristi < tor-z-t-i
Class I	tori < tor-i	torti < tor-t-i
Class II	torumvi < tor-mv-i	tormvit < tor-nv-i-t
Class III	torunki < tor-nk-i torunkik < tor-nk-i-t

Past

Person	Number
	Singular	Plural
1	itorni < i-tor-n-i	itorunti < i-tor-n-t-i
2	itorzi < i-tor-z-i	itoristi < i-tor-z-t-i
Class I	itori < i-tor-i	itorti < i-tor-t-i
Class II	itorumvi < i-tor-mv-i	itormvit < i-tor-nv-i-t
Class III	itorunki < i-tor-nk-i itorunkik < i-tor-nk-i-t

Future

Person	Number
	Singular	Plural
1	tatorni < ta-tor-n-i	tatorunti < ta-tor-n-t-i
2	tatorzi < ta-tor-z-i	tatoristi < ta-tor-z-t-i
Class I	tatori < ta-tor-i	tatorti < ta-tor-t-i
Class II	tatorumvi < ta-tor-mv-i	tatormvit < ta-tor-nv-i-t
Class III	tatorunki < ta-tor-nk-i tatorunkik < ta-tor-nk-i-t

• jóru- to say

Present

Person	Number
	Singular	Plural
1	jórni < jóru-n-i	jórunti < jóru-n-t-i
2	jorzi < jóru-z-i	joristi < jóru-z-t-i
Class I	jóri < jóru-i	jorti < jóru-t-i
Class II	jórumvi < jóru-mv-i	jórumvit < jóru-nv-i-t
Class III	jórunki < jóru-nk-i jórunkik < jóru-nk-i-t

Past

Person	Number
	Singular	Plural
1	ijórni < i-jóru-n-i	ijórunti < i-jóru-n-t-i
2	ijórzi < i-jóru-z-i	ijórusti < i-jóru-z-t-i
Class I	ijóri < i-jóru-i	ijórti < i-jóru-t-i
Class II	ijórumvi < i-jóru-mv-i	ijórumvit < i-jóru-nv-i-t
Class III	ijórunki < i-jóru-nk-i ijórunkik < i-jóru-nk-i-t

Future

Person	Number
	Singular	Plural
1	tajórni < tajóru-n-i	tajórunti < tajóru-n-t-i
2	tajórzi < tajóru-z-i	tajóristi < tajóru-z-t-i
Class I	tajóri < tajóru-i	tajórti < tajóru-t-i
Class II	tajórumvi < tajóru-mv-i	tajórumvit < tajóru-nv-i-t
Class III	tajórunki < tajóru-nk-i tajórunkik < tajóru-nk-i-t

Syntax

Constituent order

Old and Middle Peshpeg exhibited VSO order, but the modern language is now an SOV language due to Minhast influence.

Example texts

Dozun sujun guverin.
/dozyn sud͡ʒun gyvɛɾɪn/
doč=gun su-j-mon guve-rin
be.red.PST 1S-GEN-CONN face-CL3S
My face was red.

Footnotes

¹Derived from Middle Peshpeg *nimi "chest", c.f. Modern Peshpeg embi "hollow"