Saturday, June 11, 2016

Ŋʒädär: Explicit Absolutive and Adverb Marking, Zero Absolutive and Adverb Marking

In Ŋʒädär, there is a distinction among adjective-like words - those that are primarily adjectival, and those that are primarily adverbial. There are both morphological and minor syntactical differences between them.

Morphologically, the primary adjectives have zero marking in the absolutive, whereas those primary adverbs that can be turned into adjectives have an absolutive morpheme, -Or. Primary adjectives take -OlA if turned into adverbs.

A few examples of primarily adverbial adjectives are
ŋatu, fast (as in having great speed)
ləsnı, fast (as in occupying a short span of time)
änäc, slowly (either occupying a long span of time or having a slow speed)
ɣöv far away
rıdus, carefully
vada, meticulously (regarding religious observations)
ıgrəı, carelessly
t'oɣŋu
, bountifully, plentifully
must'o, in a line, straight, without intermediate pauses, directly
uŋa, alternating, in a waving motion
Thus these have the absolutive form
ŋator, ləsnər, änäcör, ɣövör, rıdusor, vador, ıgrəıər, t'oɣŋor.
Other cases have no special congruence marker, but adhere to the regular congruence markers. The same marker, -Or, can also serve as a nominalizer with verbs. With adpositions, it can create nouns or adjectives - e.g. 'the underside', or 'the lower one'.

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