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Meskangela: Difference between revisions
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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”). | 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”). | ||
===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'', interrogative pronouns: ''kha'' “who”, ''kai'' “how”, ''ba'' “what”, ''kaima'' “when”, ''baima'' “where”; or the emphatic particle ''ŋé'', which follow the head of the clause; | |||
* 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. | |||
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