Vezhuan

Introduction

The Vezhuan language, or Dzvada Vezhua Dlin "true humans speak this way", is a language isolate spoken in pockets of the Caucasus Mountains.

Morphology

Determiners

There are three types of determiners in Peshpeg that occur either as suffixes, such as the definite and demonstrative suffixes, or as quantifiers, independent words that precede their noun heads to which they are joined with the linker mon, e.g. Vadzini mon Golahách mon nodorzhi uzanio pepak "Many of the Ín Duári slaves revolted that day".

The definite marker refers not only to specific or highly referential nouns, but may also refer to an abstract noun class that would normally be considered concrete e.g. gazhda < *gal-gda "the (class of animals known as) horse". The definite marker is also used to nominalize verbs, e.g. lozha < loz-sha "singing". The definite marker, which occurs as a suffix, has different forms that agree in number and gender with their noun heads; however, it does not mark for case. The forms for the definite marker are as follows:

	Singular	Plural
Masculine	-g-	-gda-
Neuter I	-n-	-vda-
Feminine Neuter II Collective	-sh-

The definite marker suffixes directly to the noun root before case markers are applied. In the following example, the masculine plural form of the definite marker -vda- is attached to the noun root gal ("horse") before the comitative case suffix is applied

galvdanda
/gav'dandʌ/
gal-vda-nda
horse-DEF.MP-COM
with the horses

Cases

	Masculine		Neuter I		Feminine Neuter II Collective
	Sg	Pl	Sg	Pl	Sg	Pl
Nominative	-∅	-za	-da	-nda	ri
Accusative	-ri	-tari
Dative	-ska	-task	-ka	-nka
Ablative	-vi	-mva
Allative	-rini	-drina
Comitive	-dan	-nda
Locative	-mi	-ma
Genitive	-za	-zada
Oblique	-∅	-za

Verbs

Peshpeg verbs mark for tense and aspect. Verbs fall in three broad classes, based on how they mark the past vs. the non-past tenses: the zu-/vu- class, the etymologically related z-/v- class, and the u-/u- class. Another feature of the verb is that plural verb stems get truncated, e.g.zeganuadzh "I spoke", from the stem -egan-; vs. zegzua "We spoke", from the stem -eg-.

Syntax

Constituent order

Old and Middle Peshpeg exhibited VSO order, but the modern language is now an SOV language due to Minhast influence. Because the nominative and accusative cases have merged into the direct case, word order is strict.

Example texts

Vadzini dulach nodorzhi uzanio pepak
/va.'dzini 'dulatʃ nodoɚʒi u'zanjo 'pepak/
vadzini 'dulat-sh nodor-sh-ri u-zan-io pepak
many infestation-DENON-DEF.CL2.P slave-DEF.CL2.P PST-create.chaos-CL2.P that.day
Many of the barbarian slaves revolted that day.