Trentish Morphology
Morphological typology
Trentish is a highly polysynthetic language. The verb word itself can have up to eight components, some of which themselves may comprise multiple morphemes:
| § | imenggrrnoqukwauhglathanxyr |
| i-mel-grq-noqukwa-uhg-latha-ny-xr | |
| FICT-CUMUL-DIS-president-MIDD-mess:up-1-3 | |
| "for the president to continue making himself worse (in a way I don't approve of)" |
It is predominantly agglutinative, as morphemes can generally be easily isolated.
Morphological processes
- Infixation, stem modification (such as ablaut), and suprasegmental modification do not play roles in Trentish morphology.
Prefixation
Trentish is predominantly prefixing. Most derivation is formed by prefixes, and most verbal morphology is prefixed.
| § | noikaƛi |
| no-ikaƛi | |
| OCCUPATION-trade | |
| "trader" |
Some prefixes, which may have once had a strong stress accent, cause a following vowel to drop, and appropriate assimilations to be carried out:
| § | ixliiƛan |
| ixli-gùƛan | |
| REVERSE-find | |
| "misplace" |
Suffixation
Some grammatical operations are carried out with suffixes.
| § | rlrswum yetshenlyu | |
| rlrswu-m | yetshe-ny-lu | |
| dish-PAT | steal-1-2 | |
| (I know) "you are stealing a plate" | ||
Reduplication
Reduplication is used to produce resultative nouns from verbal roots.
| § | malimali |
| mali-mali | |
| REDUP-speak | |
| "speech, message" |
In reduplication, no more than the first two syllables are reduplicated. Also, some complex segments are subject to simplification: ejective stops become plain stops, and ƛ becomes l.
| § | igaikaƛi |
| iga-ikaƛi | |
| REDUP-trade | |
| "transaction" |
| § | lohƛoh |
| loh-ƛoh | |
| REDUP-worry | |
| "concern" |
Head/dependent marking
Trentish is mainly head-marking.
Possession
Possession is head-marking: a noun is marked for whether it is possessed, and by whom.
| § | gatrnyü | gatrlusyi |
| gate-r-nyü | gate-r-lusyi | |
| house-POSS-1 | house-POSS-2 | |
| "my house" | "your house" |
Nouns with adjectives
Dependent-marking: adjectives cannot stand alone, but are either compounded to a noun, or to a verb such as kwr "be", which does not mark the head noun as being modified. [Perhaps it should?]
| § | oxalüu | 'u oxalükwr |
| oxalü-u | u oxalü-kwr | |
| dead-man | man dead-be | |
| "a dead man" | "a man who is dead" |
Prepositional phrases
Head-marking: in many cases the preposition is compounded to the noun, thus anglu "in the throat". In longer words (including all words formed by reduplication), a different construction:
| § | ngohlungohƛusheya exr | |
| ngohlungohƛusheya | e-xr | |
| award | with-3 | |
| "with an award" | ||
Verb phrases
Head-marking: the verb takes markers for agent and patient, as well as the observer (or frame). A verb can thus stand on its own as a full sentence.
| § | xinisetenxyr |
| xini-sete-ny-xr | |
| 3-kill-1-3 | |
| "(I know) she's killing him" |
Nouns
Prototypical Trentish nouns refer to concrete entities with implied or bounded quantity. They are found as the subjects of clauses, and incorporate with verbs as objects. They can take number and topic/second marking.
Complex nouns (a category including proper names, reduplicated terms, and words longer than three syllables) do not normally participate in incorporation.
The noun word
The structure of the noun word is currently:
- (prepositional)-(number)-(incorporated adjective)-(reduplication)-stem-(topic/second)
Possessability
Trentish has a class of words which are inherently possessed, that is, that must appear with a possessive, and a class of words which are optionally possessed, which may or may not appear with a possessive.
Optionally possessed things are called apen.
The possessive marker for inherently possessed words is -r- between the owned and the owner, while apen words are supposed to use a different construction.
The information on this section is incomplete because it is lost. I may need to reinvent it, or get rid of the distinction [until recently I had forgotten entirely that possessability was a factor, and later translations may ignore this]...
Number
Trentish nouns are by default unmarked for number. There is, however, optional number marking, along two axes, paucal vs. plural and separate vs. aggregate? congregate? (physically grouped together). The singular may be overtly marked with sr̀- /s(ʌ)-/.
| shatwoh | “dog/dogs” | srshatwoh | “one dog/a dog” | |
| meshatwoh | “a few dogs” (in different places) |
qlumeshatwoh | “many dogs” (in different places) | |
| enshatwoh | “a few dogs” (in one place) |
qlenshatwoh | “many dogs” (in one place) |
The markers are:
| paucal | plural | |
|---|---|---|
| separate | /me-/ | /ʔlu-me-/ |
| aggregate | /el-/ | /ʔl-el-/ |
Topic/second
Trentish nouns mark for “topic” and “second”. Roughly, topic is the most important argument of the verb (subject or direct object), and second is the other; indirect objects not being marked. The topic marker is -ba /-pa/, and the second marker -òm /-(ɔ)m/.
| § | shatwohba shaƛumohm ungupshixr | ||
| shatwoh-ba | shaƛumoh-m | u-ngupshe-i-xr | |
| dog-TOP | person-SEC | person-hunt-1-3 | |
| "The dog(s) hunt(s) a person/people" | |||
| § | shaƛumohba shatwohm ungupshixr | ||
| shaƛumoh-ba | shatwoh-m | u-ngupshe-i-xr | |
| person-TOP | dog-SEC | person-hunt-1-3 | |
| "The person/people was/were hunted by dog(s)." | |||
Voice
Trentish verbs are marked for voice.
There are five voices, active, unergative, unaccusative, passive, and middle. Their use depends on the presence of and importance given to the agent and patient.
| agent | patient | voice | marker |
|---|---|---|---|
| high | low | active / middle | ∅ / /ʊk-/ |
| high | none | unergative | /tɬi-/ |
| low | high | passive / middle | ∅ / /ʊk-/ |
| none | high | unaccusative | /ʔuu-/ |
The middle voice is used if the agent and patient refer to the same entity (me and myself) or an entity and a part of itself (me and my nose).
The high agent or patient is marked with the topic marker /-pɑ/. The low agent or patient is marked with /-(ɔ)m/.
Aspect
There are at least six aspects, which are focuses on the status of the event.
| aspect | description | marker |
|---|---|---|
| imperfective | seen as in progress | ∅ |
| perfective | seen as completed | /po-/ |
| iterative | seen as happening many times together | /tʰø-/ |
| cumulative | iterative with cumulative effect | /mel-/ |
| reluctative | seen as happening with reluctance | /ɑk-/ |
| effrenative? | seen as happening without reluctance (either in a good or bad way) |
/pʰli-/ |
Mood
| mood | description | marker |
|---|---|---|
| indicative | seen as real | ∅ |
| probable | seen as expected or inevitable; future |
/tʷo-/ |
| fictive | seen as hypothetical; subjunctive, infinitive, (negative) |
/i-/ |
Adjectives
There are two types of adjective in Trentish, scalar and binary. Scalar adjectives are always marked for degree (the simplest form is the positive /ʔo-/). Adjectives can be used nominally.
