Kandi: Difference between revisions
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==Grammar== | ==Grammar== | ||
Tsan exhibits what’s called [[Tsan#Predicate/argument flexibility|predicate/argument flexibility]] | Tsan exhibits what’s called [[Tsan#Predicate/argument flexibility|predicate/argument flexibility]]; all content words equivalent to English verbs, nouns and adjectives, can fill the role as predicate or as argument of a clause. The flexibility is due to that the lemma form of all content words corresponds to a predicative expression. All content words have a subject, which in the default is the third person: For example, the word for "dog" is ''kshawí'', but it is also equivalent to "it is a dog". | ||
In essence, | In essence, the distinction between noun and verb is blurred. All content words may be conjugated and form verbal phrases, they may modify each other, and they all have one of three [[w:grammatical gender|grammatical gender]]s. | ||
=== | ===Grammatical gender=== | ||
Tsan has a peculiar system of grammatical gender. The genders are purely natural: Women are feminine {{sc|f}}, men and males are masculine {{sc|m}}, and everything else is neuter {{sc|n}}. | |||
Do note, however, that the grammatical gender is not marked. Rather, there is a form of dual marking. The gender of the subject of a content word is marked to congruate with that of the topic; if the subject gender is the same as the topic, it is marked as the ''same'' {{sc|sam}}, whereas if the subject gender is different to that of the topic, it is marked as "different" {{sc|dif}}. | |||
===Conjugation=== | |||
The Tsan conjugation is rather a form of affixation of relevant arguments. | |||