Difference between revisions of "Eastern Burushaski/Language"

Revision as of 03:26, 18 February 2019

Demonstrative Pronouns

note: <mf> is used for the class of nouns that are human, and can be either male or female, while <clx> is used for non-human concrete and <cly> is used for the non-human abstract/amorphous noun class.

Reduplication

Reduplication is very productive in Burushaski, and can be used in a number of ways.

Partial Reduplication

Partial reduplication is only used in casual conversation. It most often applies to nouns, though Yoshioka claims that it can also be used on phrases and even clauses (p. 169). They are not clear as to the semantics of partial reduplication, and don't give any direct translations of any of their examples. Munshi's examples, on the other hand, have translations, and give a sense of a frequentative/iterative.

• haralt̯ cʰu-cʰur manimi "It drizzled"
  • cʰur "drop"
  • cʰur<n><redp> ↔ cʰu-cʰur
• haralt̯ ča-čar manimi "It rained heavily"
  • čar "pour"
  • čar<n><redp> ↔ ča-čar
• giyaase ǰi-ǰir et̯imi "The baby cried loudly"
  • ǰir "cry"
  • ǰir<n><redp> ↔ ǰi-ǰir
• hilese galt̯ar d̪a-d̪al et̯imi "They boy dragged the tree branch"
  • d̪al "drag"
  • d̪al<n><redp> ↔ d̪a-d̪al
• in d̪a-d̪ar imanimi "He shivered"
  • d̪ar "shake"
  • d̪ar<n><redp> ↔ d̪a-d̪ar

Full Reduplication

Full reduplication is done "without any phonological modification, such as phoneme alternation, vowel lengthening, phoneme augmentation, and so forth." (Yoshioka 2012:166) Yoshioka describes full reduplication as adding emphasis, and reduplicated words of other parts of speech often become adverbs.

Notably, reduplication can also happen across a conjunction

(wasn't sure how to tag these...)

Verb stems

Burushaski verbs are highly inflected, but verbs stems often have only two forms: a "base stem" for perfective tenses (e.g. simple past, present perfect) and a "derived stem" for imperfective tenses (e.g. future, present progressive) (Munshi in progress: 58). Examples with the verb 'to run' also from Munshi.

• Perfective stem gaarc-
  • u gaarcuman "They ran" (Simple Past)
    • gaarc<v><iv><past><actv><ind><p3><pl> ↔ gaarcuman
  • u gaarcam "They had run" (Past Perfect)
    • gaarc<v><iv><past><pfct><actv><ind><p3><pl> ↔ gaarcam
• Imperfective stem gaarš-
  • u gaaršuman "They will run" (Future)
    • gaarš<v><iv><fti><actv><p3><pl> ↔ gaaršuman
  • u gaaršaan "They run" (Present Progressive)
    • gaarš<v><iv><pres><prog><actv><p3><pl> ↔ gaaršaan
  • u gaaršume baan "They have been running" (Present Perfect Continuous)
    • [not sure how to tag the periphrastic -- have to investigate the participle-ish thing]
  • u gaaršam "They used to run" (Past Progressive)
    • gaarš<v><iv><past><prog><actv><p3><pl> ↔ gaaršume

Causatives

Burushaski can form causatives in three ways, increasing the valence of the verb by one.

• Null derivation (just adding another pronominal prefix)
  • sabrina gučʰamo "Sabrina slept"
    • gučʰa<v><iv><past><actv><ind><p3><f><sg> ↔ gučʰamo
  • saliime sabrina mogučami "Saleem put Sabrina to sleep"
    • gučʰa<v><tv><past><actv><ind><p3><m><sg><p3><f><sg> ↔ mogučʰami
    • no explanation of the change in aspiration -- may be a typo in source, or related to stress shift
• Lengthening of vowel of object (theme) prefix
  • sabrinaa keek d̪esmanumo "Sabrina made the cake"
    • sman<v><tv><past><actv><ind><p3><f><sg><p3><xy> ↔ d̪esmanumo
    • Don't know if keek is an X or Y class word
  • karime sabrina keek d̪umoosmanimi "Karim caused Sabrina to make the cake"
    • sman<v><tv><past><actv><ind><p3><m><sg><p3><f><sg><p3><xy> ↔ d̪umoosmanimi
    • Don't know if keek is an X or Y class word
• Prefix [s] (intransitives only)
  • hiles iwarimi "The boy is tired"
    • war<v><iv><past><actv><ind><p3><sg> ↔ iwarimi
  • ǰaa hiles esparam "I made the boy tired"
    • war<v><tv><past><actv><ind><p1><sg><p3><sg> ↔ iwarimi

(not sure how to properly tag subject vs object agreement)

"To be" copula forms

Forms are taken from Munshi (in progress) and Basic Burushaski Vocabulary by Stephen R Willson (1999). Munshi lists the lemma for "to be" as [b], and it appears to take the past perfect verb suffixes in the past tense (Munshi example 86b) and the present progressive suffixes in the present tense (Munshi 86d). Munshi does not address the negative copula forms directly, but does list the [a-] prefix as denoting a negative (Munshi 3.1.2.4). It is possible that the [b] lemma is expressed as a [p] due to the [a-] prefix rather than being a distinct root.

Obligatory possession

Some nouns in Burushaski always appear with possessive markers. Yoshioka (36) cites Berger (1998a: 44), who says that there are about "150 substantives" in this class. (Yoshioka goes on to give examples that include nouns and prepositions, and it is not clear whether they count as "substantives.") Paradigms of possessed nouns are drawn from Munshi (in progress), because Yoshioka doesn't cite full forms.

Words fall into (at least) two paradigms of prefixes, apparently without semantic or phonological rationale. Yoshioka also identifies a third type of possessed nouns, which they claim only includes 5 nouns, whose prefixes they list are mostly long-vowel versions of the Type-II prefixes. Yoshioka also lists possessive endings for X and Y class words, which Munshi does not cite forms for.

Numerals

Numerals are inflected for noun class (human, X, Y). For 1-3, there is a distinction between all three, but for 4-10, human and X class numerals are homophonous.

(talk about above 10)