Morphophonemic notation

Mutation

Other miscellaneous mutations:

• /m/ becomes /ɨɴ/ under syllabic mutation.

Note:

• It is not possible to synchronically predict what forms /w j ɦ/ will take finally; /p t k/ occur when the Adāta forms had /b d g/.
• Geminate mutation can only occur before vowels or at the ends of words, due to phonotactics.
  • When geminate mutation cannot occur, /ə/ may be inserted to break consonant + affricate clusters.
• Intervocalic mutation may occur after even consonants, due to loss of reduced vowels.

Umlaut

Note:

• Some words are invariant under umlaut - these words are characterised by geminate mutation with vowel-initial prefixes.
• /ɨ ɨː/ after /t n θ s z ɹ ɲ ʃ ʒ/, especially /ɨː/, are usually centralised variants of /u uː/, in which case it behaves like /u uː/ under umlaut.

Morphology

Ayāsth morphology is characterised by the presence of both prefixing and suffixing morphology. In particular, it is necessary to speak of capital inflection classes and caudal inflection classes: both the head and tail of an inflecting word will mutate with the presence or absence of suffixes.

The classes of inflection are characterised by whether or not the inflecting end is a vowel or not, and in the case of consonants, also whether or not it undergoes geminate mutation when a vocalic affix is present. Invariance under umlaut mutation is usually linked to geminate mutation: this is because geminate mutation occurs as a result of apocope of a reduced vowel, which shields the vowel that is retained from umlaut.

Nominal morphology

Ayāsth nouns are marked for case and quantity, and optionally take demonstrative and personal suffixes (but not both). Rather curiously for a language with case-marking, the agent and patient roles are not distinguished in any way: this is due to the development of case by fusing prepositions to nouns.

Quantifiers

Demonstratives

Cases

Pronominal morphology

Adjectivial morphology

Ayāsth adjectives are strictly speaking indeclinable forms, however, zero-derivation produces both nominalised forms, which can be turned into adverbs by casting it in the instrumental or the abessive, for example:

• Adjective: êmm beautiful
• Noun: êmm beauty
• Affirmative adverb: ässêmm with beauty, beautifully
• Negative adverb: əlêmm without beauty

Verbal morphology

Of all the Adātan languages, Ayāsth by far has the most radically altered and augmented verbal morphology. Ayāsth verbs are marked for:

• Subject
• Object (if animate)
• Register (plain and honorific)
• Mood
• Aspect

Ayāsth preserves the classical Adāta lack of tense-marking on the verb, unlike Adhâde, which innovated tense out of certain combinations of mood and aspect.

Principal parts

Ayāsth verbs are cited with six principal parts.

1. Full stem
2. Prevocalic reduced stem, or the 3sg_nom, inanimate acc, indicative affirmative, active plain habitual
3. Preconsonantal reduced stem, or the 3sg_nom, 2sg_acc, indicative affirmative, active plain habitual
4. Lengthened stem, or the 3sg_nom, inanimate acc, indicative affirmative, passive plain habitual
5. Consonant stem, or the gerund

The caudal conjugation class can be determined by examining the second and third parts, while the capital conjugation class can be determined by examining the first and second parts. The fourth part can always be recovered from the first part. The fifth part can only be recovered if the Adāta form is known.

The citation form is the first part.

Therefore, the classical Adāta verb pilaza would be cited in the form of one of the following in Ayāsth:

• pëlara (ərfëlarr, ərfëlazioƞ, ərfëlarāl, pëläźëeƞ)
• pëlara (pëlarr-, pëlaz-, pëlarā-, pëlaz-)
• pëlaz (-a, pëläźëeƞ, rhotic caudal)

Compare paso:

• påzo (ərfåss, ərfåzioƞ, ərfåzōl, päźëeƞ)
• påzo (påss-, påz-, påzō-, paz-)
• påz (-o, päźëeƞ)

And compare mizāko:

• mëzōxo (əryƞëzōx, əryƞëzōxioƞ, əryƞëzōxōl, mëzâxëeƞ)
• mëzōxo (mëzōx-, mëzōx-, mëzōxō, mëzāx-)
• mëzōx (-o, mëzâxëeƞ, mu capital, invariant caudal)

Non-finite forms

Ayāsth has a single non-finite form, inherited from classical Adāta: -ëeƞ, which has several uses:

• As a generic verbal noun: äwöeƞ speaking, speech, from äü, to speak.
• As a participle: ëkxëeƞä ... that I kill, from ëkxu, to kill.
• As a coordinate/absolute clause.

The participle may be marked for aspect and subject. Note that normal verbal personal affixes are not used, instead, the nominal personal suffixes are used.

Finite verb structure

1. Subject marker (omitted with imperatives)
2. Mood
3. Stem
4. Voice, aspect and register
5. Object marker (omitted with intransitives and inanimate objects)

Although Ayāsth has head-marking, it does not feature any dependent-incorporation at all, unlike the archetypical polysynthetic language.

Subject marking

Mood

Aspect, voice and register

Active voice

Passive voice

Object marking

The object marking suffixes are derived from Adāta personal pronouns in the oblique case. Note that object marking only occurs when the referrent is animate; inanimate objects are not marked on the verb.

Compound formation

Keeping in mind that Ayāsth is a right-branching (i.e. head-first) language, the following compounding processes are found in Ayāsth:

• noun + noun → noun
  • genitive relation, i.e. downtown
    • instrumental relation, i.e. battle-axe
    • locative relation, i.e. townpeople
  • oblique (purpose) relation, i.e. dog-house
  • essive relation, i.e. god-king
• noun + ən + noun → noun
  • coordinate relation, i.e. sun-and-moon
• noun + adjective → noun
  • attributive-essive relation, i.e. highland
• adjective + noun → adjective
  • comparative relation, i.e. brick-red
• noun + participle → noun
  • agent relation, i.e. fisherman
  • patient relation, i.e. appointee
• participle + adjective → adjective
  • adverbial relation, i.e. overcooked
• verb + verb → verb
  • coordinate relation, i.e. go hunting

Syntax

The basic word order in Ayāsth is topic verb subject object:

Adverbs are generally ordered time manner place:

Case markers: affixes or clitics?

Strictly speaking, Ayāsth case markers are clitics, not affixes, as there is no case concord between a nominal and its modifier.

Subject-object disambiguation strategy

Without the benefit of context, the sentence above is ambiguous, and can be interpreted as either of the following:

• The woman killed her/his father.
• His father killed her.
• A man killed his daughter.

To be clearer, one might try to cast the verb in the passive:

However, two interpretations are still possible, due to the antibenefactive passive construct of Ayāsth, which replaces the Adāta futilitive mood. Although the first interpretation is no longer possible, a fourth one is:

• The woman's father was killed (by him).

If explicit pronouns are added, then there is less ambiguity (pronoun resolution aside).

With passive sentences, one might cast the agent in the ablative to disambiguate.

Predicate formation

Nominal predicates

Nominal predicates are formed with the copula etśe. Note that the copula is morphosyntactically intransitive - object marking is never used, and explicit pronouns are always in the nominative.

Stative predicates

Affirmative stative predicates are formed using the construct äfe (to exist) + instrumental:

Negative stative predicates are formed using the construct äfe + abessive:

Comparative nominal predicates are formed with the construct äfe + essive:

Comparative adjectivial predicates are formed with the construct äfe + instrumental + comparative:

Clause nominalisation and periphrastic constructs

Verbal clauses are nominalised by replacing the verb of a sentence with its participle (which also functions as a gerund), adding the appropriate nominal personal suffix to mark the subject. An explicit subject in the nominalised clause will be cast in the genitive, instead of the direct case.

One use of nominalised clauses is in the construct äfe (to exist) + instrumental, which makes stative predicates (from both dynamic and static predicates).

If the auxiliary verb is in the perfective, the construct expresses the past tense:

If the main verb is in the perfective, the construct expresses the perfect of result:

If the main verb is in the imperfective, the construct expresses the perfect of persistent situation:

Relative clauses and nominal modification

Ayāsth is strongly right-branching - adjectives (including numerals and ordinals, which are considered as such) follow the head, as do relative clauses. Adjective-modified nominals have a simple syntax:

A relative clause is formed by extracting the head from a nominalised clause, then placing it before the participle.

It is also possible to leave the head its normal position and place a pronoun before the participle instead.

The passive voice

The Ayāsth passive voice, as mentioned in passing above, has some uncommon properties.

A verb in the passive voice still takes object marking affixes:

If an agent is specified, the subject marking affixes are also used:

An explicit agent may be placed in the topic position like in an active sentence:

Or in the subject position, before the patient:

Or as an adverb in the ablative:

The Ayāsth passive also takes over the antibenefactive function of the Adāta futilitive, as in the following example:

This is equivalent to this Adāta sentence:

Sample text

The Legend of Emperor Sinakan

Interlinear gloss