Fourth Linguifex Relay/Sceptrian

Óphi fatipap Lingwifekson Lushakha:

Léhkodé pai ko qhóqhøkos,
mjula keew'shtsozh oil qotitlóo;
darema soi slopapu'os,
jak rajidhé mitupurpóo.
Péma saitush q'papa sekhe,
jevaa hifthilan gat'tishh'i,
moŕ ól dorahpipi qóphe;
mutshos tslarmak jódish b'shøt'sji.

Notes

Sceptrian is a head-initial, ergative-absolutive language, i.e. the word order in clauses is mostly VAO and the head of the noun phrase is followed by adjectives and demostratives. However, poems use a more free word order, and apparently may omit vowels in various syllables. Both prepositions and postpositions are used, however. The cases of nouns are utilized in derivational morphology so that at first glance many verbs seem to be only inflected nouns.

Glossed

1. léhkod-é pai ko qhó~qhøk-os
   

   ADVZ\fast-VOC MIR DIST.SG SUBJ~\is_broken\-3SG.INCEP
   

2. léhkod-é pai keewesht mjula-n
   

   ADVZ\fast-VOC MIR mosaic life-GEN
   

3. léhkod-é pai qhó~qhøg-ho klo
   

   ADVZ\fast-VOC MIR SUBJ~\is_broken\-3PL.FUT PRO.3PL
   

4. léhkod-é pai qhó~qhøk-l tshel-o
   

   ADVZ\fast-VOC MIR SUBJ~\is_broken-3PL.GNO sand-LAT
   

• Verb particles don't always require verbs
  
• Sceptrian has several ways of indicating possessive forms
  

1. mjula keew(e)shtsozh oil qot<i>~t-l-óo
   

   life mosaic-PL.COM-POSS.3SG.INAL as rock~<DIM>-PL-LAT
   

2. qhó~qhøk oil qot<i>~t-l-óo tshel-o
   

   SUBJ~\is_broken as rock~DIM-PL-LAT sand-LAT
   

3. mjul(a) keeweshtsozh oil qot<i>~t-l-óo
   

   life mosaic-PL.COM-POSS.3SG.INAL as rock~<DIM>-PL-LAT
   

• See prepositions for the effect of noun case.
  
• Some derivations utilize both reduplication and infixing
  

darema soi slop<a>~p-u-os
Ruler.AUG on chair~<AUG>-LOC-POSS.3SG.ALIEN

jak rajidh-é mitup-u-r-p-óo
away sudden-VOC sea-LOC-VBZ.FREQ-NMZ-LAT

• Occurrence of apophony has certain rules
  

Pé=ma saitu-sh q(ó)papa sek-he
2PL.VOC=FOC DEM.PROX.ANIM-PL act-ABL come-GNO.2PL

• On relative clauses of Sceptrian
  
• Ablative case has a causal meaning as well
  

jeva-a hifthila-n gat(o)ti-sh-h(e)i
grace-ERG heaven-GEN accommodation-INS.VBZ-PST.PFV.2PL

• Agent prefixes may be omitted
  
• Genitive forms don't agree with their heads
  

moŕ ól dora-h-pi-pi qóp-he
1PL-GEN like law-COM.VBZ-GER-ABL act-GNO.2PL

• It is common for Sceptrian to derive new nouns from verbs already derived from nouns
  

mutsh-os tsla-r-mak-Ø jódi-sh b(a)shø-t(i)-s-ji
neighbour-INS.COM INCEP.1PL-HORT-give-ANTIP charity-INS VOC\wealth-ADJZ.ABE-NMZ.AN-DAT

• Hortative in Sceptrian
  
• Antipassive is formed by turning the ERG agent into ABS, removing the subject/object verb suffix and changing the subject/object case into instrumental

Extra

• Léh-ko-d-é might be glossed as ADVZ\leg-LAT-VBZ.MVT\ADJZ-VOC, but the core was translated for simplicity