Balog: Difference between revisions

===Adverbs===

Adverbs modify verbs to give them new shades of meaning. The vast majority of adverbs are very short, particle-like words. For example, adverbs indicating tense and aspect optionally stand before a verb and give temporal information about it. These are not restricted to use with semantically verbal verbs, nor are they restricted to syntactic positions within a predicate as subject phrases themselves consist of  

In the following example, the imperfective particle '''''hi''''' indicates that the action of dying is not spoken about as a completed whole, but, rather, an action seen from the middle, thus "is dying" (or according to context, "was dying" etc.). The past tense particle '''''do''''' appears before '''''garag''''' "be neighbour" to indicate "be one who was a neighbour", thus "former neighbour" in the translation.  

| <span style="color:#0000FF">IPFV</span> || die.of.protracted.illness || SPEC(B)- || <span style="color:#0000FF">PST</span> || neighbour || ESS- || GEN- || 1S

| colspan="8" | "A <span style="color:#0000FF">former</span> neighbour of mine <span style="color:#0000FF">is</span> dy<span style="color:#0000FF">ing</span> (of a protracted illness)."

===Syntactic Clitics===  

Syntactic clitics are morphemes that attach to the first word of a verb phrase in order to subordinate them in some manner into another verb phrase. Syntactic clitics include the archiphoneme /ː/, which lengthens the clitic's vowel when the following verb phrase consists of only a consonant and otherwise geminates the following consonant.

The essive or equative clitic '''''we(:)-''''' introduces a verb phrase that modifies its preceding head in a strict, additive manner. It is frequently translated into English by means of a relative pronoun.

| SPEC(b) || be.Balog || <span style="color:#0000FF">ESS-</span> || be.tall

| SPEC(b) || be.slave|| <span style="color:#0000FF">ESS-</span> || execute.PRF.PASS

| colspan="4" | '''''iddemeg webbad'''''

| '''i(:)- || '''demeg''' || <span style="color:#0000FF">'''we(:)-'''</span> || '''bad'''  

| DEF(e) || be.book || <span style="color:#0000FF">ESS-</span> || be.big

| SPEC(d) || use.leg || <span style="color:#0000FF">ESS-</span> || sleep

Subject clitics appear at the beginning of every phrase denoting a grammatical subject. They indicate not only that the following base phrase is the subject of the preceding predicate but also convey information about '''definiteness''' (whether the addressee is expected to know which exact entity), '''specificity''' (whether the speaker knows which exact entity) and an inflectional dimension integral to Balog called ''status'', described below.

 

In everyday use, when not speaking to a much higher ranked individual, the definite forms are frequently used even for specific indefinite referents, with the specific, indefinite forms with <q> being more emphatically indefinite, representing a marked indication to the listener that they are not expected to know the identity of the referent. When speaking to higher ranked individuals, failure to use the indefinite specific forms when needed is seen as an affront to the hierarchy of respect as it effectively eliminates any indication of the listener's knowledge of the situation.

| <span style="color:#0000FF">'''''u(:)-'''''</span> || <span style="color:#0000FF">'''''uqu(:)-'''''</span> || <span style="color:#0000FF">'''''uhu(:)-'''''</span> || —

| <span style="color:#0000FF">'''''a(:)-'''''</span> || <span style="color:#0000FF">'''''aqa(:)-'''''</span> || <span style="color:#0000FF">'''''aha(:)-'''''</span> || —

| <span style="color:#0000FF">'''''o(:)-'''''</span> || <span style="color:#0000FF">'''''oqo(:)-'''''</span> || <span style="color:#0000FF">'''''oho(:)-'''''</span> || —

| <span style="color:#0000FF">'''''e(:)-'''''</span> || <span style="color:#0000FF">'''''eqe(:)-'''''</span> || <span style="color:#0000FF">'''''ehe(:)-'''''</span> || —

| <span style="color:#0000FF">'''''i(:)-'''''</span> || <span style="color:#0000FF">'''''iqi(:)-'''''</span> || <span style="color:#0000FF">'''''ihi(:)-'''''</span> || —

| — || — || — || <span style="color:#0000FF">'''''ü(:)-'''''</span>

| — || — || — || <span style="color:#0000FF">'''''ai(:)-'''''</span>

Due to the rarity of use of the ranked nonspecific subject clitics, which are chiefly replaced by the unranked, unknown subject clitics, the non-specific subject clitics, with /h/, are increasingly being used as allomorphs of the specific indefinite subject clitics with /ʔ/, being more frequently used in environments near another /ʔ/. For example, '''''luq eqeggitsag''''' 'a Balog's assistant is present' may also be pronounced as '''''luq eheggitsag''''' with no change in meaning. When speaking of the desire of a non-specific non-Balog man's presence, the unknown animate subject clitic will be used: '''''he luq eheggitsag''''' 'May a Balog's assistant be present.'

=====Status=====

All referents are assigned a '''status''' any time they are appear as the subject of a clause. Status is not a permanent attribute of a referent but rather a context-dependent assignment within a discourse that depends on the speaker's perceived and expressed relations between the referent and other referents. When a single referent is mentioned, the status used depends only on the speaker's perception of the referent, however when there are two or more referents, statuses may be assigned that would otherwise not be used in order to differentiate between multiple referents within a discourse and rank them relative to one another.

A useful way to conceptualise the typical assignment of status is to use the question "Who would win in a physical fight?" as the deciding metric. Physically larger, stronger and more active referents are assigned a higher status than smaller, weaker referents. The highest status, A, the "powerful" status, indicated with the vowel '''u''', is an exception, dependent not only physical strength but rather social, financial or political power. A referent marked with '''u''' is not necessarily physically dominant over other referents, but a conflict with an individual could lead to more significant consequences for referents of lower status than the physical prowess of the A-statused referent alone would afford them. "Weighty" abstract concepts may sometimes be referred to with the A-status when there is no person in the discourse assigned to this status.

======Pronouns======