Yaraghu classes & agreement
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Morphology and morphosyntax related to noun class
This public article was written by [Deactivated User], and last updated on 13 May 2020, 11:43.
[comments] yrwgendernoun classverb classagreementmorphologymorphosyntax
2. Yaraghu phonology
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?FYI...
This article is a work in progress! Check back later in case any changes have occurred.
This article is a work in progress! Check back later in case any changes have occurred.
Yaraghu has three noun classes or genders: Lunar, Solar, and Umbral. Each of which has its own distinct declension, agreement (for verbs, adjectives, and possessed nouns) and anaphoric pronouns. While many words, especially abstract concepts, are assigned arbitrarily based on historic phonological processes, there some strong semantic criteria that define many:
- Solar
- The sun, daytime
- Fire, most sources of light or heat
- Wind & sky
- Plants, fruit & veg, wooden things
- The sun, daytime
- Lunar
- The moon and stars, twilight
- Water, tides, clouds, rain
- Time (unless it better fits under 'day' or 'night')
- People and spirits
- Metal things
- The moon and stars, twilight
- Umbral
- Darkness, shadow, night
- Earth, soil, rock, clay
- Animals, bacteria, viruses, & fungi
- Body parts
- Darkness, shadow, night
There are some exceptions, however. For example, although most words relating to people ('person', 'child', professions, friendship and kindship terms) are Lunar, a few (with no particular semantic pattern) are Solar. And sometimes a word could conceivably belong to more than one category—for example, a 'boat' is typically made of wood (Solar) but is also associated with water (Lunar), so it may be unclear where they belong.
By and large, the three classes reflect three markedly different phonoaesthetics, although this is only a strong tendency and not a strict rule. These phonoaesthetics can be used to help identify the class of a noun which does not have clear semantic criteria, although it is not completely definitive. For more information on this, see here.
There is also a less-formalized recognition of animacy, reflected only in some pronouns and in some cases of verb-class assignment. This typically recognizes people, spirits, celestial bodies, and animals as animate, and everything else as inanimate.
[you can look at the Grammar Tables for now... although I might change them up a bit]
Yaraghu verbs are classed as either Inherent or Non-inherent. Inherent verbs are a closed class with relatively few members, which typically fall into one of three categories:
- Copular verbs, such as 'be', 'become', or 'seem'
- Stative verbs and predicative adjectives with a permanent or long-term duration, such as 'be alive, belong to, originate from'
- Dynamic verbs that result in a change of state in the agent or patient, and which are typically associated with an animate agent, such as 'die, kill, burn'
Not all verbs that fit into the above category are Inherent, since it is a closed class. Verbs which show obvious derivational morphology or which are loaned from other languages are typically Non-inherent.
Inherency is not directly marked, but relates to how the verb agrees with its subject. In effect, non-inherent verbs take simple agreement suffixes, while inherent verbs have suppletive agreement, that is, an entirely different root is used depending on its subject. Therefore, most inherent verbs have three distinct forms. However, in some cases only one of the three genders takes a suppletive agreement, and the two others share a basic root that shows typical agreement markers.
A full list of inherent verbs and their forms [VERY WIP] is below. Many them appear to come from historically related roots, although many bear no resemblance at all to each other.
| Gloss | Lunar | Solar | Umbral |
|---|---|---|---|
| be, exist | wal /ɣʷal/ | pae /pɑe̞/ | vo /vo̞/ |
| change shape; shapeshift | yare /jaɾe̞/ | žeta /ʒe̞tɑ/ | linu /linu/ |
| kill | qwom /qʷəm/ | cape /kɑpe̞/ | neyen /ne̞je̞n/ |
| die | gum /gum/ | cwuva /kʷuva/ | wura /ɣʷuɾa/ |
TBA
Note that predicative adjectives are, for all intents and purposes, verbs, and so they are explained in those sections.
However, still similarly to verbs, while most attributive adjectives simply take agreement suffixes, there are some that have suppletive agreement stems. These are fewer and farther between than the Inherent verbs, although like them they form a closed class and typically relate to long-term or permanent states such as dead, alive, and personality descriptors. ✎ Edit Article ✖ Delete Article
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