Saturday, May 7, 2016

Verbs for Death in Ćwarmin

Ćwarmin has several verbs related to death – so, in some sense, much like English. Much like in English, there are differences related to register with some of them. There's also a pair that behave syntactically a bit different from other verbs, viz. narmras and mićsis. The subject is a family member or friend (or tribe or village member) of the deceased, and the deceased person appears in the possessed object form. If the subject is a personal pronoun, it appears in the distant genitive form. If the deceased person is a personal pronoun, it'll appear in the accusative. These verbs are defective, lacking all participle forms as well as the regular past - only the recent past exists for them. 

Tosman signifies succumbing to a disease. A variety of not entirely medically sound named afflictions exist. What case such an affliction takes is lexically determined - some are instrumental, some are in some locative case, some in the genitive case, some in the reflexive possessive case. 

Tosmatan signifies succumbing to the damage done by a physical accident or fight, sometimes with the causer of the damage or the event that caused it in the genitive. Matnan signifies dying rather immediately in a battle, fight, or accident.

Paran signifies killing someone accidentally. Guknan signifies manslaughter or murder. Gukvarn signifies carrying out capital punishment on someone. Nisnən signifies killing in a war or raid. 

Nəvrən signifies killing a mammal for food, tunogzan signifies wringing the neck off a bird (for food) (from tunog, neck), makman signifies hitting a fish to a rock.



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