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Aspects of the grammar of Tundra Yukaghir
Schmalz, M.
Publication date 2013
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Citation for published version (APA):
Schmalz, M. (2013). Aspects of the grammar of Tundra Yukaghir.
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Acknowledgements vii
List of abbreviations viii
1. Introduction 1
1.1 Linguistic ‘taxonomy’ of Tundra Yukaghir, its dialects and
genetic affiliation 1
1.2 Origin of the ethnonym ‘Yukaghir’ and the autonym wadul 11 1.3 Origin of the ethnicity ‘Yukagir’ and interactions with the
neighboring peoples 13
1.4 Area inhabited by Yukaghirs: previously and nowadays 14
1.5 Economics 17
1.6 Sociolinguistic situation 18
1.7 Methodology 20
1.8 A note on the spelling and glossing system adopted in this work 23
2. Phonology 25 2.1 Segments 25 2.2 Phonotactics 30 2.2.1 Positional restrictions 30 2.2.2 Adjacency restrictions 31 2.2.3 Syllable structure 34 2.2.4 Vowel harmony 38
2.2.5 Some remarks on the significance of ‘foot’ in TY 42 2.3 Phonological alternations 44
2.3.1 Hiatus resolution 44
2.3.2 Prevention of illicit consonant clusters 47 2.3.3 Onset-coda alternation of voiced obstruents 48
2.3.4 Voicing 49 2.3.5 Devoicing 49 2.4 Morphophonemic alternations 50 2.4.1 Vowels 50 2.4.2 Consonants 53 2.4.2.1 /j/-related alternations 53 2.4.2.2 Other alternations 55 2.5 Rule ordering 58 2.6 Suprasegmentals 2.6.1 Stress 58 2.6.2 Intonation 60 2.7 Orthography 62 3. Morphology 63
3.1 Basic morphological profile of TY 63 3.1.1 Typological characteristic of TY morphology 63
ii 3.1.2 Marking of relations 66 3.1.3 Morphological processes 67 3.2 Parts of speech 69 3.3 Noun morphology 79 3.3.1 Noun inflexion 79 3.3.1.1 Cases 79 3.3.1.1.1 Nominative 79 3.3.1.1.2 Accusative 79 3.3.1.1.3 Ergative 81 3.3.1.1.4 Absolutive 82 3.3.1.1.5 Genitive 83 3.3.1.1.6 Dative 87 3.3.1.1.7 Instrumental 89 3.3.1.1.8 Locative 90 3.3.1.1.9 Ablative 91 3.3.1.1.10 Prolative 91 3.3.1.1.11 Comitative 92 3.3.1.1.12 Purposive 92 3.3.1.2 Number 93 3.3.1.3 Pertensive 97 3.3.2 Noun formation 98 3.3.2.1 Suffixal derivation 98 3.3.2.2 Conversion 107 3.3.2.3 Compounding 107 3.4 Verb morphology 108 3.4.1 Verb subclasses 109 3.4.1.1 Action verbs 110 3.4.1.2 Qualitative verbs 112 3.4.1.3 Quantitative verbs 112 3.4.1.4 Denominal verbs 113
3.4.1.5 The deictic verb 113
3.4.2 Verb inflexion 114
3.4.2.1 Person, number, (in)transitivity and focus type 114
3.4.2.2 Tense 119 3.4.2.3 Aspect 122 3.4.2.3.1 Inchoative 122 3.4.2.3.2 Durative 125 3.4.2.3.3 Habitual 127 3.4.2.3.4 Semelfactive 128 3.4.2.3.5 Iterative 129 3.4.2.3.6 Resultative 133 3.4.2.3.7 Proximative 134 3.4.2.3.8 Periphrastic perfective 135 3.4.2.4 Mood 135 3.4.2.4.1 Indicative 135 3.4.2.4.2 Potential 135
3.4.2.4.3 Imperative 136 3.4.2.4.4 Jussive 137 3.4.2.4.5 Hortative 138 3.4.2.4.6 Desiderative 138 3.4.2.4.7 Inclinative 139 3.4.2.4.8 Prospective 140 3.4.2.4.9 Obligative 141 3.4.2.4.10 Non-visual 142 3.4.2.5 Modal verbs 143 3.4.2.6 Participles 145 3.4.2.7 Converbs 148 3.4.3 Verb formation 151 3.4.3.1 Voice 151 3.4.3.1.1 Active voice 151 3.4.3.1.2 Passive voice 151 3.4.3.1.3 Causative 152 3.4.3.1.4 Reflexive 157 3.4.3.1.5 Reciprocal 157 3.4.3.2 (In)transitivity 159 3.4.3.2.1 Transitivizers 159 3.4.3.2.2 Detranzitivizers 160 3.4.3.3 Other derivations 161 3.4.3.3.1 Itive 161 3.4.3.3.2 Affective forms 163 3.4.3.4 Compounding 165 3.5 Pronouns 166 3.5.1 Personal pronouns 166 3.5.2 Possessive pronouns 172
3.5.3 Reflexive and reciprocal pronouns 174 3.5.4 Demonstrative pronouns 175 3.5.4.1 Attributive demonstratives 175 3.5.4.2 Independent demonstratives 179 3.5.5 Interrogative pronouns 185 3.5.6 Negative pronouns 186 3.5.7 Indefinite pronouns 188 3.5.8 Universal quantifiers 189 3.6 Adjectives 190 3.7 Adverbs 194 3.7.1 Attributive adverbs 195 3.7.1.1 Manner adverbs 195 3.7.1.2 Degree adverbs 197 3.7.1.3 Quantitative adverbs 198 3.7.2 Circumstantial adverbs 200 3.7.2.1 Spatial adverbs 200 3.7.2.2 Temporal adverbs 205 3.7.2.3 Relational adverbs 207
iv 3.7.3 Interrogative, negative and indefinite forms of adverbs 207
3.7.4 Polysemous adverbs 209 3.8 Postpositions 209 3.8.1 Introductory observations 209 3.8.2 Basic postpositions 213 3.8.3 Derived postpositions 214 3.9 Conjunctions 220 3.9.1 Coordinating conjunctions 221 3.9.1.1 Copulative conjunctions 221 3.9.1.2 Adversative conjunctions 223 3.9.1.3 Disjunctive conjunctions 224 3.9.2 Subordinating conjunctions 225 3.9.2.1 Temporal conjunctions 225 3.9.2.2 Conditional conjunctions 228 3.9.2.3 Causal conjunctions 229 3.9.2.4 Consecutive conjunctions 229 3.9.2.5 Comparative conjunctions 230 3.10 Particles 231 3.10.1 Original TY particles 231
3.10.1.1 Modal and emphatic particles 231
3.10.1.2 Deictic particles 233
3.10.1.3 Discourse markers 233 3.10.2 Particles borrowed from Yakut 233 3.10.3 Interjections 234 4. Syntax 236 4.1 Noun phrase 236 4.1.1 Word order 236 4.1.2 Modification 237 4.1.2.1 Possession 237 4.1.2.2 Apposition 240 4.1.3 Agreement 240 4.1.4 Coordination 241 4.2 Simple sentences 242 4.2.1 Word order 242
4.2.1.1 Basic word order 242
4.2.1.2 Marked word orders 244 4.2.1.2.1 Right dislocation 244 4.2.1.2.2 Left dislocation 245 4.2.1.2.3 Position of question words 246
4.2.2 Alignment system 247 4.2.3 Predication types 251 4.2.3.1 Nonverbal predicates 251 4.2.3.1.1 Identification 251 4.2.3.1.2 Equation 253 4.2.3.1.3 Existence 255
4.2.3.1.4 Possession 257
4.2.3.1.5 Qualification 257
4.2.3.1.6 Comparison 258
4.2.3.1.7 Compatibility of nonverbal predicates 259 with TAM markers
4.2.3.2 Verbal predicates 260
4.2.3.2.1 Intransitive vs. transitive predicates 261 4.2.3.2.2 Subgroups of intransitive predicates 262 4.2.3.2.3 Ditransitive predicates 263 4.2.3.2.4 Discrepancies between the (in)transitivity of 264
predicate and argument structure
4.2.4 Sentence types 265 4.2.4.1 Declarative sentences 265 4.2.4.2 Interrogative sentences 267 4.2.4.3 Imperative sentences 269 4.2.4.4 Exclamatives 271 4.2.5 Agreement 271 4.2.6 Impersonal constructions 272 4.3 Complex sentences 272 4.3.1 Complementation 272 4.3.1.1 Reduced complements 273 4.3.1.2 Sentence-like complements 275 4.3.1.3 Complementation in embedded clauses 276 4.3.1.4 Speech-reporting strategies as instances of clausal 277 complementation
4.3.1.4.1 Direct speech 277 4.3.1.4.2 Indirect speech 278 4.3.1.5 Predicate clause as a subtype of complement clauses 279 4.3.1.6 Substitutes for complementation 279
4.3.2 Adverbial clauses 280
4.3.2.1 Switch-reference 280
4.3.2.2 Types of adverbial clauses 283 4.3.2.2.1 Temporal clauses 283 4.3.2.2.2 Conditional clauses 285 4.3.2.2.3 Causal clauses 287 4.3.2.2.4 Consecutive clauses 288 4.3.2.2.5 Final clauses 288 4.3.2.2.6 Concessive clauses 289 4.3.2.2.7 Comparative clauses 289 4.3.2.2.8 The converb monur 290
4.3.3 Relative clauses 291
4.3.3.1 General observations 291 4.3.3.2 Syntactic types of relative clauses 293 4.3.3.3 Restrictive vs. non-restrictive relative clauses 296
4.3.3.4 Relativizers 297
vi
4.3.4.1 Copulative compound sentences 298
4.3.4.2 Adversative compound sentences 299
4.3.4.3 Disjunctive compound sentences 300
4.3.4.4 Explanatory compound sentences 300
4.3.4.5 Contrastive compound sentences 300
4.3.4.6 Additive compound sentences 300
5. Information structure 301
5.1 Topic 301
5.2 Focus 302
5.2.1 SAs with the single pragmatic function of focus 304 5.2.1.1 Focal predicate 304
5.2.1.2 Focal core argument 306
5.2.1.3 Focal peripheral constituent 309
5.2.1.4 Topical argument 311
5.2.1.5 Topical predicate 315
5.2.1.6 Thetic sentences 315
5.2.1.7 Focus articulations of TY: generalizing remarks 318 5.2.2 SAs with multiple pragmatic functions 321
5.2.2.1 Focal topics (presentative sentences) 321
5.2.2.2 Contrastive foci and contrastive topics 324 5.2.3 The proclitic me= 331 5.2.4 Narrow focus on the predicate accompanied by 336
a qualitative adverb 5.2.5 Functional scope of the focus markers in TY 337 5.2.6 Focus in negative sentences 339
5.2.7 Focus in the passive 343
5.2.8 Paradigmatic deviations 345
5.2.8.1 Initial general observations 345
5.2.8.2 Systematic deviations from the standard usage 348 (particular focus articulations) Appendix 350
Summary 351
Samenvatting 356
