Morphosyntax of Mattinese
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1. Mattinese Cuisine
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2. Mattinese names
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3. Mattinese people
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8. Old Mattinese
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9. The Paxpa family
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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.
Morphologically, Mattinese is mostly analytic, though there are several inflections on nouns and verbs.
Nouns
Nouns don't decline for gender or case; however, there's still a plural suffix for nouns. The plural of a regular noun is -(ë)s. <!--(cognates with Sutti -yo, the Sutti intervocalic /j/ is often reflected as /z/ in Mattinese)-->
The use of the plural form is obliged for all countable nouns.
Verbs
Verbs conjugate for tense-aspect-mood and personal agreements.
Below are the TAM markers for verbs:
- present: -Ø
- past: -t/-ët <!--(cognates with Sutti -at ~ -ar)-->
- subjunctive: -öw <!--(congates with Sutti -up ~ -u)-->
- imperative: -Ø
- present participle: -in <!--(cognates with Sutti -eno)-->
- past participle: -ët <!--(cognates with Sutti -azo)-->
Below are the personal agreements:
- 1st sg: -n/-ën
- 2nd sg: -mey
- 3rd sg: -Ø
- 1st pl: -ney
- 2nd pl: -ey/-sey
- 3rd pl: -ey/-sey
Adjectives
Adjectives agree with nouns in number. The plural of a regular adjective is -(ë)s.
Being heavily influenced by Indo-European languages from Europe, Mattinese shows many Standard Average European(SAE) features in syntax.
Word Order
- Basic Word Order: Subject-Verb-Object(SVO) when the object is a noun, Subject-Object-Verb(SOV) when the object is a personal pronoun
- Adpositions are prepositions
Historical records show that the oldest form of Mattinese had postpositions instead of prepositions, and the shift from postpositions to prepositions was gradual but occured soon after the earliest written records of Mattinese.
Negation
Mattinese has double negation, verbal negations are formed by placing the negation word am before the finite verb and object pronouns, and the negation word main at the end of a sentence or between the auxiliary verb and the main verb. The use of both am and main are obligatory.
In a negative structure, the negation word main is placed at the end of a sentence when there is no auxiliary verb; while the negation word main is placed between the auxiliary verb and the other verbs when there is an auxiliary verb.
Another way to form negation is to use the negative determiner may immediately before the noun negated, or to use negative indefinite pronouns. When the negative indefinite pronouns are used, the negation word main is not used.
Questions
Yes-no questions in Mattinese are formed by adding the question particle may to the end of a sentence.
Wh-questions in Mattinese is more complex, Mattinese has wh-fronting with pied-piping, but Mattinese does not utilise the V2 word order; besides Mattinese employs pied-piping with inversion, that is, prepositions become postpositions when used with wh-words in questions.
For example:
- Yamp hait zon? /jæmp heɪt zɔn/ - who see-PSTPast (tense)
action occurred before moment of speech.3Third person (person)
neither speaker nor addressee.SGSingular (number)
one countable entity 3Third person (person)
neither speaker nor addressee.PLPlural (number)
more than one/few - "who saw them?"
- Yamp zon haitey? /jæmp zɔn heɪti:/ - who 3Third person (person)
neither speaker nor addressee.PLPlural (number)
more than one/few see-PSTPast (tense)
action occurred before moment of speech-3Third person (person)
neither speaker nor addressee.PLPlural (number)
more than one/few - "who did they see?"
- Om mas fintmey? /ɔm mæs fɪntmi:/ - what 2Second person (person)
addressee (you).SGSingular (number)
one countable entity.NOMNominative (case)
TRANS subject, INTR argument find-PSTPast (tense)
action occurred before moment of speech-2Second person (person)
addressee (you).SGSingular (number)
one countable entity - "what did you find?"
- Yamble ni mas tammey? /jæmbəl nɪ mæs tæmi:/ - where from 2Second person (person)
addressee (you).SGSingular (number)
one countable entity come.PRESPresent tense (tense)
current-2Second person (person)
addressee (you).SGSingular (number)
one countable entity - "where are you from?"(note the relative position between yamble "where" and ni "from")
Possession
The possessor precedes the possessed, the possessive postposition tos is inserted between the possessor and the possessee.
Adpositions
Most adpositions are prepositions; however, the possessive adposition tos is a postposition. and possessors in Mattinese precede the possessee.
Definiteness
The definite article is to, the indefinite article for singular nouns is ä.
Besides articles, direct objects shows differential object marking. In Mattinese, direct objects that are proper nouns or common nouns that are both definite and animate can be marked with the preposition di when they are direct objects. The use of the direct object preposition is obliged on proper nouns, but is optional on definite common nouns.
Comparative and Superlative
Like many SAE languages, Mattinese utilises particle comparatives in comparisons of inequality, alongside with adverbs meaning "more" and "most". The particle for comparative is ong, the word for "more" is deer and the word for "most" is did. For example:
- Ha ton deer tuntz ong Hb - Ha be.3Third person (person)
neither speaker nor addressee.SGSingular (number)
one countable entity.PRESPresent tense (tense)
current more tall than Hb - "Ha is taller than Hb"
- Ha ton ne did tuntz - Ha be.3Third person (person)
neither speaker nor addressee.SGSingular (number)
one countable entity.PRESPresent tense (tense)
current DEFDefinite
"the" most tall - "Ha is the tallest"
For equative constructions i.e. the phrase expressing the meaning "as ADJ as N", the construction "lan ADJ ong N" is used. For example:
- lan tytz ong a krove /læn tɪt͡s ɔŋ ə kɹoʊv/ - so strong as INDEFIndefinite
a nonspecific referent cow - "as strong as a cow"
Relative Clauses and Noun Clauses
Like many SAE languages, Mattinese has postnominal relative clauses with inflected relative pronouns that signal the role of the head in the clause, and also like many SAE languages, Mattinese uses interrogative pronouns for relative pronouns. For example:
Pied-pipping inversion is shown in relative clause structures and in fronted adpositional phrases with interrogative words. For example:
Noun clauses start are introduced with the complentizer yetz "that", the use of yetz as a complentizer is much like the use of "that" as a complentizer in English. For example:
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