@@ Line 30: / Line 30: @@
 The name of the language was coined during the classical period from the word སྐཾང་ ''skaŋ'' “mountain” and means “pertaining to the mountains”, since the land where it was traditionally spoken is mountainous. Other groups used different terms to refer to themselves and their languages: མྸཾཨྃལཿ  ''mágailā'' “Southern”, སྱ྅རེལཿ  ''syörilā'' “Western”, ཀལོནེལཿ ''këlónelā'' “Plain dialect”, ཁམེལཿ  ''khëmelā'' “Coastal dialect”.
-Historically Meskangela had always been the language of the mountainous islands. Its origin, however, is obscure, as all documentations of the previous eras were lost, and local folklore only briefly mentions an ancient journey to the west, called ཨཱགརྭཾཏུ ''Āgërwatu''. Little is known about the language of that period itself, its phonology is the only part that is well understood, which allows to reconstruct many Proto-Meskangela words. By around 1300 BNE, the Meskanel people had a many chiefdoms in all of the three main islands. During that period the written language rose to prominence and was standardised for the first time (300 BNE). Later, Meskangela Proper became a prestige language after being adopted as a lingua franca between its various dialects. The dialects themselves had already developed their distinctive features by the classical period, and Meskangela Proper was not a common ancestor of those dialects, instead it was a standardised variety of the '''Central Syörilā''', which comprises Western and Eastern ''Tūŋëdēla'' (“Innersea”) group. During the New Era Meskangela is still often referred as a single language, even though by the end of the classical period it had already been a group of closely related languages. The most accurate term to describe Meskangela as a whole is a [[w:Dialect continuum|dialect continuum]].
+Historically Meskangela had always been the language of the mountainous islands. Its origin, however, is obscure, as all documentations of the previous eras were lost, and local folklore only briefly mentions an ancient journey to the west, called ཨཱགརྭཾཏ ''Āgërwat''. Little is known about the language of that period itself, its phonology is the only part that is well understood, which allows to reconstruct many Proto-Meskangela words.
+The period, named Old Meskangela, is marked by the reappearance of writing, although the records from that period are still rare. The earliest attestation of Old Meskangela dates back to approximately 2000 BNE and is an inscription on a temple on top of the ''Lhaidërmū'' Mountain (lit. “Pillar of the sky”). It is written in the early logosyllabic version of the Meskangel script and it reads: ''[PN] *imē-hwa wa-bu-*sVkwal, hwi-rai wa-ha-*kēn'' – “[PN] set a stream into motion, filled up a lake.” The first logogram likely represents a personal name (PN), the pronunciation of which is unknown. The syllables marked with an asterisk (*) were reconstructed. The corresponding Classical Meskangela sentence is: ''(PN)-is lwī sëkwaltekyi, eju dëgenkyi.''
+By around 1300 BNE, the Meskangel people had a many chiefdoms in all of the three main islands. During that period the written language rose to prominence and was standardised for the first time in 300 BNE. Later, Meskangela Proper became a prestige language after being adopted as a lingua franca between its various dialects, as well as between speakers of the former and the Ilain people. The Ilain languages adopted many loanwords from Meskangela, particularly its Southern dialects. The dialects themselves had already developed their distinctive features by the classical period, and Meskangela Proper was not a common ancestor of those dialects, instead it was a standardised variety of the '''Central Syörilā''', which comprises Western and Eastern ''Tūŋëdēla'' (“Innersea”) group. During the New Era Meskangela is still often referred as a single language, even though by the end of the classical period it had already been a group of closely related languages. The most accurate term to describe Meskangela as a whole is a [[w:Dialect continuum|dialect continuum]].
+===External relation===
+The only neighbouring family to Meskangela is the Ilain languages in the southeast. There is no agreement whether the Ilain family is genetically related to Meskangela. The common reconstructed features of Proto-Meskangela and Proto-Ilai are spurious. A large amount of words that seem to be cognates are likely borrowings into Proto-Ilai or individual Ilain varieties from Meskangela, and inconsistent sound correspondences support that idea. The similarity in grammar, especially verbal morphology, is also likely due to later Meskangela influence, rather than a genetic similarity between the two branches. Some ancient morphological elements, such as the nominalising suffix ''-in'', agentive ''-uma/-upa'', optative-imperative ''p-'' prefix, the negative-prohibitive particle ''ma''; as well as some words belonging to core vocabulary: Il. ''cai'' – Cl.Mes. ''dzān'' “to eat”, Il. ''mecuki'' “full” – Cl.Mes. ''cyok'' “enough”, W.Il. ''līŋ'' “soul, heart”, E.Il ''paluŋ'' “stomach” – Cl.Mes. ''luŋ'' “heart” point out to a distant genetic relationship with a possible common ancestor breaking into the two branches no later than 8000 BNE.
+The table below represents numerals in the two families along with the reconstructed forms for Proto-Meskangela and Proto-Ilai:
+{| class="wikitable"
+|-
+! Numeral
+! Proto-<br>Meskangela !! Classical<br>Meskangela !! Western<br>Meskangela !! Eastern<br>Meskangela !! Southern<br>Meskangela !! Proto-<br>Ilai !! Western<br>Ilai !! Eastern<br>Ilai
+|-
+! 1
+| ''*tyek'' || ''dan'', ''acyik'' || ''tik'' || ''acyik'' || ''lăŋē'' || ''*aˀtyi'' || ''asa'' || ''áci''
+|-
+! 2
+| ''*nis'' || ''ni'' || ''gënis'' || ''nis'' || ''gne'' || ''*aˀ(a)li'' || ''āli'' || ''ára''
+|-
+! 3
+| ''*sum'' || ''sum'' || ''gësum'' || ''sum'' || ''gsō'' || ''*pei'' || ''pei'' || ''phe''
+|-
+! 4
+| ''*liH'' || ''lī'' || ''lī'' || ''lī'' || ''meli'' || ''*liˀ'' || ''lī'' || ''rarí~lalí''
+|-
+! 5
+| ''*luŋa'' || ''lëŋa'' || ''eŋa'' || ''łuŋa'' || ''băŋa'' || ''*lu'' || ''pēli'' || ''lu''
+|-
+! 6
+| ''*dVkruk'' || ''khuk'' || ''khuk'' || ''lëruk'' || ''luk'' || ''*anöm'' || ''enem'' || ''anom''
+|-
+! 7
+| ''*sVni(s)'' || ''sënis'' || ''stris'' || ''hëni'' || ''enit'' || ''*peˀtu'' || ''pētu'' || ''petho''
+|-
+! 8
+| ''*biryet'' || ''bëryet'', ''ryit'' || ''bërkyet'' || ''rit'' || ''mejat'' || – || ''meja'' || ''mia''
+|-
+! 9
+| ''*kū'' || ''dëkū'', ''kū'' || ''kwau'' || ''hëkwa'' || ''lagu'' || ''*ciwa'' || ''siva'' || ''siwa''
+|-
+! 10
+| ''*cyai'' || ''cyai'' || ''gip'' || ''līni'' || ''si'' || ''*tyāhi'' || ''sahi'' || ''cāwi''
+|-
+! 12
+| ''*nistVkruk'' || ''nikhuk'' || ''niskuk'' || ''nirhuk'' || ''niluk'' || – || ''nileu'' || ''phesî''
+|-
+! 20
+| ''*mVkul'' || ''mëkul'' || ''mëkul'' || ''mëkū'' || ''mukog'' || ''*hul(i~u)'' || ''huli'' || ''mokō''
+|-
+! 60
+| ''*rVgya'' || ''rëgai'' || ''rëge'' || ''rëja'' || ''răsē'' || – || ''pēhuli'' || ''cāwia anom''
+|-
+|}
+Ilain word for “eight” (as well as Western Ilai ''nileu'' “twelve” and Eastern Ilai ''mokō'' “twenty”) are obvious borrowings from Southern Meskangela. The word ''*li'' “four” may also be an old borrowing, although Eastern Ilai ''lalí~rarí'' can be derived from “two pairs” (''ra'' “pair” is likely present in *ára “two”). Other words, such as “one” and “ten” show possible cognation, and Eastern Ilai ''lu'' “five” being similar to first element in ''*lu-ŋa'' “five”, though the evidence is inconclusive. The similarities might have arisen from borrowing into Ilain from Meskangela (or vice versa) during prehistoric times.
 ==Geographic distribution==
 The Meskangela language is spoken on three main landmasses, which are used to group its dialects: འས྅རིཀཿ  ''Hasörikā'' “Westland”, སྱཾརལིངཿ  ''Syarëliŋā'' “Eastland” and མྸཾགཾརིཀཿ  ''Mágårikā'' “Southland”, as well as on many islands surrounding the landmasses. There are also some small communities in the southern continent ''Lyökimëranā'', but most of those settlements are recent, and for the most part originate from the Southland.
@@ Line 290: / Line 345: @@
 ===Syllable structure===
-The typical Proto-Meskangela root syllable consisted of the following structural elements: an onset consisting of a root initial consonant '''C<sub>i</sub>''', optionally followed by a liquid '''L''' or semivowel glide '''G''' (either "j" or "w"); and a vocalic nucleus consisting minimally of a simple vowel '''V''', followed by a ﬁnal consonant '''C<sub>f</sub>'''. The semivowels could also occur postvocalically, forming falling diphthongs in  "-w"  and "-j", thus belonging to the inventory of '''C<sub>f</sub>'''. Unlike word roots, prefixes and suffixes followed a different pattern, consisting of a single consonant followed by a vowel '''PV<sub>p</sub>''' or '''SV<sub>s</sub>''' (in case of prefixes and suffixes respectively). Only root vowels could carry vowel length (:) and tone ('''t'''), the latter being a consonantal feature at the Proto-Meskangela stage. There was no contrast between zero-initial  *VC  and glottal-initial  *ʔVC, in such cases the second variant is reconstructed with '''C<sub>i</sub>''' being an obligatory element. of the root syllable. Two non-syllabic sufﬁxes are reconstructible for Proto-Meskangela, *-s and *-n. When added they could have resulted in a forbidden postvocalic sequence of two consonants ( e.g. -C<sub>f</sub>s or C<sub>f</sub>n). For these specific instances the suffixes are instead reconstructed as '''ə<sub>s</sub>S''' with "ə" being a short semi-syllabic element that disappeared in Classical Meskangela and later dialects. In other cases, where a single ﬁnal consonant suffix is expected, a "hollow" consonant is reconstructed (which in some cases gives rise to tone H<sub>t</sub>, or disappear without a trace H<sub>0</sub>), as in  *rjaH<sub>0</sub>ən  “to laugh”. In Classical Meskangela the suffix became phonetically identical the C<sub>f</sub>, becoming a part of the root ( e.g. ''gësata'' ← ''*gVsaH<sub>0</sub>t-ʔa''  “he/she kills”. Thus a potential fully inflected word consists of the following elements:
+The typical Proto-Meskangela root syllable consisted of the following structural elements: an onset consisting of a root initial consonant '''C<sub>i</sub>''', optionally followed by a liquid '''L''' or semivowel glide '''G''' (either "j" or "w"); and a vocalic nucleus consisting minimally of a simple vowel '''V''', followed by a ﬁnal consonant '''C<sub>f</sub>'''. The semivowels could also occur postvocalically, forming falling diphthongs in  "-w"  and "-j", thus belonging to the inventory of '''C<sub>f</sub>'''. Unlike word roots, prefixes and suffixes followed a different pattern, consisting of a single consonant followed by a vowel '''PV<sub>p</sub>''' or '''SV<sub>s</sub>''' (in case of prefixes and suffixes respectively). Only root vowels could carry vowel length (:) and tone ('''t'''), the latter being a consonantal feature at the Proto-Meskangela stage. There was no contrast between zero-initial  *VC  and glottal-initial  *ʔVC, in such cases the second variant is reconstructed with '''C<sub>i</sub>''' being an obligatory element. of the root syllable. Two non-syllabic sufﬁxes are reconstructible for Proto-Meskangela, *-s and *-n. When added they could have resulted in a forbidden postvocalic sequence of two consonants ( e.g. -C<sub>f</sub>s or C<sub>f</sub>n). For these specific instances the suffixes are instead reconstructed as '''ə<sub>s</sub>S''' with "ə" being a short semi-syllabic element that disappeared in Classical Meskangela and later dialects. In other cases, where a single ﬁnal consonant suffix is expected, a "hollow" consonant is reconstructed (which in some cases gives rise to tone H<sub>t</sub>, or disappear without a trace H<sub>0</sub>), as in  *rjaH<sub>0</sub>ən  “to laugh”. In Classical Meskangela the suffix became phonetically identical the C<sub>f</sub>, becoming a part of the root ( e.g. ''gësata'' ← ''*gasaH<sub>0</sub>-tV-ʔa''  “he/she kills”. Thus a potential fully inflected word consists of the following elements:
 : {|
 |PV<sub>p</sub>—C<sub>i</sub>—L—G—V(:)—C<sub>f</sub>/H<sub>0/t</sub>—SV<sub>s</sub>—(ə<sub>s</sub>S)
@@ Line 299: / Line 354: @@
 |}
 Later dialects generally follow the model above, modifying some individual elements, such as adding more permissible clusters, or merging the clusters into single consonants, thus retaining all the elements only nominally. This is especially true for the Southern dialects, most of which became fairly analytic and lost most of their suffixes and prefixes in the process, as well as tone and contrastive vowel length.
 ==Grammar==
 In this subsection only the grammar of Classical Meskangela is discussed, considering the amount of variation among different dialect groups and uncertainty of the Old Meskangela morphological structure. Classical Meskangela as well as most of its dialects are [[w:Agglutinative language|agglutinative]] or weakly [[w:Fusional language|fusional]], the individual morphological elements are not easily segmentable, due in large part to the presence of [[w:Portmanteau|portmanteaux]] morphemes and [[w:Allomorph|allomorphy]].
@@ Line 410: / Line 466: @@
 |}
 For example: '''མེ'''ཀྱིམཾ སྱེ '''''me'''kyima sye'' “this is their house”; '''ནཾ'''ཁཾཏྟཾ སྤཾཏཾངེཧཿ '''''na'''khātta spataŋehā'' “we found your coat”.
+====Nominal derivation====
+The most common way to form new noun is derivation from verbs with special suffixes. Such forms are treated as nouns, but some may still possess verb-like qualities, such as conjugation. For example ལཏེམཾཏཾ ''lëtemata'' “sightful” is a verb with its infinitive being ལཏེསཾཏཾན ''lëtematan''.
+{| class="wikitable"
+|-
+! Suffix
+! Category
+! colspan=3| Example
+|-
+! -t
+| Deverbal action or process nouns
+| ལཏཾཏ ''lëtat'' “sight”
+| ལཏེམཾཏཾ ''lëtemata'' “sightful”
+| ལཏཾསཏ ''lëtasët'' “appearance (poetic)”
+|-
+! -mā
+| Resultative and manner nouns
+| ལཏཾམཿ ''lëtamā'' “scene”
+| colspan=2| ལཏེཏཾམཿ ''lëtetamā'' “observation”
+|-
+! -s
+| Object nouns
+| ལཏཾས ''lëtas'' “glass”
+| ལཏཾམཾས ''lëtamas'' “sign”
+| ལཏཾཏས ''lëtatës'' “character”
+|-
+|}
+To create new [[w:Agent noun|agent nouns]] Meskangela has various agentive suffixes. The most common are: ''-is'' (''bërëjis'' “writer” from ''bërëjan'' “to write”), ''-cis'' (''lëtacis'' “witness” from  ''lëtan'' “to look”), ''-ikā'' (''punikā'' “carrier” from ''punan'' “to carry by hand”), ''-wa'' (''biliŋwa'' “forest dweller” from ''biliŋ'' “forest”), ''-pa'' (''këmōpa'' “worker (Western)” from ''këmowan'' “to work”). The instrumental suffixes ''-(a)zā'' and ''-r'' can also possess agentive meaning (''khazā'' “walker” from ''khadan'' “to walk”).
+===Deixis===
+'''Topographical deixis''' refers to a variety of [[w:Deixis#Spatial_deixis|spatial-environmental deixis]], in which typically distal reference to entities is made in terms of a set of topographically-anchored referential planes: most often, upward, downward,or on the same level. Topographical deixis is a pervasive feature in Meskangela dialects. The primary frame of reference of deixis in Meskangela is egocentric, in that the speaker is a deictic centre. It manifests in the form of demonstrative pronouns, motion verbs modifiers and certain nominals, most commonly locatives.
+Demonstratives are the most common category of topographic deixis in Meskangela. The spatial orientation is defined in three dimensions: distance from the deictic centre (or depth), position upward or downwards from said centre (verticality) and position relative towards a certain geographical feature (horizontality). These demonstratives transparently derive from the motion verb modifiers, for instance, the upward-position modifier ''twa-'' comes from the verb ''twajan'' “go up, ascend”.
+The table below shows the simplest demonstratives in two dimensions: depth and verticality. The third dimension is added as a suffix to the demonstratives, and are highly varied. The most common are topographic features: ''-mo'' “surface”, ''-(s)ki/-gi'' ‘’hill, slope’’, ''-le'' “river, valley”, ''-ju'' “bank, shore”; focus: ''-no/-nū'' “already mentioned”, ''-kha'' “any, newly introduced, one of several”; position above or below: ''-tu/-syu'' “on top, above, overhead”, ''-ma'' “below, under water”; side, relative to the speaker: ''-bi(j)'' “left”, ''-ra'' “right”, ''-(së)ŋa'' “front”, ''-phir'' “back, behind”. Southern Meskangela has two additional widely used deictic modifiers: ''-naŋ'' “inside”, ''phënaŋ'' “outside” that are present in other dialects as [[w:Deixis#Temporal_deixis|temporal deictics]]: ''saŋas'' “before”, ''phis'' “after”.
+{| class="wikitable"
+|-
+!
+! Proximal
+! Mesioproximal
+! Mesiodistal
+! Distal
+|-
+! Up
+| tut
+| twadi
+| twas
+| tup
+|-
+! Down
+| jaut
+| jawi
+| jause
+| jopa
+|-
+! Same level
+| ta(u)
+| dëgi
+| segi
+| pagi
+|-
+|}
+These demonstratives frequently serve role of [[w:Endophora|endophoric]] reference and act as topic markers.
+===Evidentiality===
+[[w:Evidentiality|Evidentiality]] in Classical Meskangela is an optional category that indicates evidence for a statement. This category is indicated with evidential particles, or copulas. The unmarked verb is assertive – representing a simple fact or general truth. The corresponding copula is ''ré'', the negative copula is ''mīn/mīd'', likely from ''*ma-rijan'' “being absent”.
+A similar copula ''uré'' and its negative counterpart ''mórid'' are basic locative copulas that mark possession (''marwaŋ uréŋ'' “I have a cat”) or location (''tau uréŋi'' “we are here”).
+The postverbal particle ''lak'' is testimonial, it represents witnessed, first-hand experience. It also acts a locative copula with the meaning “there is”. Its negative form ''milak'' has only a locative meaning.
+The paticle ''hö'' and its negative counterpart ''mód'' are egophoric copulas. It expresses a speaker’s acquaintance with something. On some occasions, it represents an intention of the speaker ''nalha-ta dihö'' “have some tea, which I made”. The locative copula ''wö'' marks possession (“I have”) or location (“I am at”) of the speaker and has no negative counterpart. In Classical Meskangela it expresses the speaker’s opinion towards a certain statement: ''ta lyaŋa wö'' “it is nice, in my opinion”.
+''lú'' “so, it seems” is a very common postverbal particle that expresses inferred or assumed information or probability of an event. It is mainly used with irrealis verbs for emphasis, for example: ''dispha lú'' “it is likely going to snow”. This particle often indicates that an event will happen in the future: ''gëspha lú'' “it will snow (eventually)”.
 ===Verbs===
@@ Line 417: / Line 545: @@
 *'''class III''': stem ends in ''-l'' – སྟཾལཾན ''stalan'' “to acquire”, ཟཻལཾན ''zēlan'' “to be surrounded”, སཀིལཾན ''sëkīlan'' “to bind”;
 *'''class IV''': stem ends in ''-s'' or ''-r'' – གུནཾསཾན ''gunasan'' “to rest”, ཁོརཾན ''khoran'' “to cry”, བསྐྱུརཾན ''bëskyuran'' “to interpret/to translate”;
-*'''class V''': stem ends in other consonants – ཅྱུཀཾན ''cyukan'' “to trust”, ལཾཏཾཏཾན ''latatan'' “to observe”, ཆོཏཾན ''chōtan'' “to be pierced”.
+*'''class V''': stem ends in other consonants – ཅྱུཀཾན ''cyukan'' “to trust”, ལཏཾཏཾན ''lëtatan'' “to observe”, ཆོཏཾན ''chōtan'' “to be pierced”.
 Each class has its own conjugation pattern.
 ====Stem====
@@ Line 478: / Line 606: @@
 | ''ha-/*pa-''
 | ''h-/*bam-''
-! Deictic<br>towards the speaker
+! Cislocative
-| ''-juŋ''
+| ''-ruŋ''
 | ''-oŋ''
-| ''-yuŋ''
+| ''-huŋ''
-| ''-uŋ/-yuŋ''
+| ''-ruŋ/-yuŋ''
-| ''-uŋ''
+| ''-ruŋ''
 |-
 ! Middle voice
 | ''më-''
 | ''m-''
-! Deictic<br>from the speaker
+! Translocative
 | ''-soŋ''
 | ''-noŋ''
@@ Line 527: / Line 655: @@
 The [[w:Verb framing|deictic suffixes]] attract the negative infix, indicating that they might have originated from an incorporated element: ཁཾམཾསོངིཀྐཾ ''kha'''ma'''soŋikka'' “he didn’t walk away from me”.
-The causative, detransitive and iterative suffixes are used mostly for verb-derivation (the iterative suffix lost its conjugational meaning in the Western and Southern dialects, where it is only used for derivation). These suffixes often create a string of derived forms of simple root verbs, for example: ''koŋan'' “to carry” → ''goŋan'' “to wear (to carry on ones’ body)” → ''skoŋan'' “to dress” → ''mikhoŋan'' “to continue (to carry on)” → ''sëmikhoŋan'' “to prolong”; ''koran'' “to turn” → ''goran'' “to be late” → ''*skoran'' “to cause turning (verb is possible, but not used)” → ''sikoran'' “make it turn around” → ''sukoran'' “to turn around” → ''misphikoran'' “to overturn”.
+The causative, detransitive and iterative prefixes are used mostly for verb-derivation (the iterative prefix lost its conjugational meaning in the Western and Southern dialects, where it is only used for derivation). These prefixes often create a string of derived forms of simple root verbs, for example: ''koŋan'' “to carry” → ''goŋan'' “to wear (to carry on ones’ body)” → ''skoŋan'' “to dress” → ''mikhoŋan'' “to continue (to carry on)” → ''sëmikhoŋan'' “to prolong”; ''koran'' “to turn” → ''goran'' “to be late” → ''*skoran'' “to cause turning (verb is possible, but not used)” → ''sikoran'' “make it turn around” → ''sukoran'' “to turn around” → ''misphikoran'' “to overturn”.
+The derivational prefixes can change valency of the verb, and the marking of arguments. The prefix thus determines the role of all arguments in the sentence alongside verbal agreement:
+{|
+|+ Agent prominence
+|-
+| Rëmin-<span style="color:#FF0000">is</span>=sëgi rossē bërëlai-'''<u>kyi</u>''' partës-pā parcis-ë-pagi.
+|-
+| man-ERG.FOC=that.PROX apple.ABS buy.PT-3.sg.AG market-LOC1.FOC trader-ABL-that.DIST
+|-
+| "The man bought an apple from a trader at the market."
+|}
+{|
+|+ Patient prominence
+|-
+| Rossej-a=sëgi rëminë-las '''<u>a</u>'''-<span style="color:#FF0000">gë</span>br<span style="color:#FF0000">u</span>lai-'''<u>kka</u>'''-hā partës-pā parcis-ë-pagi.
+|-
+| apple-ABS.FOC=that.PROX man.ALL 3sg.IND.OBJ-DETR-be.bought.PT-3.sg-PAT.FOC market-LOC1.FOC trader-ABL-that.DIST
+|-
+| "The apple was bought by a man from a trader at the market."
+|}
+{|
+|+ Locative prominence
+|-
+| Partës-a=sëgi rossē '''<u>a</u>'''-<span style="color:#FF0000">rgë</span>brëlai-'''<u>kka</u>'''-pā rëminë-las parcis-ë-pagi.
+|-
+| market-ABS.FOC=that.PROX apple.ABS buy.PT-3.sg.AG-LOC.FOC man-ALL trader-ABL-that.DIST
+|-
+| "The market was where a man bought an apple from the trader."
+|}
+{|
+|+ Oblique argument prominence
+|-
+| Parcis-<span style="color:#FF0000">is</span>=sëgi rëmin-a=pagi bë<span style="color:#FF0000">smë</span>rëlai-'''<u>kyi</u>''' partës-pā rossej-o.
+|-
+| trader-ERG.FOC=that.PROX man.ABS.FOC=that.DIST CAUS.buy.PT-3.sg.AG market-LOC1.FOC apple-INST
+|-
+| "The trader made the man buy an apple at the market."
+|}
+The first sentence is considered the most semantically neutral, the latter three sentences are not commonly found in colloquial speech. Later dialects generally dropped the valency changing operations as a mean to mark argument prominence, relying instead solely on topic-focus markers.
 ====Intransitive verbs====
@@ Line 678: / Line 845: @@
 | <small>1du.excl<br />-leŋ</small>
 |-
-| <small>2sg.<br />''na-''</small>
+| <small>2sg.<br />''ta-''</small>
-| <small>2du.<br />''sna-''</small>
+| <small>2du.<br />''sta-''</small>
-| <small>2pl.<br />''nyi-''</small>
+| <small>2pl.<br />''cyi-''</small>
 | rowspan="5" | <small>preterit<br />''-∅/-t(e)/-Cː<small>f</small></small>
 | <small>1→3.PT<br />''-taŋ''</small>
@@ Line 701: / Line 868: @@
 |-
 | <small>2→3.PT<br />''-nta''</small>
-| rowspan="3" | <small>1du;2du.Pat<br />''-es''</small>
+| rowspan="3" | <small>3du;2du.Pat<br />''-es''</small>
 |-
 | <small>1→2.NPT<br />''-nya''</small>
@@ Line 709: / Line 876: @@
 |}
 Verbs do not fill every slot of the table, a typical transitive verb have two or three slots filled at a time, for example: སླིཀཾ ཀུཀནཾ ཀོངསྐྱི ''slika kukëna koŋëskyi'' “they two carry fruit in baskets” (''sli-ka'' “fruit-Pl” ''kuk-na'' “basket-Loc” ''koŋ-s-kyi'' “carry-Du-3Ag”); ཀཾམཱིཀྐྱི  ''kamīkkyi'' “he has given it to me” (''ka-m-bī-t-kyi'' “1sg.IndObj-Perf-give-Pret-3Ag”).
+Commitative markers are used to mark two subjects of the same verb: ''Nicwatis Gësalpis girālkyilo'' – “Nitswata and Gesalpa are fighting (together)”; or to indicate an action that is reciprocal: ''Nicwata Gësalpa girālsailo'' “Nitswata and Gësalpa are fighting each other”. Since both arguments are equal, neither can be a direct object, even though the verb ''girālan'' “to fight” is transitive. In the first case the direct object is omitted, yet implied, while in the second case the verb becomes reflexive.
+===Syntax===
+Meskangela is an [[w:Ergative-absolutive language|ergative language]]. Grammatical [[w:Constituent (linguistics)|constituents]] in most Meskangela dialects broadly have [[w:head-final|head-final]] word order ('''SOV''', or "subject-object-verb"). There are some general tendencies:
+* adjectives generally follow nouns in Classical Meskangela. In the Southern dialect opposite is true, unless the two are linked by a [[w:Genitive case|genitive]] particle ''e'';
+* objects and adverbs precede the verb, as well as adjectives in [[w:copula (linguistics)|copular clauses]] (which are stative verbs morphologically);
+* marked (focused or topicalised) nouns precede the unmarked nouns. The Eastern dialects often do not follow this rule;
+* unless topicalised, oblique nouns tend to follow both agent and patient: ནིཅྭཾཏཾལ མརཱིངི གསཾལཔཾལ ཨཾགྂཏཾང ''Nicwata Mërīngi Gësalpal agautaŋ'' “Mering called Nicwat to Gesalpa”. Only the Western dialects strictly follow this rule;
+* subordinate clauses generally precede the main clause in Classical Meskangela and most later dialects, apart from the Western group, in which both subordinate and relative clauses are internally headed and [[w:Discontinuity (linguistics)|long-distance]] dependent clauses are common;
+* demonstratives and numerals follow the noun they modify. In the Western and Eastern groups demonstratives usually precede the noun, if another modifier is present;
+* in attributive clauses the head is followed by its [[w:Noun adjunct|atribute]], unless the latter is topicalised;
+* in [[w:Adpositional phrase|adpositional phrases]] postposition follows its noun;
+* interrogative clauses are signalled by the interrogative particle ''mai'' (Western ''lai''), interrogative pronouns: ''kha'' “who”, ''kai'' “how”, ''ba'' “what”, ''kaima'' “when”, ''baima'' “where”; or the emphatic particle ''ŋé'', which follow the head of the clause: མཾཔཱཡིནཏཾཔཿ་ངྸེ ''mapājintapā-'''ŋé'''?'' “you didn’t go there, did you?”;
+* the particle ''tai'' (and its synonym ''lhot'', more typical to the South) are used to set off qoutations, they follow the phrase they modify: ''kyénna-tai cyenikka'' “he said "you are pretty"”. Eastern dialects use a quotative particle ''cai'' instead, which might have been an allomorph of Western ''tai'';
+* the negative particle ''mu/mau'' precedes its modifying noun and attracts possessive prefixes: ངོ'''མུ'''་ཀྱིམཾ ''ŋo'''mu'''-kyima'' “not my house”. When the negative particle acts as a [[w:Predicate (grammar)|predicate]], it follows the noun instead: ངོཀྱིམ མྂ ''ŋokyim '''mau''''' “this isn’t my house”. In the Eastern dialects the negative predicate is substituted with a verbal negative infix, which precedes its noun.
+The example below shows some differences between the three main dialect groups:
+* English: “I saw the bird that was singing on a tree”.
+* Classical: མསངཾཀ་ཏྂ སིངཏཾ བཾ་བིམྨཀའཾརིཀྐཾ མརཾནཏཾང ''mësëŋak-tau siŋëta wa-bimmëkārikka mërantaŋ'' (bird=TOP tree-LOC2 REL=CONT-sing-3sg.PRT see-1→3.PRT).
+* Western: མརཾནིཀྐྃ ཏའིབཾ ཨེ་བིམྨཀའར྅ཀ ཐཾངྟཾ་པཾ ''mëranikke tîwa e-wimmëkārök thaŋta-pa (see-1sg.PRT bird-DEF REL=CONT-sing-3sg.PRT tree-LOC2=on).
+* Eastern: ཧིནྟུ མརེམྨཾ་ཏྂ ཨཀྱཽརོད ཧེནྟཾན ''hiŋtu mëremmå-tā̊  akyōrol hentaŋ'' (tree-LOC2.FOC bird=TOP 3sg-sing-APRT see-1→3.PRT).
+* Southern: ངི སྱེན་པཾཏ ཨངྐོཏ མསྔཾཀ་ཏཾ མྱཾནྟ ''ŋi sjeŋ-pat ăŋkōt măsŋak-tå mjant'' (I.ERG tree=on-LOC sing-APRT bird.ABS=TOP see-PRT).
 [[Category:Languages]]
+[[Category:Meskangela]]

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