Tsunem: Typology and Forms: view article

Tsunem language. To work along semi-regular lines, the following headings will describe the essential distinctions for the language. In addition I will invoke some (constructed) etymology every now and then.

[edit] [top]The Sentence and Word Order

Word order determines which words stand next to one another and on which side. If words have some phonological or grammatical influence on each other, the word order will play a role in that. Tsunem is head-initial, which means that prepositions are used before the noun, adjectives and genitives follow nouns, auxiliary verbs precede verbs and adverbs follow it.

It is not a pro-drop language, imperatives use a pronoun, therefore any 'full' sentence will at least have a subject and a verb. Although there are grammatical cases, the word order is rather strict; the case system makes up for a relative scarcity in prepositions and conjunctions.

The verb always occurs with, and is followed by a noun phrase in the absolutive case (ABSAbsolutive (case)
TRANS object, INTR argument). If the verb is intransitive, the absolutive case is understood as the subject of the sentence, if the verb is transitive, the absolutive is the object of the verb and the ergative (ERGErgative (case)
TRANS subject; agent) is the subject of the sentence. The word orders, then, are: VS for intransitive verbs and for intransitive verbs it can be SVO if the subject is a noun phrase, next to VOS, if the subject contains only pronouns, determiners or numerals.

[edit] [top]Parts of Speech

The parts of speech can be divided along morphological lines into verbs, nouns and indeclinables. Each of these categories is subdivided into more specific classes. Almost all adjectives are derived from verbs as well as most adverbs.

Basically all words can be traced back to biliteral roots. There is a large group of words that seem to derive from triliteral roots. The triliteral roots have originally been derived from a biliteral root with a prefix that has become incorporated into the root.

[edit] [top]Verbs

Verbs divide into various classes, depending on their root vowels and semantic information, as described in the article on "Roots, Stems and Derivation". The stem vowel of the verb is based on semantic considerations. The following four classes exist:

Vowel	Type	Examples
u	states, steady movements	stand, sit, rain, run
o	change, changing movements	stand up, sit down, start to rain, run off
i	sensation, state of conscious	hear, see, feel, know
e	consciousness, volition	watch, listen, respond, think, speak

Exceptions to these categories:

Vowel	Description	Exception to
i	colour verbs and sensations	u

A verb can have up to three different stems, which are used for the transitive, intransitive reflexive, and the nominal participle. Each stem can conjugate for aspect, mood and evidentiality. No absolute notion of tense is used, but tenses can be suggested by auxiliary verbs and context. Aspect and mood are marked with an affix on the stem.

The primary stem which is derived from a root, is the active stem (ACTActive voice (valency, volition)
the subject acts, voluntarily) of the verb, which is either transitive or intransitive. For transitive verbs a secondary mediopassive stem (MEDPMediopassive (voice)
passive, reflexive, and/or middle voice) exists, which expresses that the action applies to the subject itself. Stative verbs, with root vowels i/u, do not differentiate transitive from intransitive, in which case the mediopassive can be used to express a transitive meaning exclusively. The third stem is used to form the participle.

There are two aspects in Tsunem. The imperfective aspect (IPFVImperfective (aspect)
'interrupted or incomplete') draws attention within the action. It is used for progressive, continual, habitual and iterative notions of action. With another interrupting verb, it is often used with past implication. Contrary to that stands the perfective aspect (PFVPerfective (aspect)
completed action) which describes the action as a point from without. It is generally used for stative verbs, and general truths, actions which cannot be interrupted, or implying a past conclusion, it can be used for any verb. The perfective is indicated its own affix. There is no absolute notion of tense in Tsunem; aspects only indicate an action's relation to other actions and context.

The finite verbs are declined with a suffix which marks binary evidentiality. Etymologically witness (WITWitness (evidential)
speaker witnessed action) was the default, and it had no affix but over time it developed to stress its form. The non-witness (NWITNonwitness (evidential)
speaker did not witness action) suffixes are derived from adverbs.

Furthermore there is two way distinction in both the affixes for aspect and evidentiality: each one has a separate conjugation for the conjunctive mood. In sum then, there are four affixes for aspect and four affixes for evidentiality, (plus an irregular nul-affix for evidentiality).

A second stem exists for the mediopassive voice. It has the same conjugation as the active. The relation of the subject and the verb form is either reflexive, medial or passive. Auxiliary verbs often use this stem as the active stem, and lack a mediopassive stem.

The last stem is used for nominal participles. The noun designates both the act and the product of the act, at once. For instance the transitive verb cela "look at" has the participle cle "the being looked at" meaning both the act of looking at something, "look, gaze" as the product "view, appearance". The meaning often becomes clear in connection with another noun or verb. From this stem, other nouns can be derived, e.g. icli "one who looks at/watcher". The adjectival participles are derived from the active or mediopassive stem.

Since there is a limit on the number of affixes that a verb stem can take (it is not a synthetic language), auxiliary verbs must be used to give further information. To this end the auxiliary construction is used. The auxiliary construction consists of an auxiliary verb and the participle of the main verb. Each verb can be used as though it were an auxiliary verb; however, those which are used most often, have become preclitic. Usually no more than one auxiliary verb is used on one main verb.

[edit] [top]Nominals

The nouns decline for five cases: absolutive, genitive, ergative, instrumental, dative and ablative. The genetive, ergative and sometimes instrumental use a different stem from the absolutive, dative and ablative stem. The stem for the genetive etc. is usually regularly derived. The absolutive and genitive have the bare stem and the other cases are derived through prefixes.

Vowel	Form	Cause	Animacy
u	physical	natural	lifeless
o	physical	man-made	lifeless
i	physical	natural	alive, dead
e	mental	man-made	lifeless

Exceptions to these categories follow below:

Vowel	Description	Exception to
u	male living entities	i

Pronouns are inflected in a similar way as nouns. There is a pronoun for each of the four main noun vowels. The pronouns follow an older form of declension in the instrumental case. There is a morphological distinction between determiners and pronouns, where the former are indeclinable. The only true pronouns are personal pronoun for the first and second persons singular and plural; and the third person personal pronoun, which is used as a general pronoun. Pronouns are often combined with determiners to give them different meanings.

[edit] [top]Indeclinable

Adjectives are considered more as describing some relation of nouns, either between each other or towards the observer or speaker. Therefore most adjectives have been derived from verbs and cannot undergo declension or agreement. Adjectives must be preceded by a noun or pronoun, or another adjective:

iki
man.ABSAbsolutive (case)
TRANS object, INTR argument ngotu
big
"the big man"

Determiners tend to follow that which they modify:

oyu'
stone.INSInstrumental (case)
'with', 'using' ngotu
big qi
INDEFIndefinite
a nonspecific referent
"with a big stone"

Adverbs derive mainly from adjectives. Secondly a body of adverbs consists of petrified nominal expressions. Lastly some adverbs are derived from verbal roots. One such group is formed by prepositional adverbs, which govern a specific noun case and are placed in front of the head noun; although there is no grammatical basis for distinction, such adverbs are usually called "prepositions". The conjunct adverbs, are any adverbs that modify the verb. If the verb is in conjunctive mood, it becomes a subordination clause. Some adverbs always govern the conjunctive, others sometimes with a difference in meaning. A small selection of coordinating conjunctions exists that cannot have the conjunctive mood.

In many cases where other languages use pronouns, Tsunem uses determiners, which can occur alone or combined with a true pronoun. Used with a pronoun, they must precede the head noun and govern it's noun case usually into a partitive genitive.
Consider the phrase coqu xto "some houses":

coqu
3Third person (person)
neither speaker nor addressee.INDEFIndefinite
a nonspecific referent xto
houses.GENGenitive (case)
possessive

Wich word-by-word transcribes as "some-one [of the] house[s]", where "one" is a pronoun for a thing namely the house. The determiner qi is stuck to the stem of the pronoun, and its vowel is changed to match the pronoun.
The determiner can also be used alone, which changes the meaning somewhat: kuto qi"some house" or simply "a house":

kuto
house.ABSAbsolutive (case)
TRANS object, INTR argument qi
INDEFIndefinite
a nonspecific referent

[edit] [top]Note on Conlanging

Although the author has a tendency to revise the existing language, it must be noted that the aim from now on is to keep as much as possible what has been described. Whenever the addition of a new grammar form or rule is felt desirable, it must comply with the existing material. Word derivation, for example, will be described in another article, on the basis of biliteral roots. There are however many triliteral words in the dictionary at present, that therefore will need to get an explanation for the third letter.

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