Rungus/Grammar

Inflectional Morphology

Transitive Prefixes

In Rungus, transitive verbs are those that can take an object. They are conjugated with a prefix (denoting aspect), and the appropriate personal pronoun is attached to the end (denoting the subject). The prefixes themselves are determined by phonological stipulations of the stem.

Verbs in Rungus should be tagged <v>, and transitive verbs can be subcategorized as <tv>. One of the aspects is the imperfective <impf>. The person tags needed in Rungus are <p1>, <p2>, and <p3>, and the number tags needed are <sg> and <pl>.

Prefixation on Stem Initial Voiceless Cs and /b/

For stems with initial voiceless plosives and fricatives, the prefix «ma» (var. «mo») is attached. The vowel in the prefix assimilates to match the backness of the first vowel in the stem (front vowels get «ma», and back vowels get «mo»). The stem initial C then becomes either /m/ or /n/, depending on POA (e.g. /p/ becomes /m/, while /t/ becomes /n/ and /k/ becomes /ŋ/). The following examples are all conjugated in the first person singular <p1> <sg>, represented by the first person singular personal pronoun «oku»:

Stem initial voiceless bilabials/labiodentals (and /b/):

• panau<v><tv><impf><p1><sg> ↔ mamanau oku
• babo<v><tv><impf><p1><sg> ↔ mamabo oku
• bubul<v><tv><impf><p1><sg> ↔ momubul oku
• valiu<v><tv><impf><p1><sg> ↔ mamaliu oku
• vudut<v><tv><impf><p1><sg> ↔ momudut oku

Stem initial voiceless alveolars:

• taʼud<v><tv><impf><p1><sg> ↔ manaʼud oku

Stem initial voiceless velars:

• kama<v><tv><impf><p1><sg> ↔ mangama oku

Pronouns

Demonstrative Pronouns

There are four demonstrative pronouns in Rungus, differentiated by proximity (proximal, distal) and time (temporal).

• iti<prn><dem><prx> ↔ iti
• ino<prn><dem><dst> ↔ ino
• ilo<prn><dem><dst> ↔ ilo
• iri<prn><dem><> ↔ iri

Articles

There are six articles in Rungus:

• i<det><dem> ↔ i
• o<det><dem> ↔ o
• it<det><dem><def><nom> ↔ it
• ot<det><dem><ind><nom> ↔ ot
• dit<det><dem><def><acc> ↔ dit
• dot<det><dem><ind><acc> ↔ dot

The two determiners i and o appear respectively before proper names and vocative terms. Additionally, the -t may be optionally deleted from the other articles, especially before consonants.

Enclitics

Perfective

Enclitics of realisation -no = already

• limo<n><perf> ↔ limono ('already five')
• imot<v><perf><p1><sg> ↔ nemotkuno ('already seen by me')
• pongo<v><perf> ↔ nopongono ('always finished')

Imperfective

Enclitics of expectation -po = still more, yet

• limo<n><imperf> ↔ limopo ('five more')
• imot<v><imperf> ↔ imatai ('seen first')
• pongo<v><imperf><neg> ↔ amupo opongo ('not yet finished')

Progressive

Enclitics of continuation -nopo = already started, not yet completed, always

• limo<n><> ↔ limonopo ('always five')