97 lines
4.9 KiB
Org Mode
97 lines
4.9 KiB
Org Mode
#+setupfile: ../headers
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* Typological Outline of Proto-Ñyqy
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# - Is the language dominantly isolating or polysynthetic?
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# - If the language is at all polysynthetic, is it dominantly
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# agglutinative or fusional? Give examples of its dominant pattern
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# and any secondary patterns.
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# - If the language is at all agglutinative, is it dominantly
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# prefixing, suffixing or neither?
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# - Illustrate the major and secondary patterns (including infixation,
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# stem modification, reduplication, suprasegmental modification, and
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# suppletion).
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# - If the language is at all polysynthetic, is it dominantly
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# "head-marking", "dependent-marking", or mixed?
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# - Give some examples of each type of marking the language exhibits.
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Proto-Ñyqy is a language that appears to be strongly analytical and
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isolating. It relies mainly on its syntax when it comes to its grammar
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and seldom on morphological rules if at all. It wouldn’t really make
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much sense to say whether the language is postpositional or
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prepositional since the only rule defined in Hawkin’s Universals
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Proto-Ñyqy respects is relative clauses and possessives before the
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noun, though it tends to make Proto-Ñyqy slightly more postpositional
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than neutral. Most of its words contain either one or two syllables
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and its sentenses often revolve around linked morphemes which could be
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interpreted as grammatical particules. You can find some examples of
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Proto-Ñyqy and its translation below as well as its glossing.
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1. {{{recon(yq ñe pom qy)}}}
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dem.prox3 home gen 1sg.abs
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This house is mine
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2. {{{recon(cø ne)}}}
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1sg.poss.incl house.abs
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This is my house
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3. {{{recon(pim bú qi coq op)}}}
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mango 2sg.erg du eat pst
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We (two) ate a mango
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4. {{{recon(cø pim i bœ mygú coq ug mún op zø qy zúmu op)}}}
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POSS.1sg mango undef.art(ABS) def.art monkey(ERG) eat SUBJ PROG PST
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3sg(ABS) 1sg(ERG) see PST
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I saw the monkey that would have been eating a mango of mine
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In the first and second examples, we can notice the absence of a verb
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“to be” or any equivalent, this shows existential predicates did not
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need a verb in order to express the existance of something and its
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attributes. This also reveals the word order of the genitive form in
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Proto-Ñyqy, the genitive particle follows the element it propertizes
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and is followed by its property. For instance, in {{{recon(yq ñe pom qy)}}},
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{{{recon(yq ñe)}}} “this house” has the property of being mine {{{recon(qy)}}} is
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the first person singular). /I/ characterize /this house/, therefore /this
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house is of me/, /this is my house/. The main difference between the
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first and the second examples is the first example is the accent in
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the first example is on the fact that said house is /mine/, whereas in
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the second example “my house” is simply presented to the interlocutor.
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As you can see in the third example, Proto-Ñyqy used to have a dual
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number which has been lost in most of its decendent languages, and the
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remaining languages employ the former dual as their current plural
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dissmissing instead the old plural. Only does the Énanon keep it with
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its plural, using the former dual as a paucal. As indicated by its
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name, the dual was used when referencing to two elements when an
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otherwise greater amount of elements would have required the plural.
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Hence, in this example, you could consider {{{recon(bú qi)}}} to be kind of
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a 2DU pronoun.
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# --- it is actually a bit more complex than that, as we’ll see in
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# chapter
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# [[#Structural-Preview-Structure-of-a-Nominal-Group-Numbers-n0a6umu058j0]].
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Finally, the fourth example gives us an overview of Proto-Ñyqy syntax,
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such as a different position depending on whether we use an indefinite
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or definite article, as well as a subclause inserted in the main
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clause defining a noun phrase, here {{{recon(zø)}}} refering to {{{recon(mygú)}}}.
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We can also clearly see the word order of main clauses presented as
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Patient-Agent-Verb. Although most of its are nominative languages,
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Aarlerte (3652) postulates in her recent papers Proto-Ñyqy might have
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been primarily ergative. The loss of this trait in its closest
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descendent languages such as Proto-Mojhal-Andelian and Proto-Tiltinian
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might indicate this feature was already unstable in Proto-Ñyqy.
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Ergativity might have been in use only in main clauses, and Aarlerte
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argues this might have been the last trace of ergativity in an
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otherwise nominative language.
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Note that although linguists suppose Proto-Ñyqy was a mostly
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analytical language, some people like to write related morphemes
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together as one word, hyphenated or not. Thus, the third example could
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also be written as {{{recon(pim búqi coqop)}}} or {{{recon(pim bú-qi coq-op)}}} by
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some. It is due to the fact Proto-Ñyqy was for a long time thought to
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be an agglutinative language like Proto-Mojhal-Andelian and the habit
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of writing related morphemes as one word stuck around. However,
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nowadays we know an analytical Proto-Ñyqy is instead most likely and
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scolars began writing morphenes separated from each other instead.
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