Barxaw: Lexical Aspect and Verbs of Perception

In Barxáw, many verbs have an aspectual component to their meaning, for instance

xéλ - say, utter (perfective or rather maybe punctual)
najɛ̀  - talk, speak, orate, (imperfective, non-punctual) 

vár - to discover someone by hearing, to perk up from hearing something, to hear a very short sound
vìk - hear, listen

bìris - to decide in favour of something
t^harí - to think of something with an approving mindset

qursé - to be pricked by something, to experience a short flick of pain (that is generally not from heat)
sáré - to experience a pain that does not immediately pass (and is generally not from heat)

Now, with subordinated verbs where the main verb is one of perception, there's generally agreement between the lexical aspects of the main verb and the subordinate one, e.g.

nín qursé sa vár úŋ  - It stung, hearing you (enter or some other punctual thing like that)
*nin qursé sa vìk úŋ

nín sáré sa vìk úŋ - it pains/pained me to hear you (talk or sing or whatever)

 te úŋ vìk sa nín tiλì? - did you hear me sing?
*te ún vár sa nín tilì?

Situations where a non-punctual stimulus is perceived for just a punctual time-span requires some periphrasis:

nín tiλì, úŋ vár pex.
I sang, you discovered it/perked up from hearing it.

nín t^harí sa úŋ tiλì
I think with approval of your singing, "I like your singing"

Other new vocabulary in this post:

nín: I
úŋ: you
pex: a pronoun that refers to previous clauses. Also can mean something along the lines of "thus" or "such".
sa: a subordinating particle
tiλì: sing

Barxaw: Diminutives and Augmentatives

Barxaw has both diminutives and augmentatives. They are formed with the particles tíi (diminutive) and ŋò (augmentative). They have certain syntactical quirks.

1. They can replace counters.

2. Unlike adjectives, they are not used as predicates.

3. When replacing counters, they're also doubled just before the noun.

4. 

The social role of diminutives is to reduce potential tension, by - as it were - diminishing the importance of the things talked about. Of course, they also serve to mark diminutive sizes. A certain amount of lexicalized information is necessary.

Tíi sùy genuinely denotes a 'small meal', whereas ŋò sùy denotes that the meal is of some importance.

Tíi də̀m signifies any matter about which there's no reason to be overly concerned, ŋò də̀m signifies a physically major conflagration. Tíi quyén signifies a specific breed of small dogs, quyén signifies horses. Ŋò quyén usually signifies breeding-quality horses, but is attested in some dialects to signify a nearly monstrous mythical being. 

Any serious dictionary of Barxaw would include separate entries for all such separate meanings. For most nouns, however, assuming big or important for ŋò, and small or harmless for tíi should work out fairly well. 

Sociolinguistically, diminutives are used in similar ways in all classes - with women also using them slightly more often than men in all classes - but they are avoided in communication over class boundaries, except when lexicalized - although even then, synonyms are preferred if possible. Augmentatives have no such restriction, and are often used even in communication between state officials.

Barxaw: Counters

The syntax of counters has been described previously, but no catalogue has been presented this far. These are only the most frequent ones. The original meaning - and commonly used meaning when the counter is used as a noun is given to its right. Things for which it serves as a counter is given with indentation. Quite a few of these do not fit into the "heads of cattle"-style construction in any literal way, but should rather be understood as, say "a congregation of N (people) ..." and the like. Notice that this is but a preliminary sample.

evé : congregation.

a counter used for groups of humans; however, not used for groups primarily distinguished by familial ties - for familial groups, use éŋmu

màg : stem

trees and large plants

pin : straw

small plants

sún : bushel, bunch

long thin things (mainly of agricultural origins, but also some types of fish)

tipá : bag

flours, dust, dirt, gravel

qiní :  small bag

salt, spices, jewellery

dim : a small bottle

potions, strong drinks, fragrances, various important ingredients in Barxaw cooking

sìdu : spoon

bits of foodstuff, spices, strong sauces

bán : disk

text and therefore also letters, orders, agreements, wood for building purposes, stone for building purposes, metal for building purposes

qìx : stick

tiny tools, such as cutlery, and various such things, pens, some small edible things.

mùm : bucket

liquids, various small tubers, fruits, leaves for culinary uses

fím : palm

a unit for breads that are bshaped by pressing with the palm before baking

busí : fabric

used for clothes, bags, and textile-based parts of housing

 méx : herd

most tame animals

wùr : snouts of carnivores

wild carnivores

xáp : "ears"

cats, dogs

qàm : mast (obsolete as a noun)

larger sea-faring vessels originally, but generalized to all vessels - even land-based, and now also temporary dwellings. Sometimes metaphorically for graves.

A sample of a few less common ones:
mim : row

structural parts in architectural contexts.

pál : glass of strong drink

used as a counter for certain types of agreements

Barxaw noun classes and numbers

Higher numbers in Barxaw are a slightly complex affair. For superstitious reasons, some kinds of things are associated with certain numbers - i.e. extended family is for some reason associated with the number 16. Basically, for most noun classes, the number that the most primary, prototypical members of each noun class are associated with influence how other nouns of the same class are counted. Nouns can be members of several noun classes.

However, at this point, postponing a short introduction to the noun classes makes no sense, so those first. A table of particles that show congruence with these might appear sometime soon:

Class 1 includes humans, and some animals (talking animals in fables, for instance, and the bear), and many natural phenomena (the sun and moon, rainbows, fire) (number: 5)

Class 2 includes most animals that are tamed, and a few wild animals that are economically important - deer, some wild ruminants, wild birds whose eggs are harvested. The larger types of fish that are commonly caught are also included by some speakers, especially those that live in maritime environments. Also includes buildings that have with animal-keeping to do, as well as implements related to animal-keeping. (number: 12)

Class 3 includes buildings and places, as well as religiously significant plants and items. Some large items, such as wagons, chariots and some groups of people - military units, groups working in coordination, ethnicities, slaves taken as a group. Water, and some natural phenomena also are in this group (rain, storms, wind, seasons, festivals) (number: 4)

Class 4 includes fish, small birds, culturally important plants (both wild and cultivated) and their produce, edible leaves, eggs, foodstuff in general, roundish stones (some of which also are religiously significant items). (number: 24)

Class 5 includes fingers and hands, tools, large useful leaves, clothing, animal and plant products that are not food, non-roundish stones. Furniture, wheels, fabrics, strings, books, etc. Things that have been made by humans but are not reasonably classed as 'locations'. (number: 10)

Class 6 includes human external bodyparts, human qualities and things associated with being human - souls, thoughts, hair, voices, demeanors, etc. (number: 8)

Class 7 includes animal external bodyparts, human internal organs, animal internal organs, things that are intrinsic content of things in general, materials. If souls, thoughts, demeanors are attributed to animals, they shift to class 7. (number: 20)

Class 8: most other things. (number: 15)

Now, we have the following basic numbers, which normally are followed by a counter word:

1: bán
2: wík
3: tàx
4: ŋùx, class III: tagùl
5: fát, class I: xìpùr
6: tabí
7: nèm
8: síð, class VI: síðbé
9: dúl
10: pàli, class V: fawì
11: kták
12: sást ,class II: kubàŋ
13: sástán
14: sáswík
15: sáttàx, class VIII: dómn
16: sáŋŋùx family terminology: sxùm lun
17: sáffát
18: sátabí
19: sattèm
20: sástìð, class VII: muxìp
21: sástúl
22: sáspàli
23: sátták
24:  wìksást IV: tagùl

Notice that 4, class III and 24, class IV indeed are identical. Higher numbers are formed per class by multiplying the class' special number with some integer and adding a lesser integer after it, i.e.

dúl síðbe ŋùx = 9*8 + 4
wík dómn sáswík = 2*15+14 = 44 

The multiples that one uses with this system do come from the regular duodecimal system though. This system only is used up to values about 150 or thereabouts, and for higher numbers a more regular duodecimal system is in use.

Beyond wìksást we get forms such as 3*12 = tàssást, 4*12 = ŋùssást, 5*12 = fáttást, 6*12 = tabisást, etc, and once 144 is reached, similar numbers are formed using the word etíð. Beyond etìð, a base-six system keeps going with dì im bal, dì aŋ bal, and dì wuk bal as the next steps. Scholars have systems that vary from school to school for expressing larger numbers.

A Closer Look at Barxáw Spatial Prepositions

I have already provided some Barxáw prepositions, but I have not described in any closer detail the use of these. In addition, Barxáw has a bunch of pronouns / anaphoric adverbs that basically fuse 'there, that' or 'here, this' with the meaning of the prepositions.

sún ~ on

sit ~ in 

However, things are sún one's hand, not sit one's hand. Similar things go with regards  to cups, ships, etc. However, a glove is not on a hand, it is tùð that hand.

This is due to the thought model that sún, sit and tùð are selected through.

The hand has a primary surface (the palm), likewise a boat has a primary surface (the deck or the inside of the hull), a house has a primary surface (the roof), a town has a primary surface (its land area), a country likewise, a mountain likewise. Being enclosed by, covered by, or on top of the primary surface calls for sún. Thus, the drink is sún kahið, on the glass.

The primary surfaces can be somewhat odd - for a wall, the primary surface is really anything cut into the wall or on top of the wall - thus anything that is not a vertical surface. The vertical surface is an un-primary surface with regards to walls. Thus, a door is sún gahké, 'on the wall', as is a window. A painting is sit gahké, 'in the wall'.

As for the glove, its primary surface is analogous to that of the hand - viz the palm on the outside. As the primary surface is not the inside, the glove is seen as surrounding the hand and therefore tùð is used. The hand is sit the glove.

For most large things, the primary surface is basically the topmost outside surface (which can be rather large). This is less often true of smaller things, but often enough to be a good inference. Culturally significant things, however, often have lexically determined primary surfaces, and whenever one is in contact with that surface, sún is used, and sit is used for most other types of relation to the surfaces of a thing. Finally, tùð is used for certain situations where only part of a thing is covered, but no primary surface is involved with regards to the object of the preposition. Since the hand only is part of the human, the hand in the glove is a hand tùð the glove. An item hidden in the glove would be sit the glove.

Edit: inspired by Salmoneus' Rawang Ata - Prepositions

Barxáw: The Noun Phrase

Barxáw noun phrases and prepositional phrases have certain complications that may be of interest.

In general, and this goes for all types of determiners and attributes, 'less' heavy attributes go to the left of their heads, heavy attributes to the right. Heavy attributes include subclauses and prepositional attributes -

túλxà ðo q^hmaní - official of other (ambassador)

túλxà ðo Íst^haŋ - ambassador from Ístaŋ

 Íst^haŋ túλxà - an Ístaŋian officer 

 sartè dásqu - warm drink (generally heated berry juices)

t^hárg sartè dásqu - spicy warm juice (generally herbs rather than what English denotes by spices)

 sartè prùk - warm blood (a term for warm fruit or berry juices flavored with meat broth)

bɛ̀n díp - running water (here, a verb works adjectively; the actual verb is not 'run', but rather 'flow', but the meaning is closer to the English phrase 'running water')

The order of adjectives tends to be pragmatically determined - adjectives that 'restrict' the type of noun, rather than describe it, are closer to the noun. Adjectives that describe desired qualities rather than necessary qualities are further from it, etc.

There are two kinds of adpositions - prepositions proper and Wackernagelpositions. Wackernagelpositions occur as the second word in the phrase. 2ndpositions could be a reasonable name as well. Thus:

ðetrú kaw - along the side

q^hmaní kaw ðetrú - along the other side

Counter words appear just before the noun, unless a 2ndposition gets in the way.

sún um ðìnt - (made) of (counter: bushel) hay; sún is a proper preposition

evé sit múlɛ́ - (counter: congregation) by permission from court; sit is a 2ndposition.

Numerals and other quantifiers go just before the counter. Most nouns require counters with prepositions, but a fair share of exceptions exist.
Complex numbers (i.e. having more than two parts) go to the right of the noun. Simple large numbers, such as 'thousand' or 'hundred' can also be moved to the right to emphasize the number or make it mean something like 'untold hundred(s)/thousand(s)'.

The 2ndpositions revert to normal prepositions in embedded adpositional phrases -

malí um sún ðìnt - house (made) of (bushel) hay

ðəlín sit evé múlɛ - license (≃ letter) by permission of court

Some of the wilder things - nouns or adjectives extracted from the phrase, etc, also revert 2ndpositions to prepositions. However, those will be reviewed in a separate post.

Barxáw: Auxiliaries

Barxáw has auxiliaries. Some of them may be surprisingly specific in what they mean, and some of them behave in syntactically somewhat odd manners.

Let us first consider the most common syntactical pattern for auxiliaries in Barxáw. 

Noun_subj Aux Verb (Noun_obj) (Oblique arguments)

Some cause the main verb to be marked in some manner - a preposed é is not unusual. Considering this extra particle part of the aux would make sense, but some transformations show that é's location is relative to the main verb rather than to the aux.

A number of auxiliaries that follow this pattern are:

áɲ̟è - to be able to

t'íð -  to begin to

jùm (é) - to stop 

kìr (é) - to  do repeatedly or habitually

 err (é) - to stop due to some external factor (the external factor being preceded by the preposition cá if it is a noun, and the subordinating conjunction ísnu if it is a clause - the external factor need not be specified, however).

 génð [definite human subjects], gél [definite animate subjects], rrú (indefinite human subjects], bém [indefinite animate subjects], kádu [inanimate subjects] - explicitly perfective (also only used with transitives)

ðumú [human subjects], k'ipè [nonhuman subjects] - explicitly perfective (intransitive) 

Adjectival Auxiliaries
Some auxiliaries in Barxáw peculiarly enough distribute more like adjectives than like verbs.

q^húrro -  want to, desire to, hope to

cepá - attempt to, try to cause

azé - resume

c'arr -  refuse to

These are, at times, used like those given above. An interesting quirk is that these can also mark objects (but not obliques), signifying, for instance, that someone wants to be verbed - Séli kelað  q^húrro Joqù = Joqù wants Séli to help him. With azé, marking an object with it signifies returning to a certain object of the activity, whereas the activity itself may have been uninterrupted.
C'arr does never mark non-subjects.

These do not combine with other auxiliaries, and therefore may reasonably be considered auxiliaries in some sense.

Barxaw: Possessive Constructions

The possessive constructions of Barxa tend to be rather varied in what other functions the different expressions overlap with. In this post, both predicative possession and attributive possession is described.

For nominal constructions, the overlaps mainly are in how the possessor or the possessee is marked:
One of the primary overlaps is the recipient or beneficiary:

aðál ðo Kpèma - Kpèma's horse (horse for Kpéma)

il istà kuì ðo Kpèma éŋxa  - that house belongs to Kpèma (by inheritance)

wík'an çùmut òrt^ho ðo Janwàp - three gifts (are/were) presented to Janwàp

saxk'ùlhimá ðo Inàm ðo Epáλ do Risíx - Nénsiqu òrt^ho ðo - harshword (~criticism) to Inàm, Epáɟ and Risíx was given by Nénsiqu. 

Q^huì ðo Kpèma - Kpèma's possession(s), alternatively also the VP 'belongs to Kpèma'. 

Another overlap is causative constructions, where causers and possessors can be marked the same for normally intransitive, stative verbs. The causee takes a preposition, as does the possessee. 

ɛ̀ŋðà kur jà Uq^hir zémp'u t'rol - Eŋðà makes Uq^hir carry burden

Rəɟə` kur t'aníp jà Epàλ - Rəɟə` cause scare to Epàλ 

C'aʝ kur lùjun  jà istà - C'aʝ's house is big, C'aʝ has a big house.

The fourth construction is a double comitative - with x with y, where y is the possessed noun. Often, this has animate nouns as possessees or culturally significant nouns, but some nouns we would normally consider inanimate are considered animate in Barxaw:

k'e kopì k'e dəsé - with thunder with rain - thunder brings rain, thunder has rain

k'e Inàm k'e aðál ðo Kpèma - Inam has/brings a horse for Kpèma.

k'e Inàm k'e tanaλ, k'e dìnaλ - Inàm has brothers and sisters.

k'e Epàλ k'e losàm - Epàλ has the respect of the community

k'e C'aʝ k'e níxq^hà ðo il-Pəzézð - C'aʝ has judicial authority in Pəzézð village.

Intensifying Adjectives, Verbs and Nouns in Barxaw

Barxaw does not have comparatives or superlatives (although it does have comparative constructions), but it does have particles that intensify certain adjectives. These particles also serve to intensify verbs, and sometimes can serve by themselves as (intensive) adjectives with specific nouns.

tìì - intensifies adjectives denoting spatial smallness, weakness, cuteness, childishness, shortness, lack, but also limberness. Certain negative looks for men - scrawniness, lankiness, etc.

ťɛn - adjectives denoting fastness, strength, might, richness, coarseness, manliness, handsomeness or any adjective describing a male's looks in a positive manner.

ćá - femininity, beauty, but can also be used to insult a man.

ťáć - longevity, durability, amount, stability, endurance, fitness, quality, skill. Also for verbal time span, and can combine with 'do' to operate as a compound preposition 'ťáć do λip řú

pil - fine, rich in detail, refined, textured. Also with verbs of cognition or thought, perception or the playing of musical instruments as well as song. 

kçup' - intensifies mainly verbs of a kinetic nature. It is also a noun that is used as the head when forming compounds denoting huge measures. 

ɟɛ̀m -  a catch-all intensifier for other positive adjectives

zágì - a catch-all intensifier for negative qualities 

ʝáp - a verbal intensifier for 'social verbs' (verbs denoting behaviors, relationships, approval or disapproval, participation, religious adherence and legal obedience)

suλɲ̟ò - a verbal intensifier for productive verbs (verbs denoting activities such as fishing, farming, harvesting, cooking, building, ploughing, ...) Can also, as an adjective denote a productive person. 

Barxaw: Negation and Lexical Negatives

Barxaw - my main isolating conlang - permits double negation, and its negation generally follows the 'contradiction operator' ⊥. Its truth table is as follows:

⊥true = false
⊥false = false

The negative particles are different for different 'objects' of negation, verbs are negated by either xij (past telic), kim (non-past telic), kpà (past or non-past atelic) or án (non-existential). Entire previous sentences or even utterances by the same person by ŋían! Utterances, statements or proposals by another person elicit xiŋì or xwùá. Xiŋì can also be used as a negative imperative marker. Nouns can be negated by one out of the following, depending on noun class and other semantic considerations:

naù - a singular human (or similar) negated, both in existential-predicative, locative or as a negative indefinite determiner: teppé naù - (the god) Teppe is not here, teppé naù naù - (the god) Teppe does not exist, in lə delts naú - he is with no one, in naù kmtok - for him, there is no brother.

In Barxaw mythos, Teppe is a god whose existence is explicitly denied, and often appears in stories as what non-Barxa people pray to, seek help from or go to seek, but never find. Every Barxaw knows the real gods laugh at believers in Teppe. 

Those for other noun classes often cover about 3-4 classes each, and there is some overlap. Their syntactic use - both as predicates and determiners is similar to naù. 

These are íŋè (classes 1-3, 6), imáŋ (class 2, 4, 8), ŋaŋ (classes 3,4,5) and dìŋ (classes 4,5,1,7). 

Nouns and adpositions are not negated as complements - the verb is negated instead. Adjectives, however, can take xij, kpà or more generally àn (which, when used with adjectives, has no existential connotation). However, there is a number of adjectives that are considered semantically negative, and adding a negative particle to them only strengthens the meaning or specifies the aspectual-temporal meaning of the negation (i.e. xij would show that the hunger is a problem of the past) - ŋnì (hungry), inxu (sad), seóma (unable, incapable), tixwè (sick), kpùm (asleep), ancur (poor), enéx (weak), ámbec (unwashed, dirty). Negating these by adding a word is thus impossible, and antonyms have to be used. (mag - full, sated; ísep - happy, content; sèwap - capable, able; sudám - healthy, strong, doing ok; psir - awake, alert; èrmel - of sufficient means or indàa - rich, taŋèŋ - strong, ìdír - clean, pure, separate.

Barxaw: Register, lexical intensification and comparatives

In Barxaw, my isolating conlang, intensity of verbs and adjectives is lexically coded - thus, running, running fast and running slow are separate lexemes, as are speaking, shouting and screaming. We notice from the second English tuplet that this is not unusual in English either.

In Barxaw, however, many such lexemes form pretty long hierarchies:

to know (in the sense of 'to have knowledge'), to be able to:
sep < ìpe < máw < nòtè < ram < léc < kudò

It turns out sep is the lowest in most registers. However, in slightly formal registers, ipe is the lowest, and in some ram is the lowest. In the case of {sep, ... kudò}, the higher the register, the more 'inflation' there is to the value of the verb (or adjective or even some nouns). {sep, ... kudo} is thus a verb set that decreases in value - in Barxaw, this is known as pék èn da màt ús ús - the words that shrink. (pék = word, èn = plural + class marker, da = plural pronoun for that class, màt ≃ do, ús ús = shrink, literally "small small")

An example of pék èn da màt o ko - words that grow (o, ko = big, the k in ko comes from a morphophonological thing where o ends in a 'lost consonant' that reappears in hiatus) - is "need"
wan - témì - nuh - pò' - síg - ŋím
Thus pò is the usual 'baseline' intensity, but in higher registers, nuh, then témì, then wan replace it, and pò becomes increasingly intense.

Barxaw: Relative clauses

There are several strategies for forming relative clauses or pragmatically similar constructions in Barxaw.

1. Embedded clause with external pronoun
This is a bit similar to something like this:

He never set foot in the house that he had built -> He never set foot in it, he built the house.

However, the pronoun is somewhat specific to this construction (consisting of a gendered pronoun and a particle otherwise used with topicalized pronouns, "na"). The noun in the embedded clause that is coreferent with the pronoun gets the same particle on it, or is fronted if possible. This kind of construction does not appear much with noun phrases that are not clause-final.

2. Embedded clause with no specific particles introducing it, gapping for subjects and objects, and resumptive pronouns otherwise. Generally, TAM auxiliaries are not used in this kind of relative subclause.

Some restrictions apply for the word order with gapped objects.

3. Clause coordinated with the main clause:

he never set foot in the house yet it was he that built it

4. Embedded clause introduced by the same pronoun as in #1, but with the noun remaining in the matrix clause.

He never set foot in the house, it-na he built.

Unusual, but occurs. Only used with subjects and objects of the embedded clause.