Japhug/Grammar

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With reference to A Grammar of Japhug, Jacques 2021.

Japhug has a strict verb-final order, with only a limited number of exceptions. Noun phrases have by default (Demonstrative)-Noun-Adjective-Numeral-Demonstrative order.

Open

Open parts of speech include: nouns, verbs, and ideophones. (Adjectives in Japhug consist of other parts like ideophones, adjectival stative verbs, and property nouns.)

Nouns

Nouns may be subdivided into four categories:

  1. inalienably possessed nouns (require a possessive prefix)
  2. alienably possessed nouns (possessive prefix not required)
  3. counted nouns (require numeral prefixes)
  4. unpossessible nouns (cannot take possessive prefixes)


  • Inalienably possessed nouns:
    tɯ-ku "head" (note the mandatory indefinite possessive prefix tɯ-)
  • Alienably possessed nouns:
    kha "house"
  • Countable nouns:
    sŋi "day"
    xpa "year"
  • Unpossessible nouns:
    all numerals from 1-99, as well as personal names, names of ethnicities, and place names (mbarkʰom ‘Mbarkham’, kɤmɲɯ ‘Kamnyu’ etc)

Verbs

Verbs in Japhug are either transitive or intransitive.

Japhug is ergative-absolutive: the single predicate of an intransitive verb operates grammatically like the object of a transitive verb.

  • Transitive verbs:
    sat "kill"
    rqoʁ "hug"
  • Intransitive verbs:
    mbɣom "be in a hurry"
    rɟaʁ "dance"

Ideophones

Marked words that depict sensory imagery.

  • |zjaŋ|- “tall” (ideophonic root)

Closed

Closed parts of speech include: numerals, pronouns, postpositions, determiners, adverbs, linkers, interjections and calling sounds, and sentence final particles.

Numerals

ci or tɤɣ – one

Sqi – ten

Numerals above the hundreds are all borrowed from Tibetan

Pronouns

Can be singular, dual and plural.

aʑo, aj (1SG, Kamnyu dialect) - I

ŋa (1SG, Tatshi dialect) - I

Postpositions

Though grammatical relations in Japhug are mostly indicated by verb inflection, several important noun postpositions are common. (Note that though displayed as separate words, postpositions behave exactly like postfixes syntactically, directly following the noun phrase they modify.)

The ergative postposition kɯ has as its main function marking the subject of a transitive verb.

It can also mark an instrument.

The genitive postposition ɣɯ functions mainly to mark possessive relationships: within a (compound) noun phrase, it occurs between the possessor and the possessed noun phrases.

Determiners

Determiners are only used in certain contexts. They generally come after the root they modify.

Number markers: ni (DU), ra (PL)

Proximal demonstrative: ki (SG), kɯni (DU), kɯra (PL)

Distal demonstrative: nɯ (SG), nɯni (DU), nɯra (PL)

Adverbs

iɕqʰa – just now

tɤmtɯkɯnɤ – specially, on purpose

ʁɟa – completely, all

Linkers

tɕe, qʰe - then

Interjections and calling sounds

Interjections express a feeling or an emotion like ideophones, but differ in that they cannot serve as verb adjuncts, cannot receive ideophonic morphology and are mainly used in isolation.

Classified into four categories:

  • involuntary responses to stimuli
    atsatsa - expresses pain
  • uninflected words expressing comments on words uttered by oneself or others
  • short orders
  • polite expressions
    ɣa - “yes”

Calling sounds are used by people to interact with animals: tɕʰa - chasing a cat

Sentence final particles

je, Wo, ɕi, kɯ

Alternations

Sandhi

Sandhi can appear in all compounds but the ending one

Vowel Sandhi

With a few exceptions, ending vowels of /-a/ /-e/ /-o/ and /-u/ change to /-ɤ/, and /-i/ changes to /-ɯ/. For examples:

βɣa (mill) + sni (heart) = βɣɤsni (mill axle)

tɕheme (girl) + pɯ (little one) = tɕhemɤpɯ (little girl)

mbro (horse) + sno (saddle) = mbrɤsno (horse saddle)

ku (head) + rme (hair) = kɤrme (head hair)

smi (fire) + ɣot (warm light) = smɯɣot (light of the fire)


Consonant Sandhi

The first element of a cluster undergoes internal sandhi with voicing and nasal assimilation, as examples shown below:

tshɤt (goat) + mu (female) = tshɤnmu (ewe)

zrɯɣ (louse) + pɯ (little one) = zrɯxpɯ (little louse)

jaʁ (hand, arm) + pa (down) = jaχpa (palm)

mbrɤz (rice) + tshi (rice gruel) = mbrɤstshi (rice gruel)

Participles

There are three types of participles in Japhug: subject, object and oblique, respectively marked by the prefixes kɯ-, kɤ, and sɤ/z-, as examples illustrated below:

qur<v><tv><prc><sbj><px2sg> ↔ nɤkɯqur (The one/someone who helps you)

qur<v><tv><prc><obj><px2sg> ↔ nɤkɤqur (The one/someone that you help)

thu<v><iv><prc><obl><px1sg> ↔ asɤthu (The one whom I ask)

Participles can be used to build the purposive complements of motion verbs.

a-kɯ-rtoʁ
1SG.POSS-SBJ:PCP-look
jɤ-ɣe
AOR-come
 

Translation: S/he came to see me

Possessive prefixes on nouns

Japhug uses prefixes to show possessive properties of nouns. Most possessive prefixes are the same for all nouns, but some nouns require indefinite prefixes such as "tɯ" in "tɯ-ku", while some nouns does not require a prefix in indefinite form, such as kha "house". The paradigm below lists all the possessive prefixes with examples of two words "ku" (head) and "kha" (house)

Person prefix Example 1: ku "head" Example 2: kha "house"
<px1sg> a- a-ku a-kha
<px2sg> nɤ- nɤ-ku nɤ-kha
<px3sg> ɯ- ɯ-ku ɯ-kha
<px1du> tɕi- tɕi-ku tɕi-kha
<px2du><px3du> ndʑi- ndʑi-ku ndʑi-kha
<px1pl> ji- ji-ku ji-kha
<px2pl><px3pl> mɯ- mɯ-ku mɯ-kha
<ind> tɯ-/tɤ-/ta- tɯ-ku kha
<generic> tɯ- tɯ-ku tɯ-kha

morphTests of the chart:

ku<n><px1sg> ↔ aku

ku<n><px2sg> ↔ nɤku

ku<n><px3sg> ↔ ɯku

ku<n><px1du> ↔ tɕiku

ku<n><px2du> ↔ ndʑiku

ku<n><px3du> ↔ ndʑiku

ku<n><px1pl> ↔ jiku

ku<n><px2pl> ↔ mɯku

ku<n><px3pl> ↔ mɯku

ku<n><ind> ↔ tɯku

ku<n><generic> ↔ tɯku


kha<n><px1sg> ↔ akha

kha<n><px2sg> ↔ nɤkha

kha<n><px3sg> ↔ ɯkha

kha<n><px1du> ↔ tɕikha

kha<n><px2du> ↔ ndʑikha

kha<n><px3du> ↔ ndʑikha

kha<n><px1pl> ↔ jikha

kha<n><px2pl> ↔ mɯkha

kha<n><px3pl> ↔ mɯkha

kha<n><ind> ↔ kha

kha<n><generic> ↔ tɯkha



More examples of possessive prefixes as illustrated below:

nɯŋa<n><px1sg> ↔ anɯŋa

mu<n><px1sg> ↔ amu

wa<n><generic> ↔ tɯwa

Genitive marking on the possessor is optional. As seen in the example sentence below, the genitive postposition ɣɯ can be elided.

a-mu
1SG.POSS-mother
a-wa
1SG.POSS-father
ni
DU
(ɣɯ)
GEN
ndʑi-nɯŋa
3DU.POSS-cow
 

Translation: My parents' cow (Lit. my mother and my father's cow)

Negation on Verbs

Verb negation in Japhug is mainly expressed by prefixes on verbs, of which there are four -- mɤ-, mɯ-, ma- and mɯj- -- depending on the tense, aspect, mood, or evidentiality of the clause.

The prefix ma- is reserved for Prohibitive verb forms. Thus it obligatorily occurs alongside the imperative prefix tɤ-.

nɯna<v><iv><neg><imp> ↔ matɤnɯna (neg-imp-rest -- do not rest)

βze<v><tv><neg><imp> ↔ matɤβze (neg-imp-make[III] -- do not make/tell)

ma-tɤ-kɯ-ndza-a
neg-imp-2→1-eat-1sg later
tɕetʰa nɤ-χpi
2sg.poss-story
pjɯ-fɕat-a
ipfv-tell-1sg
 

Translation: "Don't eat me, and I will tell you a story."

The prefix mɯj- is a portmanteau of mɯ- and the sensory evidential prefix ɲɯ-, substituting for both when both would be present.

The prefix mɤ- is found on non-finite verb forms in these situations: without any orientation preverb, in Factual Non-Past and Irrealis form, and also when preceded by the interrogative ɯ- or the Proximative jɯ-.

jɯfɕɯr
yesterday
jɯ-mɤ-ɕ-tɤ-tʰu-t-a
PROXM-NEG-TRAL-AOR-ask-PST:TR-1SG
ʑo
EMPH
 

Translation: "Yesterday I almost did not go and ask about it."

The prefix mɯ- is used in all other situations.

mbrɤt<v><iv><neg> ↔ mɯmbrɤt ("not break")

tɤ-mu
INDEF.POSS-mother
DEM
ɣɯjpa
this.year
kɯre
DEM.LOC
mɤɕtʂa
until
mɯ-nɯ-si
NEG-AOR-die
 

Translation: "The old woman did not die until this year."

Collectives

Social Relation Collective

A social relation collective is a noun prefixed in kɤndʑi- , as examples shown below:

ɣɯfsu<n><coll> ↔ kɤndʑiɣɯfsu (friends)

χti<n><coll> ↔ kɤndʑiχti (companions)

Note that for non-reciprocal/unequal collectives, in which the members designate each other by different terms, the kɤndʑi- prefixed collectives involve both the noun and the its particular kinship terms. For example,

ɣe<n><coll> ↔ kɤndʑiɣe (grandparents and grandchildren)

me<n><coll> ↔ kɤndʑime (parents and daughter)

For animals, the kɤndʑi- prefixed collectives refer to both the animal and the its owners. For example,

paʁ<n><coll> ↔ kɤndʑipaʁ (pig and its owners)

tshɤt<n><coll> ↔ kɤndʑitshɤt (goat and its owners)

Reduplicated Collective

Some words with -ɯ can be reduplicated to refer to collectives, including:

χsɯ<n><coll> ↔ χsɯχsɤr (things in gold)

rŋɯ<n><coll> ↔ rŋɯrŋɯl (things in silver)

Orientation Preverbs

Orientation preverbs can indicate tense, aspect, mood, or evidentiality; they can also semantically indicate the spatial direction/orientation of an action or event described by the verb to which they are attached. All finite verb forms (except the Factual Non-Past and the Apprehensive) require an orientation preverb. Almost every verb has a lexically defined orientation, which determines which preverbs should be attached to them. The morphology of orientation preverbs varies across dialects -- this section will mostly concern the Kamnyu dialect.

Valency-increasing Derivations

Valency-increasing Derivations are inflections on verbs that increase their valency -- that is, the number of arguments the verb takes. There are four valency-increasing derivations in Japhug, all prefixes.

Sigmatic Causative

This is the main device for expressing causation in Japhug ("sigmatic" is a term coined by Jacques to refer to this specific construction). This prefix increases the valency of the base verb by one.

The sigmatic causative prefix has five regular allomorphs, sɯ-, sɯɣ-, z-, s- and sɤ-, depending on the base verb.


z- appears in front of multisyllabic verbs with a sonorant (m, n, ɣ, or r) initial consonant. For example: nɯna "rest" -> znɯna "stop, bring to rest"; mɯnmu "move" -> zmɯnmu "cause to move"

nɯna<v><iv><caus> ↔ znɯna (stop, bring to rest)

mɯnmu<v><iv><caus> ↔ zmɯnmu (cause to move)


sɯ- appears in front of monosyllabic verbs with a sonorant initial. For example: no "drive" -> sɯno "make/let drive"; mar "smear" -> sɯmar "make/let smear"

no<v><tv><caus> ↔ sɯno (make/let drive)

mar<v><tv><caus> ↔ sɯmar (make/let smear)


sɯɣ- appears in front of intransitive verbs with nasal (except ŋ-), rhotic, or semi-vowel initial consonants. For example: jɤɣ "finish" -> sɯɣjɤɣ "finish", ɲo "be prepared" -> sɯɣɲo "prepare"

jɤɣ<v><iv><caus> ↔ sɯɣjɤɣ (finish)

ɲo<v><iv><caus> ↔ sɯɣɲo (prepare)


s- appears only in front of multisyllabic verbs whose first syllable is qa-. For example: qanɯ "be dark" -> sqanɯ "put in darkness", qapɯ "be fallow" -> sqapɯ "leave fallow"

qanɯ<v><iv><caus> ↔ sqanɯ (put in darkness)

qapɯ<v><iv><caus> ↔ sqapɯ (leave fallow)


Otherwise, sɯ- appears in front of verbs with q- as their initial consonant. For example: qaʁ "peel" -> sɯqaʁ "make peel"

qaʁ<v><tv><caus> ↔ sɯqaʁ (make peel)


sɤ- appears in front of verbs beginning in a-, deleting the a- (in fact it is a fusion of sɯ- and the a-). For example: aɕqhe "cough" -> sɤɕqhe "cause to cough"; amɲɤm "be homogenous" -> sɤmɲɤm "do homogenously"

//aɕqhe<v><iv><caus> ↔ sɤɕqhe (cause to cough)

//amɲɤm<v><tv><caus> ↔ sɤmɲɤm (do homogenously)


sɯ- and sɯɣ- also alternately appear on all verb forms not included above.

(sɯ- occurs in most environment, so it can be regarded as the default)


Besides these, there exist numerous instances of irregular sigmatic causative prefixes.

Tropative

The tropative device takes an intransitive verb (that only takes an object) and creates a transitive verb whose object is the original subject, and whose subject is an agent who perceives the event described. I.e., semantically roughly speaking, "<subject> finds/considers <object> to have <verb>". The prefix is nɤ-.


rtaʁ<v><iv><trop> ↔ nɤrtaʁ ('be enough' : 'find sufficient')

wxti<v><iv><trop> ↔ nɤwxti ('be big' : 'find big')

zri<v><iv><trop> ↔ nɤzri ('be long' : 'find long')

pe<v><iv><trop> ↔ nɤpe ('be good' : 'consider to be good')

mnɤm<v><iv><trop> ↔ nɤmnɤm ('odorous' : 'to smell <tv>')

Valency-decreasing Derivations

Valency-decreasing derivations are inflections on verbs that decrease their valency.

Passive

This device transforms a transitive verb (typically, a verb that takes a subject and object) into an intransitive one (one that takes only an object). Note that oblique arguments and adjuncts are preserved. It is marked by the prefix a-.

rɤt<v><tv><pass> ↔ arɤt (be written)

mphɯr<v><tv><pass> ↔ amphɯr (be wrapped)

rku<v><tv><pass> ↔ arku (be in/be put in)

Reflexive

The reflexive prefix turns a regular transitive verb into an intransitive verb whose sole argument is both the transitive subject and object (i.e the subject is "performing" the verb on itself). The prefix is ʑɣɤ-.

χtɕi<v><tv><refl> ↔ ʑɣɤχtɕi (wash oneself)

nɤstu<v><tv><refl> ↔ ʑɣɤnɤstu (believe in oneself)

tshi<v><tv><refl> ↔ ʑɣɤtshi (hang oneself)

Gender

Except for animals, there is no morphological expression of gender in Japhug. The nouns pʰu ‘male’ and mu ‘female’ are used by itself or as second member of compounds:

kumpɣa<n><m> ↔ kumpɣaphu(rooster)

kumpɣa<n><f> ↔ kumpɣamu(hen)

lɯlu<n><m> ↔ lɯlɤphu(male cat)

lɯlu<n><f> ↔ lɯlɤmu (female cat)

The suffixes -pa and -mɯ also act as gender markers for a handful of nouns.

Gerund

Gerund is the noun form of a verb. In English, we add "-ing" to a verb (e..g "swimming"). But in Japhug, we add prefixes sɤ-/sɤz- to the verb stem with partial reduplication of the final syllable.

  • sɤz- for when the verb stem contains a sonorant initial syllabic prefix (like nɯ/ɤ-, rɯ/rɤ-, ɣɯ-/ɣɤ- etc)
  • sɤ- for everything else

Additional rules:

Verb stems that start with a- undergo vowel merger sɤ-ɤ- to /sɤ-/.

Verb stems that contain a reduplication are not triplicated.


nɤre<v><ger> ↔ sɤznɤrɯre

ɣɤwu<v><ger> ↔ sɤzɣɤwɯwu

tu<v><ger> ↔ sɤtɯtu

mu<v><ger> ↔ sɤmɯmu

amdzɯ<v><ger> ↔ sɤɤmdzɯmdzɯ

nɯqambɯmbjom<v><ger> ↔ sɤznɯqambɯmbjom