MNCL5 – A Constructed Language

Common Morphology

This chapter covers the basis for both derivation and inflection, and some specific morphology.

Morpheme Types

MNCL5  morphemes are split into four types, based on the building blocks used. The building blocks (using orthographic notation) are:

Initial: (C)-
Long Medial: -VC-, -VVC-, or -VCC-
Short Medial: -C-
Final: -V, -VV, or VC

and the morpheme types are:

Initial: Initial block + zero or more medial blocks,
Long Medial: one or more long medial blocks,
Short Medial: one short medial block,
Final: one final block.

Every inflected word form consists of an initial, zero or more medials, and a final. All MNCL5  morphology, whether semantically derivational or inflectional, follows this system. In fact, most of it is inflectional, even for things that would be derivational in most languages (such as traditional part-of-speech). Note also that this allows for a null morpheme, and vowel-initial initial morphemes as well.

Final Morphemes

The final morphemes are all inflectional. The final of a word form determines whether the word form is a verb form or a non-verb form (this categorization is syntactically significant). If it's a verb form, the final also indicates which mood and, if the mood is indicative, which tense.

Tag Final Mood and Tense
-PRS -e Present Indicative
-TNS -en Tenseless Indicative
-PST -ek Past Indicative
-FUT -es Future Indicative
-IMP -u Imperative
-SUB -us Subjunctive
-CTF -uk Contrafactual

Non-verb forms are divided into noun forms and other forms. The finals of noun forms indicate case and number. The second row for the genitive case gives the finals used before vowel-initial word forms; liaison occurs and the word forms are normally written together.

Tag Singular Plural Case Some Roles
-PAT -a -an Patientive patient, recipient, perceiver, intransitive subject
-AGT -ak -as Agentive agent, donor, actor
-THM -ok -os Thematic object of perception, thing given
-GEN -o -on Genitive possessor, object of non-verb form
- -l-
-VOC -ai -au Vocative addressee

The other forms have various uses syntactically. Note that adjective forms have the same final as the genitive singular forms used before consonants and that the same forms are used for both adverbs and subject-oriented secondary predicates.

Tag Final Form Name
-VN -is Verbal Noun
-ADV -i Adverb
Secondary Predicate, Subject Oriented
-SEC -in Secondary Predicate, Object Oriented
-ADJ -o Adjective

Particles will usually end in some final building block not used by the syntactical part-of-speech marking scheme.

Short Medial Morphemes

Like the finals, the short medial morphemes can all be considered inflectional. So far, the short medials indicate either aspect or grammatical voice. Those used for aspect can be applied to all word forms. They are:

Tag Medial Aspect
-IPF -y- Imperfective
-RET -h- Retrospective
-PRO -v- Prospective

These are rarely used on noun stems, which are basically tenseless. The imperfective isn't used with static verb stems, since the basic meaning is already imperfective. If none of these appear on a dynamic verb stem, the aspect is perfective.

The short medials used for grammatical voice can be applied only to non-verb forms. Since the non-verb forms, excluding verbal nouns, (with or without grammatical voice medials) function like participles do in some other languages, they will be called participles here. Note that the same set of inflections is used regardless of whether the stem is a verb-, adjective-, or noun-type stem. As a result, noun- and adjective-type stems are treated as participles in this grammar, even though they aren't in other languages.

The grammatical voice of a word specifies the role that its subject (which may be implicit) has in relation to it. If the word is non-monovalent, the grammatical voice may also specify the role of the word's explicit object. This will be explained in detail in Participle Usage. The participles with corresponding medials and argument roles are summarized in the following table (which also applies to verbal nouns):

Participle Tag Medial Subject Role Object Role
1st -PAS Patientive Agentive or Thematic or none
2nd -ACT -m- Agentive Patientive or Thematic or none
3rd -THP -t- Thematic Patientive
4th -THA -g- Thematic Agentive

When both aspect and grammatical voice are marked, the two short medials appear together, with the aspect marker coming first. The short medials appear after any derivational medials.

Long Medial Morphemes

The vast majority of long medials are derivational and will be covered elsewhere. Those that may be considered inflectional (and therefore appear after any short medials) are:

Tag Medial Description
-INT -uk- interrogative
-NEG -un- negative
-AFF -ed- affirmative

Non-monovalent vowel-initial word stems resemble long medial morphemes. To confuse things further, some of them are identical, albeit with more or less the same meaning.

Some Initial Morphemes

These are all pronominal roots. Note that the indefinite pronominal uses the null morpheme. The indefinite and interrogative roots are usually followed by a gender medial.

Tag Medial Description
1 m- 1st person (exclusive when plural)
1N p- 1st person, inclusive (plural only)
2 t- 2nd person
3A z- 3rd person, animate
3I n- 3rd person, inanimate
SCT d- Subordinate Clause Terminator
RFX s- Reflexive
REL y- Relative
QUE k- Interrogative
UNS - Indefinite

Particles

This list of particles will probably be later incorporated in the lexicaon.

Tag Morpheme Description
koi how
xoi so
SCI gil Subordinate Clause Initiator
jal conjunction, all clauses true
ul conjunction, any clause true
sel conjunction, exactly 1 clause true

page started: 2007.Nov.08 Thu
last modified: 2007.Nov.22 Thu
content and form originated by qiihoskeh

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