Kaimchaóng Grammar
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Grammar and stuff bro idk
This public article was written by [Deactivated User], and last updated on 28 Apr 2017, 19:42.
[comments] kamgrammarmorphologynounsverbspossessionpluralityreduplicationauxiliary
?FYI...
This article is a work in progress! Check back later in case any changes have occurred.
This article is a work in progress! Check back later in case any changes have occurred.
Nouns:
Plural stuff-
Animate nouns are obligatorily marked for plurality, while Inanimate nouns are only optionally marked. Plurality is shown through partial reduplication of the final syllable of a noun. [Líwe > Líwewe]
Associative plural can be used with kinship terms and personal names to indicate the marked noun's family or close friends. It's formed by adding the word 'sa' after the name. [Xibáli sa = shivali and her family]
Reduplication-
Colors can be formed through full reduplication of a noun; this is rare in everyday speech but very common in poetic language.
Augmentatives can be formed through full reduplication of a noun plus changing the first consonant to b or adding b in the case of a vowel. [Líwe > Líwebíwe = huge noodles????]
Possession-
Gods I hate possession. If it's a personal adjective possession like my noodles, there's possessive prefixes for that. [Líwe > Jilíwe = my noodles]. Demonstrative adjectives are also prefixes [Yilíwe = these noodles]. There are separate stand alone pronoun forms for all these tho. If it's one noun possessing another, like shivali's noodles, then the order is Possessor-possessive prefix.thing getting possessed [Xibáli ulíwe = shivali her-noodles].
Possessive Prefixes-
| Person | Singular | Plural |
|---|---|---|
| 1st | ji- | ?- |
| 2nd | ?- | ?- |
| 3rd | u- | ?- |
Also: Alienable and Inalienable possession. The above only applies to alienable possession, which is the most common kind tbh. Inalienable is used with kinship terms, body parts, pets, and owned land. There's no prefixes used with inalienable possession, it's just juxtaposition.
Verbs:
SVC-
Serial verb constructions. There are strings of verbs that generally share the same subject and are considered part of one bigger action, or a cause and an effect, or just closely related. English parallels are like 'go eat' or 'come see'. A lot of verb phrases in English that need 'to' or 'that' to make one verb dependent on the other don't need any markers in Kaimchaóng. If the first verb is transitive and the second is intransitive, the subject of the intransitive is the same as the subject of the transitive. So something like 'Shivali bite-die tiger' would mean that shivali bit the tiger and then died.
Serial verbs are different from auxiliary verbs in that neither of them can take a negative marking and both must take the same subject marking.
When you add auxiliary verbs to the mix, strings of 2-4 verbs can be common:
Naó yil eyil echómrung jilúng? - Will you come eat my fish?
2.S come[AUX-FUT] 2.S-come 2.S.A-eat-3.S.O 1.S.POSS-fish
Person and Number-
Person and number marking is obligatory in standard speech, but is often left off in slang and poetry.
Subject is obligatorily marked, object is supposed to always be marked in 'correct speech' but many people leave it out if there's a stand alone object and it's not considered wrong.
The subject is a prefix, the object is a suffix, they attach directly to the verb root.
| Person | Singular | Plural |
|---|---|---|
| 1st | á(´)- | ya- |
| 2nd | e- | iyé- |
| 3rd | ø- | i- |
For 1.S: á(r´)- means that if a verb starts with a consonant, á- is added, and if it starts with a vowel, r is added and the vowel's tone is lowered. If the vowel is already low tone, it doesn't change.
Object suffixes-
| Person | Singular | Plural |
|---|---|---|
| 1st | -(aí)m | -r(i) |
| 2nd | -(aó)n | -r(í) |
| 3rd | -(u)ng | -r(i) |
The plural object markers are -r if they attach to a vowel, m, n, or ng. It becomes -i if the final consonant is r. [Chómr + -r(i) = chómri]
Auxiliary Verbs-
Kemching uses Split-headed auxiliaries, and sometimes split/double-headed auxiliaries. The auxiliary is only marked for the subject when negative marking is also present.
While the main verb, or lexical verb, is only marked for subject and object, auxiliary verbs show tense, aspect, mood, and negation. In certain circumstances, they may also be marked for the subject of the verb.
Kan - start
Yamr - stop
Ya - progressive
Tang - causative
Chen - must, have to, should
Ga - can, able to, allowed to
Dyaongr - may, might, maybe, could
These auxiliaries are high tone for non-past tense, but may be changed to low tone to mark the past tense.
Negation-
Negation is shown through the suffix -dyaí on auxiliaries. Dyaongr has the irregular negative 'dyaondyaír'. Yamr becomes Yamdyaí.
[Kandyaí túkwanr aibébé. She isn't starting to read books.]
When there's no auxiliary, a verb is negated through the use of the particle 'taír' which comes after the verb phrase.
[Átúkwanr taír aibébé. I'm not reading books.]
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