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Antarctican: Difference between revisions
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Basic syntax started
m (Subject Pronouns) |
(Basic syntax started) |
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The | The | ||
morphosyntactic alignment is split ergative, with noun suffixes following an | morphosyntactic alignment is split ergative (as is the syntax), with noun suffixes following an | ||
ergative-absolutive system, but person marking on verbs following a | ergative-absolutive system, but person marking on verbs following a | ||
nominative-accusative system. Nouns also inflect for alienable and inalienable | nominative-accusative system. Nouns also inflect for alienable and inalienable | ||
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Note that, for habitual actions in the present, the past tense is used. Also the present tense is used for imminent actions in the future (where English might use "about to"). | Note that, for habitual actions in the present, the past tense is used. Also the present tense is used for imminent actions in the future (where English might use "about to"). | ||
==Syntax== | |||
Antarctican is a syntactically ergative (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ergative%E2%80%93absolutive_language#Syntactic_ergativity), topic-prominent language (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Topic-prominent_language). The basic word order is (Topic) (Ergative Noun) Verb (Absolutive Noun). So in intransitive sentences the word order is either V-S or S-V (if the subject is topicalised) e.g. | |||
{| class="wikitable" | |||
|- | |||
| sowdla || kivieli-iewn | |||
|- | |||
| sɔudɮa || kiɥeliʔeuɴ | |||
|- | |||
| soldier.ABS || die.VFCS | |||
|} | |||
The soldier died. | |||
{| class="wikitable" | |||
|- | |||
| kivieli-iewn || sowdla | |||
|- | |||
| kiɥeliʔeuɴ || sɔudɮa | |||
|- | |||
| die.VFCS || soldier.ABS | |||
|} | |||
A soldier died. | |||
In transitive sentences, the possible word orders are S-V-O and O-S-V e.g. | |||
{| class="wikitable" | |||
|- | |||
| sowdlan || amielaykùe || wùerù | |||
|- | |||
| sɔudɮaɴ || ʔamelɛikɨɦ || wɨɦʁuɦ | |||
|- | |||
| soldier-ERG || hunt.NFCS || frog.ABS | |||
|} | |||
A soldier is hunting frogs. | |||
If we topicalise the object, the sentence becomes: | |||
{| class="wikitable" | |||
|- | |||
| wùerù || sowdlan || amielaykùe | |||
|- | |||
| wɨɦʁuɦ || sɔudɮaɴ || ʔamelɛikɨɦ | |||
|- | |||
| frog.ABS || soldier-ERG || hunt.NFCS | |||
|} | |||
The frogs are being hunted by a soldier. | |||
In SVO sentences, it is also possible to topicalise the subject. This does not create any "visible" effect in the word order, however it does mean that the subject takes the absolutive case e.g. | |||
{| class="wikitable" | |||
|- | |||
| sowdla || amielaykùe || wùerù | |||
|- | |||
| sɔudɮaɴ || ʔamelɛikɨɦ || wɨɦʁuɦ | |||
|- | |||
| soldier.ABS || hunt.NFCS || frog.ABS | |||
|} | |||
The soldier is hunting frogs. | |||
Note that sentence can only have one topic, so if the object of a transitive sentence is topicalised, then the subject cannot be (and must therefore stay in the ergative case). Hence utterances like "wùeru sowdla amielaykùe" are ungrammatical. | |||
[[Category:Languages]][[Category:Conlangs]] | [[Category:Languages]][[Category:Conlangs]] | ||