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Peshpeg: Difference between revisions
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The nominal system is divided into a three-way declension system based on natural gender, animacy, and countability and concreteness. The declension system underlies Peshpeg's unusual split-ergative alignment system. Unlike other split systems, which either display tense-aspect based ergative marking (e.g. Hindi and most Indic languages), or pronominal-based splits (e.g. Minhast and Dyirbal), Peshpeg applies nominative-accusative and ergative-absolutive marking based on noun class. This noun class system is based on an animacy hierarchy. Class I nouns, ranked as the most animate in the animacy hierarchy, takes nominative-accusative marking, whilst Class II nouns, which lie lower in the animacy hierarchy, take ergative-absolutive marking. The final group of nouns, falling under Class III, receive no overt marking and therefore show direct alignment as these nouns fall lowest in the animacy hierarchical spectrum. | The nominal system is divided into a three-way declension system based on natural gender, animacy, and countability and concreteness. The declension system underlies Peshpeg's unusual split-ergative alignment system. Unlike other split systems, which either display tense-aspect based ergative marking (e.g. Hindi and most Indic languages), or pronominal-based splits (e.g. Minhast and Dyirbal), Peshpeg applies nominative-accusative and ergative-absolutive marking based on noun class. This noun class system is based on an animacy hierarchy. Class I nouns, ranked as the most animate in the animacy hierarchy, takes nominative-accusative marking, whilst Class II nouns, which lie lower in the animacy hierarchy, take ergative-absolutive marking. The final group of nouns, falling under Class III, receive no overt marking and therefore show direct alignment as these nouns fall lowest in the animacy hierarchical spectrum. | ||
Verbs fall under two broad classes. One class, which is partially or fully synthetic, derives from an older system. These verbs are usually high-frequency words, such as ''ru'' ("to go"). The other verb class involves a construction based on an unmarked verbal noun | Verbs fall under two broad classes. One class, which is partially or fully synthetic, derives from an older system. These verbs are usually high-frequency words, such as ''ru'' ("to go"). The other verb class involves a periphrastic construction based on an unmarked verbal noun followed by an auxiliary verb which takes person, tense, and aspect marking. | ||
Adjectives | Adjectives take minimal inflection, based on its position relative to its noun head. A suffix ''-em'' simply indicates the adjective is dependent on another element, and appears when the adjective follows its head. Interestingly, if a periphrastic verb construction appears immediately after the adjective, the adjective is displaced and must appear before its noun head. A connective ''mon'' surfaces between the pre-nominal adjective and its noun. | ||
Particles are uninflected words, a lexically broad collection which include adverbs, negators, discourse markers, and various syntactic operators. | Particles are uninflected words, a lexically broad collection which include adverbs, negators, discourse markers, and various syntactic operators. | ||