Mezhat's Verbal Morphology: view article

Mezhat verbs have the following obligatory order of affixes:

(verb) - (various) - (object agreement) - (subject agreement & tense) - (mood) - (evidentiality)

The "various" suffixes mostly relate to voice, aspect, mood, modality, and some concepts covered by English adverbs (largely time-related, such as "again"). Relative to each other, they are generally ordered by meaning; I will try to explain further in each individual section.

[edit] [top]Agreement

Intransitive Statements
Subject agreement for intransitive sentences is straightforward. I'll use aoɓ, to sing, and mir, to be happy, as an example; under Mezhat's vowel harmony, aoɓ takes back-harmonic affixes, while mir takes front-harmonic ones.

1st Person Singular	1st Person Exclusive	1st Person Inclusive	2nd Person	3rd Person Human	3rd Person Animate	3rd Person Inanimate	4th Person Human	4th Person Animate	4th Person Inanimate
aoɓĕm	aoɓol	aoɓal	aoɓad	aoɓaş	aoɓĕf	aoɓyř	aoɓoş	aoɓof	aoɓoř
mirem	miröl	miräl	miräd	miräş	miref	miriř	miröş	miröf	miröř

The fourth person is an obviative form, used to distinguish different arguments in the third person (i.e. "they¹ knew them², and they² were a farmer from..."), and to establish less central entities in a narrative.

When a group of people, beings and objects of different animacy levels are being referred to collectively, the highest relevant animacy agreement is used -- so when discussing a woman and her bird, you use the human agreement.

From here on out, I will list suffixes in whichever form requires no diacritics (with ‹y› vs ‹i› going to ‹i›), and let it go without saying that vowel harmony affects any suffix which contains a vowel.

Transitive Statements
Subject-Object Agreement is fairly simple once you know what's happening, and it is more or less agglutinative in nature. Each person/number/animacy suffix has a unique allomorph for when it's the sole subject, object/patient, or agent of a sentence.

	1st Person Singular	1st Person Exclusive	1st Person Inclusive	2nd Person	3rd Person Human	3rd Person Animate	3rd Person Inanimate	4th Person Human	4th Person Animate	4th Person Inanimate
Subject	em	ol	al	ad	aş	ef	iř	oş	of	oř
Patient	e	ol	al	a	aj	ef	i	oj	of	o
Agent	me	lo	la	da	şa	fe	ři	şo	fo	řo

If agreement suffixes were the same under all circumstances, "they're cleaning it (inanimate)" would be *paofyřaş instead of paofyşa.

[edit] [top]Tense, Mood, and Evidentiality

Tense is extremely simple (future/non-future) and arguably suppletive with subject marking; the subject agreement suffix's vowel is lengthened.

Fwĕĕm.
I will go.

Fwĕm.
I did go / I went.

Feřleem hanawu lu?
May I hug you?

Several moods may follow this:

Dubitative	(u)djo
Potential	(u)ban
Subjunctive	(u)ts
Optative	(u)ş

The desiderative mood also exists; however, it does not pattern with the other moods.

Detäşüş flaf.
May they eat cake.

Fwĕĕmban lüsnjö dynjo.
I'll probably go today.

Finally, evidentiality is a simple split between reported and non-reported information; something that one has been told is marked with the suffix -(u)t on the verb.

Sotadut.
(I hear) You're well. / I've been told you feel well.

Ty gajdadut ĕmaraktşu suwyřnjo jinjö.
(It's said) You shouldn't dance on that. / I hear you shouldn't dance on that.

Halyřdjot ji.
(I've heard) that could be bad.

[edit] [top]The Imperative

The imperative mood is a big exception to all of the above: it is formed using the barest possible stem of a verb, so it cannot take subject or object agreement. The imperative is thus the most common circumstance under which to see independent pronouns in the accusative case.

The imperative is used for all second person imperative statements, and for imperative statements directed at oneself. For hortative statements directed at other people, the optative is used.

The bare stem form of the imperative also follows for auxiliary verbs, but not for the infinitive in split auxiliary constructions.

Wod, njum, wod.
Run, boy, run.

Feř eřtü mras.
Let me be honest.

[edit] [top]Other Suffixes

Voice
There are four main suffixes relating to voice in Meşät, the passive, -l, and the causative, -ogşe, the reflexive -on, and the recriprocal -aot. These can come in various possible orders relative to each other, depending on what is meant.

Ojklogşĕdaa!
ojk-l-ogş-ĕ-daa
kill-PASSPassive voice (valency)
be verb-ed-CAUSCausative (valency/mood)
cause an action to occur, force another argument to act-1SFirst person singular (person)
speaker, signer, etc.; I-2Second person (person)
addressee (you).FUTFuture (tense)
action occurring after the moment of speech
You'll get me killed!

Eogögşläş.
eog-ögş-l-äş-üt
be.sad-CAUSCausative (valency/mood)
cause an action to occur, force another argument to act-PASSPassive voice (valency)
be verb-ed-3Third person (person)
neither speaker nor addressee.HUMHuman (gender/class)
human or belonging to human
They are saddened.

Whichever suffix comes last is the most relevant, in a way that generally mirrors English; this follows for all variably-ordered Mezhat suffixes.

There is another voice-related affix, w/o-; it is a causative prefix which can only affect intransitive verbs, but which is often applied haphazardly, with -ogş(e) being preferred for new words. W/o- is also used to verbalize nouns, where it is highly productive, and creates verbs that need not be transitive.

Aspect, Desiderative Mood, & Other...

There are a lot of these, and in some areas they are still being very actively created; I'll leave it at a few examples for now and expand this section when I have more time.

Ĕmaraktşattamşaş.
ĕmaraktş-att-amş-aş
dance-again-DESDesiderative (mood)
wishes, desires, wants-3Third person (person)
neither speaker nor addressee.HUMHuman (gender/class)
human or belonging to human
They want to dance again.

Efötsejdät.
ef-öts-ej-dä
know-INCHInchoative (aspect)
'beginning, becoming'-3Third person (person)
neither speaker nor addressee.HUMHuman (gender/class)
human or belonging to human-2Second person (person)
addressee (you)
You've met them. / You got to know them.

Ty nnämşime dy.
ty
NEGNegative (polarity)
not nn-ämş-i-me
do-DESDesiderative (mood)
wishes, desires, wants-3Third person (person)
neither speaker nor addressee.INANInanimate (gender/class)
inanimate, sessile-1SFirst person singular (person)
speaker, signer, etc.; I dy
this.ABSAbsolutive (case)
TRANS object, INTR argument
I don't want to do this.

[edit] [top]Negation

Negation tends to be a bit fusional in Meşät. There are three negative markers; a general one, one for deontic possibility, and one for the imperative mood (= a prohibitive marker).

Generic	Cannot	Prohibitive
ty	ga	le

Le ojk mras.
le
PROHProhibitive (mood)
negative imperative ojk
kill mra-s
1SFirst person singular (person)
speaker, signer, etc.; I-ACCAccusative (case)
TRANS direct object; patient
Don't kill me.

Ty panymĕ aoɓyl.
ty
NEGNegative (polarity)
not pan-ymĕ
like-3Third person (person)
neither speaker nor addressee.INANInanimate (gender/class)
inanimate, sessile-1SFirst person singular (person)
speaker, signer, etc.; I aoɓ-yl
sing-NMZNominaliser
makes other word a noun.ABSAbsolutive (case)
TRANS object, INTR argument
I don't like singing.

Ga ĕmaraktşad.
ga
can.NEGNegative (polarity)
not ĕmaraktş-ad
dance-2Second person (person)
addressee (you)
You can't dance.

[edit] [top]Auxiliary Verbs

Auxiliary constructions in Meşät may be auxiliary- or split-headed depending on the transitivity of the auxiliary and lexical verbs used. There is an infinitive suffix which is applied to the lexical verb in either case, and which replaces what would have been that verb's subject agreement.

Eslem ĕmaraktşu.
esl-em
able-1SFirst person singular (person)
speaker, signer, etc.; I ĕmaraktş-u
dance-INFInfinitive (TAM)
non-tensed verb
I can dance.

Fwaş dwissiwe.
fw-aş
go/away.AUXAuxilliary-3Third person (person)
neither speaker nor addressee.HUMHuman (gender/class)
human or belonging to human dwiss-i-we
see-3Third person (person)
neither speaker nor addressee.INANInanimate (gender/class)
inanimate, sessile-INFInfinitive (TAM)
non-tensed verb
They looked away from it. ✎ Edit Article ✖ Delete Article

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