Ćwarmin: Demonstrative Pronouns and a Suffix

Ćwarmin demonstrative pronouns are among the few words to have case congruence on them. The situation is even more complicated, since the congruence operates slightly differently depending on whether the noun is animate or inanimate - with inanimates, the demonstrative only marks for case. Definiteness and number are omitted. For animates, the demonstrative usually is either marked with the definite or the specific case marker, and number is also marked (although the paucal number may be substituted by the plural).

arna / ərnə = this
olba / elbə = that

Some morphological abbreviations do happen, however:

arna → artu / artak (definite/specific singular nominative)
arna → araś/arok (plural definite/specific)

More generally, the -na or -ba syllable is generally dropped, and if the suffix has more than one syllable, the first vowel is reduced.

Ćwarmin genitives cannot stand as independent noun phrases. However, with the suffix -(a|e)rn(a|e) or -(o|e)lb(a|ə) a genitive is turned into an independent ~noun. The genitive suffix is also slightly reduced:

-itite+ erne → -itern-

Unlike the full pronouns, the n is not lost when further inflecting this noun for case. Some syllable reduction does happen with regards to the first syllable of bisyllabic case suffixes, however. Although these originate with a demonstrative pronoun, all three definitenesses can be marked on this, correlating to meanings like

a so-and-so of so-and-so's
this particular so-and-so of so-and-so's
the so-and-so of so-and-so's

Ćwarmin: A Detail about the Ćwarmin Infinitive

I have previously given a short overview of the Ćwarmin infinitive, but more details about the use thereof will sporadically appear.

The infinitive is not the same as the verb stem, but has some infinitive suffix on it. There are several infinitive suffixes, and some of them have different implications, cf:

hacam - hacan - haćjul - to think

rigən - ridjel - ridjen - ridjin - to hurry

 The {hacam, hacan, haćjul} triplet shows three different suffixes, all with slightly different connotations: hacam - to believe something, hacan - to think about something, haćjul - to plan. The finite verbs conflate these. The {rigən, ridjul, ridjen, ridjin} four-tuplet distinguishes rigan - to hurry in regards to some thing, to be anxious for something, ridjul - to hurry with the intent to achieve something, ridjen - to be in a hurry so as not to miss a thing, ridjin - to hurry at the expense of the results

Now, these infinitives can appear sentence-initially as a topicalized ~adverb to specify which particular meaning is intended, while a finite form of the verb goes sentence-finally:

hacan bec terəś hacac? - what are you thinking about?
hacam bec terəś hacac? - what do you believe?
haćjul bec terəś hacac? - what do you plan to do?
bec terəś hacac? - what do you ... [any of the above]?

This is not a very common usage, but occurs when confusion is overwhelmingly likely or specifying which meaning is crucial.

Ćwarmin: Bryatesle and Dairwueh loans

Due to extensive contact between the three languages, Ćwar min has an extensive set of loans of different ages from Bryatesle and Dairwueh as well as their ancestral languages. Ćwar min, however, differs in certain significant ways from Dairwueh and Bryatesle:

• vowel harmony
• fixed initial stress (with loans, however, that is only slowly enforced)

We shall look at words of somewhat varying age.

pəktən < proto-dairwueh pak'təyn "hundred"
bičər "wheel" < proto-bryatesle 'bitars "wheel"
učuśan "plow" < proto-bryatesle ɨketr'sa- "plow"
gukula "viceroy" < proto-dairwueh  'gutkələ- "pay tribute"
sicə "vinegar" < proto-bryatesle sɨl'tse "wine"

Ćwarmin has been fairly conservative over time, with few consonant changes. However, we do find that words have generally changed to accomodate Ćwarmin vowel harmony.
More recent words have not necessarily changed in that way:

cixkan  "write" < dairwueh tsihkal "write numbers (in an accounting situation)"
dunvali < dairwueh dunvali, kingdom
re'sepaŋ < dairwueh re'sepank, criminal
te'buvu< bryatesle te'buxu, cake

In some recent loans, vowel harmony has begun spreading from the stressed syllable onwards (obtaining in some idiolects forms like resepəŋ pro resepaŋ). Stress tends to remain unmoved for a few generations, but since stress is fairly solidly word-initial in Ćwar min, each generation tends to increase the number of speakers who moves the stress to word-initial. Sometimes, they also fix the harmony, sometimes not, so you find idiolects anywhere along the line of te'buvu > 'tebuvu > 'tobuvu or 'tebivi.

Morphologically, words like dunvali often lose their final vowel in inflected forms, thus obtaining forms that are uniform as far as harmony goes for all other forms but nominative:

dunvali - dunvalutu (the kingdom), dunvaluc (kingdom.acc), dunvalututa (of the kingdom).

However, words like resepaŋ, the harmony either follows that of the closest stressed syllable (secondary stress is strong enough for its vowel harmony class to win out), or the rightmost remaining syllable:

re'sepaŋuc, resepaŋamca, ... but also
re'sepaŋ, resepaŋemce

depending on which of these approaches have won out in the particular idiolect spoken by our informant. Both approaches may coexist for any speaker, and may be lexically conditioned or even by sentence-level prosody.

Ćwarmin: Mood-dependent clitics

Although Ćwarmin has few morphologically explicit moods, it has a number of clitics that are restricted by "implicit" moods. This means that the mood may be implied by other means without these showing up - but these being there is a definite sign that that mood is what's rolling.

Indicative

-kot | -čet

Strengthens affirmation.

-sis | -sus

Marks surprisingness or relieved doubt - 'he arrived, after all'.

-jri | -vru

Somewhat like 'surely, certainly'.

Conditional

-ŋin | -ŋun
-ili | -ulu

As far as meaning goes these are pretty much identical. They emphasize a constituent, i.e. "if you sell at a loss" vs. "if you sell at a loss" vs. "if you sell at a loss".

Permissive mood

-nir | -nur

-nir/-nur might be seen as a kind of apprehensive permissive marker: go (then, if that's what you want), "okay, do it, I don't care".

-sur | -sir

-sur/-sir marks an almost jovial granting of permission - "sure, go ahead, eat as much as you like!". 

Both of these can go on any constituent.

Negative Permissive

-bət|-bat

 This serves to distinguish certain possible parsings of negative permission - if it goes on the negative particle, it means 'you are permitted not to', if it goes on any other constituent, it marks 'you are not permitted to'.

Alethic 

 -nti | -ntu

 Serves to emphasize an element.

Negative Alethic

-biśe|-buso

Often goes on the negative particle, but can go on the head of any constituent phrase to emphasize it. On nouns, it emphasizes that it is this particular noun or type of noun that cannot be so-and-so, on verbs that it is this particular verb that cannot be carried out with these particular arguments.

Imperative

-ara | -ərə

Intensifies the imperative. It is considered quite rude.

-vars | -vers

An encouraging marker, "yes, keep going on like that".

-ruč | -rič

An adversarial marker, "bring it on". 

A certain related marker

A separate marker that has an origin as a similar clitic is the -vin|-vun marker that can go on third person pronouns. With this suffix, the pronoun becomes a generic person, much like the German 'man' pronoun, or the Finnish passive verb or English 'one' or generic 'you'.

Ćwarmin: Conditionals

Ćwarmin has three different ways of forming conditional sentences. The first way is fairly similar to the English way, and are used whenever there is a difference in tense between the protasis and apodosis.

uś [...] ćen xaukunc (bec) keləmce
it  [...]   if  read-2sg(past) you know-recentpast
if you had read it, you would know/have known

Ćen is the conditional particle, pretty similar to English 'if' in function. It can also be used with a verb phrase as such to indicate irrealis mood - with second person verbs, it tends to be a mild imperative, with first and third person it conveys an optative sense. It usually goes before the verb, or as the final word in the conditional subclause. It can go in the wackernagel position from the other end of the subclause as well:

uś ćen [...] xaukunc bec keləmce

There is no word that would serve as a "then ...", so the apodosis cannot be introduced by any particle. Often, the apodosis will be introduced by its subject or the verb, which is somewhat unusual as the verb usually goes last.

The two other constructions are each other's opposites. In the one, the verb of the protasis is an infinitive marked with the genitive, and the apodosis has any tense whatsoever. The subject of the conditional verb too is in the genitive.

bacak xaukutoś (bec) keləmce
you-gen reading-gen you knew

In the other, the conditional is a regular finite clause, and the apodosis is subordinate - and formed likewise, but with the verb in the singular reflexive accusative - again, the subject of the infinitive in the genitive (if it's the same as the subject of the main clause, it can be omitted):

bac xaukunc (becək) kelsin
you read(past) your (own) knowing

This construction doesn't really have a good English analogue - the closest would perhaps be

you have read it, so you know (it)

But unlike the English construction, it's not indicative - it is parsed just as "irrealisly" as it would have been, had it been the previous construction instead.

The tense of both of the verbs are parsed as the same as that of the finite one in both of these constructions.

Ćwarmin: Adjectival Attribute Syntax

Ćwarmin adjectives generally precede the noun they modify. However, some complications exist.

Possession is syntactically adjective-like, and genitives can appear anywhere in the string of adjectives. With genitives, any attributes of the genitive noun has to be in the genitive as well, and are more tightly coupled, syntactically to their noun:

gara migitite wicxitite lank[...]

red old-GEN.DEF house-GEN.DEF door[...CASE]
the/a red door of the old house

Proper nouns differ in that adjectives seldom are used with them unless the adjective is part of a proper noun phrase, i.e.

salcan Murustu
great tusk-NOM.DEF (the name of a town)

nerel salcuta Murstuta varsan
leeward great-GEN.DEF tusk-GEN.DEF harbour
salcuta Murstuta nerel varsan
great-GEN.DEF tusk-GEN.DEF leeward harbour
a/the leeward harbour of the Great Tusk.

However, adjectives can be compounded with proper names, and this is the common way of using adjectives with personal names and only slightly less common with names of places. It is not unusual for such a form to become the usual designation for a person, and official records may even prefer such designations over given names.

Salcaŋire ≃ Salcan Gire, "big Gire"
Misketadu ≃ Greedy Tadu
Farnapalb ≃ Farna Palb, "old Palb"

Compounds differ in intonation from phrases in that the initial stress of the second word is significantly weakened. 

Generally speaking, all attributes are marked as singular and indefinite. All adjectives can basically stand as nouns and vice versa, but statistically an adjective is very likely to stand as an adjective and vice versa, and this essentially helps identify whether a case-marked word is the head of a phrase or not. Intonation also helps out, with noun phrases tending to have a slight pitch raise on the stressed syllable of the head noun.

The order of adjectives in general tends to follow these orders, although the different orders seem to be somewhat independent of each other: personal characteristics > size > age > colour > material on one hand, value > shape > use-related adjectives on the other. A few other orders probably also exist. The order is not as fixed as in English, however. 

Subjects can be separated from their adjectives by the verb, simply putting an arbitrary number of its adjectives before the verb, and the subject directly after it. Likewise, the object can have an adjective shunted to the end of the clause. Such movements, the adjective often has a more central role in the clause - fronted adjectives say something about the state of the subject with regards to the verb phrase, adjectives that have been moved to clause-final position say something about the state of the object with regards to the verb phrase.

Ćwarmin: Personal Pronouns - a final version

So, the Ćwarmin personal pronouns after some pruning and further design.

Notes:

The distant possessive subject is a case that is exclusive to the personal pronouns. 

Ćwarmin has gone through a rather interesting change in its typology: hints from cognate languages suggest that their shared proto-language had a proximate-obviative system. Remnants of this exist in Ćwarmin, but behave more like a switch-reference system, if only for just a handful of verbs. As the proximate-obviative system disintegrated, it was replaced by a specific-definite-indefinite three-way contrast. The definite signifies a referent known to both speaker and listener, the specific is only known to the speaker.

This also made its way into the pronoun system - in the singular, the third person distinguishes referents known to the speaker only from referents known to both. In part, this carries over from pronouns for proximate and obviative nouns. The distinction was lost in the plural, but survives in the nominative and accusative for the paucal. Now, on the other hand, the definiteness morphology is starting to appear on first person pronouns as a way of coding for clusivity in some dialects - definite first person plural is inclusive, specific first person plural exclusive. However, the morphology presented below is a more usual, classical Ćwarmin set of pronouns.

When stressed, the pronoun takes the bolded form. When unstressed, it agrees in vowel harmony with the following word, except over intonation phrase breaks - in which case it agrees in vowel harmony with the preceding word.

The third person singular definite is also the demonstrative used for a nearby object, so basically 'this' (with a slight tinge of 'that'). The morpheme i/u- can combine with IIIpl to form 'these' (with a slight tinge of 'those'), thus "i sit" or "u sut" gives the nominative, "i sić" or "u suć" the accusative, etc. It is seldom combined with the paucal. Ək/ak is the demonstrative used for a non-nearby object, so basically "that". It can combine likewise with the IIIpl for plural demonstratives, but the IIIpl without ək/ak basically serves as such a demonstrative in its own right as well.
For singular as well as plural nouns, i/u serves as the demonstrative determiner ('this noun'), whereas ək/ak serve as the demonstrative for singulars, sit/sut as the demonstrative for plurals.

Nota Bene: blogger hates letting tables go unmolested. It is very possible that new lines are deleted, and so on. I've been trying to get it to work properly for a while now and it just seems blogger can't stand not altering it. Thus, if, say, san and śen again are merged, you can tell them apart by one being bolded, the other not. The same happens in a bunch of other places throughout this table. There apparently is no way of circumventing this without adding actual extra rows of cells.

Isg

IIsg

IIIdef

IIIspec

Ipc

IIpc

IIIdefpc

IIIspecpc

Ipl

IIpl

IIIpl

nom

sanśən

bec bac

i u

əkak

daldel

ranrən

tawoktejək

mewok mejək

marmer

cer cor

sit sut

acc

ataśətəś

bacaś becəś

iś uś

təś taś

daljaś dəljeś

ranaś  reneś

waśjeś

woś jəś

meś maś

cereś coroś

sić suć

dist. poss.  subj

atak ətək

bacan becən

inin unun

teś toś

dalun dəlin

ranun renin

-

-

manak mənək

cenek conok

-

gen

anak ənek

bacak betək

ite uta

teś toś

daltudəlti

ranu reni

tawun tejin

-

manak mənək

cenek conok

sitek sutok

dat

aranś ərənś

bacanś bəcənś

in un

tən tan

donś dənś

rənśronś

wokśjikś

-

mankś mənkś

cenkś conkś

siteś sutoś

gen. abl

xaranś źerənś

bacaś  bəcəś

ir ar

ter tar

doroś (no front form!)

ronoś (no front form!)

wośjeś

-

markś mərkś

cerkś corkś

sikeś sukoś

inst

źerəp xarap

barap berəp

tap | təp

tap təp

daŕap dəŕep

ranap rənəp

tawap tejəp

-

manap mənəp

canap cənəp

sitəp sutap

com- to

xarkuś źerkiś

backuś  beckiś

itiśutuś

tetiś totuś

dalmaku dəlməki

rammaku remməki

tawaku tejəki

-

maruś məriś

coruś cereś

sitiś sutuś

com-with

santuc sentic

batuc becic

itic utuc

tetictotuc

dalmac dəlmec

rammac rəmməc

tawac tejəc

-

maruc meric

coruc ceric

setec sotoc

neg

źerə xaro

bicə buco

istə usto

tistə tusto

daltus dəltis

rono rənə

tenə tono

-

marto mərtə

carto certə

settə sotto

Ćwarmin: Diminutives and Augmentatives

Ćwarmin has very little prefixing morphology, but some does exist. The diminutives and augmentatives are formed this way. Ćwarmin uses diminutives and augmentatives extensively, and quite weird idiomatic constructions appear.

gar-/yər-, wor-/ver-, har-/hər-, ka:-, ron- : augmentative, "big"

sir-/sur-, cir-/cur-, mir-/mur-, dži-, lis-: diminutive, "small"

Note that sir- is much preferred for diminutives. Sometimes, this ignores vowel harmony - curkapar, sirkapar, 'small shelter'. However, it sometimes enforces front harmony onto lexical roots: sirkəpər: a village, 'small shelter'. More uncommon is vowel harmony switching to back harmony, but it does happen.

Lis- and har-/hər- are the 'weakest' of these, i.e. the deviation from average size or intensity is not usually very large when those are used. However, they are also the most 'emotionally positive' ones, and prefixing lis- to a female name or har-/ər- to a male name is done as a form of endearment. (A gender difference is that men usually do not use har-/ər- about other people, whereas females use both lis- and har-/ər- quite commonly.) For children, both dži- and lis- are common; ron- is sometimes used in a playful sense with children.

Combining prefixes is common:

verhərgimin : the largest moderately large fish, a rather large fish
curworkar : big small who? 'whatshisface', or 'a person whose existence is under doubt'.
cirverter : big small what? 'a thing whose existence is under doubt', or 'whatchamacallit'
garkaaćwurga = very huge storm
 curronguska = tiny big chief, a demeaning term for a person who thinks he is more important than he is
(dži)ronguska = little big chief (to a kid, indicating he's being bossy) 

gar-/yər-, wor-/ver- also serve to intensify verbs and adjectives, and mir-/mur- serve to weaken them. However, these should not be mistaken for comparatives or superlatives. Often, the intensifying prefix may go on a particularly salient noun or adjective in the same noun phrase even if another noun or adjective is the actually intense thing, i.e.

samar ver-širməs
fast big-ship
very fast ship, fast big ship

wor-samar širmes
very fast ship 

Intonation serves to distinguish the two; in the case that the prefix really intensifies a preceding word, the first syllable generally ascends, with the next syllable dropping a fair bit. If it intensifies the word on which it is prefixed, the first syllable of the root generally ascends a bit.

Finally, the plural indefinite in combination with the augmentative indicates 'X and things associated with X'.

Some Ćwarmin Interrogative and Indefinite Pronouns (and some clitics)

Since new readers probably drop by every now and then, I guess the time to remind everyone of Ye Merrye Conlangre's treatment of indefinite pronoun typology has come around again.

And then we get the time for looking at Ćwarmin's interrogative and indefinite pronouns.

nom		kar			ter
nom compl		kar(ca)			ter(cə)
acc		karac			ter
acc compl		karco			terce
gen		kartoś			terəś
dat		karna			terne
abl		karar			terer
instr		karap			terəp
com-to		korku			terki
com-with		kortu			terki
negative		kursta			teśtə

interrogative pronouns lack a reciprocally possessed case

Kar corresponds to 'who', 'ter' to what. As for specific meanings, 'terəp' sometimes means something like 'how', whereas 'terce' means something like 'like what' or 'how (of manner of appearance)'. Terce is sometimes used as a complement to subjects as well. The locative forms are formed along the description given here, i.e. from the dat, abl and accusative forms.

'Tercə' is exclusively used when asking what something consists of - in other positions that syntactically correspond to the nominative complement case, 'ter' is used.

-(e|a)st is a fairly common suffix that denotes 'even, too, also, and'. However, with the interrogative pronouns above, it means 'someone, anyone' and corresponds to 1,2,3,4,5,8,9 in the typology linked to. The addition of -(e|a)st does however further conflate acc compl with acc, nom with nom compl (for kar), and genitive with accusative for both.

Direct negation and indirect negation is obtained by inserting a suffix after kar/ter, viz. '-mo|-mə-', thus giving:

karmo, karmoca, karmoc, karmoc, karmoś, karmona, karmor, karmowap, karmoku, karmotu, karmosta
termə, termə, termə, termə, terəməś, terməne, terməər, terməəp, terməki, terməki, terməśtə

 -ma|-mə also are used on adjectives to convey negation of a quality, and can attach to verbs to negate them as well.

-ada|-ədə is another common clitic that indicates 'however, but, so, albeit, ...'. It goes after the first word of a clause or the verb. However, it can also go on an interrogative pronoun and then indicates an indefinite pronoun of type 3,5,8,9 in the typology of the link. It is suffixed like -(e|a)st.

-sak|-sək further indicates 2,3 and is otherwise used to mark 'maybe, potentially, hopefully'.

Possession in Ćwarmin

Since I've recently been thinking a it about reflexive possession, I figured I might as well present a survey of the way my main conlangs deal with it. This will also be a short overview of possession strategies in general in these languages. The series of posts will end with a post that compares and contrasts their constructions. First out is Ćwarmin.

Ćwarmin

Ćwarmin possession is generally marked by use of the genitive on the possessor. The possessum can appear in any degree of definiteness (depending, of course, on the available degrees of definiteness for the case in which the possessum stands):

indef:

źaŋk	-ututa	girśim
fisherman	-GEN.DEF	net
the fisherman	's	net

A(ny) net of the fisherman's

def:

źaŋk	-ututa	girś	-iti
fisherman	-GEN.DEF	net	-SG.NOM.DEF
the fisherman	's	net

The fisherman's net, that net of the fisherman's

spec:

źaŋk	-ututa	girś	-itək
fisherman	-GEN.DEF	net	-NOM.SG.SPEC
the fisherman	's	net

A specific net of the fisherman's

For plural forms, definite tends to be 'exhaustive' - all the X of Y; specific tends to signal exhaustive with regards to some limited set - i.e. 'all the X:s that belong to Y among these X:s'.

Indefinites as possessors are possible, but there is no distinct genitive form for them. There is some variation to what case an indefinite possessor goes in - nominative, accusative and dative all are fairly common, general ablative a bit less common but common enough to be understood by most speakers.

As for pronominal possession, most languages related to Ćwarmin have a set of possessive suffixes. However, these have been lost in Ćwarmin, and only survive in these few nouns:

sidestigə - 'my child' (a vocative phrase uttered by clergymen)
niźilgə - 'my love'

sarbatuŋra - our obligation (a phrase uttered in many liturgies)
midreviŋrə - our praise (again, uttered in many liturgies)

Of these, only nigilgə and sarbatuŋra are attested in other cases than nominative - nigilgə as nigilgəmcə (nom.compl) and sarbatuŋra as sarbatuŋrawuc (acc), sabratuŋrutćo (acc. compl), sarbatuŋrumca (nom. compl).

The pronouns have genitive forms, which are used to express possession. However, with direct and indirect objects that are possessed by the subject, the reflexive object case is used. Historically, it originated as a third person possessive suffix that was later reinterpreted, and now has nothing with person to do - only with reflexive possession. However, there are a few exceptions.

Across the conjunctions 'i', 'e', 'u' (and), it generally binds to the noun to the left of the conjunction unless it too is marked with the reflexive possession case, thus:

Egen e kamu-sunEgen and wife-rflxposs
Egen and his wife (Egen is a fairly common name)

This construction is possible regardless of the case of the leftmost noun (except of course reflexive possession), but it is most usual with the nominative, accusative and dative. Another construction that also occurs differs by its lack of a conjunction - Egen kamu-sun - with subjects and sometimes objects. Then it marks a more comitative-like meaning: Egen, with his wife|accompanied by his wife|...

In a few dialects - all of which retain the possessive suffixes - the reflexive possessive also can be used as subject of embedded clauses; in those, however, it often also is more clearly a possessive suffix and does combine to some extent with actual cases, although it combines with fewer case markers than other possessive suffixes.

As it happens, the third person genitive pronouns do not differentiate whether the referent is definite or specific (unlike how the pronouns do in several other cases), which means that for arguments that are not subject, object or indirect object, there is very little in ways of distinguishing different third-person possessors.

Ćwarmin: A Remnant of A Proximate-Obviative System

Historically, the three levels of definiteness go back to a proximate-obviative system that was rearranged quite a bit. Third person verbs were assumed to refer to proximate arguments unless a prefix - əc- or ok- - was affixed to the verb. However, the system was reanalyzed, and these were lost as a productive obviative marker.

However, some verbs had been reanalyzed. Normally, the obviative argument was a non-subject of the previous sentence (although not always), and this was generalized for a handful of verbs where the most common usage pattern would have the obviative object/indirect object of the previous verb be the subject of this verb. Most of these are verbs that express a reaction in response to the previous verb, on the part of an object or recipient, thus making sense for these verbs to be reinterpreted as having as subject the object/indirect object of the previous verb. Examples include:

okkaulan - resist
əctəriln - answer, respond
ecnitren - obey
ecsidten - refuse
okratun - to answer 'yes'
əcgettin - to answer 'no'
okruncan - fall over from being pushed or otherwise kinetically affected
əcritən - to deny an accusation or allegation
(əc)lədilən - to politely refuse an offer
(ok)samawan - to succumb to something, or to lose

With first or second person arguments, these have no exceptional syntactical behavior. A proximate subject can be obtained by having an explicit, non-dropped subject pronoun in front of them. Thus, the obviative behavior only really applies when pronouns have been dropped (which, granted, is very common in Ćwarmin).

So, a couple examples:

baustuno okkaulunuv - we fought (them) and they resisted

kartapur fird  -erəś     fird-iŋ-itəś          nəmirəmcə              e      ecsidt-əmcə
tax-man debt -def.abl debt-or-acc.spec demand-past.recent and refuse-past.recent 

The tax man just tried collecting taxes from a person and the person refused. As lexical remarks go it is notable that taxes are considered a type of debt, so kart-apur (taxation-(mandate-agent) collects, in essence a 'debt', fird. However, the debtor has not done anything particular to become in debt, but is so without any agency of his own, and thus the non-volitional agentive noun form -irŋi is used, instead of the volitional agentive form.

Ćwarmin: Numbers and their interaction with Case

Since I'm apparently doing number systems now, I might as well go on to Ćwarmin. Ćwarmin, like Dairwueh and Bryatesle, has a decimal system.

er(si) - one
mer - two
siker - three
nurma - four
miŋvə - five
siŋvə - six
əntel - seven
amba - eight
əneri - nine
dustun - ten
pəktən - hundred
maktan = five hundred
kurcul = thousand

Higher numbers are formed by the following kind of construction:

siŋvə dustar əneri - six * ten + nine
əntel kurcar nurma pəkter  siker dustar er = 7431 

Ćwarmin offers some excitement, however, in the use of case forms in combination with numbers. Numbers are one of the few parts of the language where any case congruence appears. Normally only the 'smallest' numbers (i.e. any of the number-morphemes smaller than dustun) are inflected to mark for case congruence with the noun or for what role the number plays in the utterance. Dustun, pəktən, maktan and kurcul only inflect for the general ablative whenever the number of hundreds, thousands, etc is higher than one, and for singular when there is one hundred or one thousand. There is one exception - the final number before the noun can be marked by an exceptional case to affect meanings much like how adjectives too can be inflected.

The noun's number marking depends on the number (also specifically final digits on larger numbers) and is as follows: {1, sometimes 1 after bigger numbers} - singular, {1 after bigger numbers, 2 and 3} - paucal, {4-9, tens, hundreds and thousands} - plurals. However, some cases obviously conflate plurals and paucals - but generally, the number system goes the other way with those - two and three take singular for those, as do bigger numbers ending in one, two or three.

Usually, the indefinite, singular case form is used on each number from one to nine in the whole number phrase, i.e.

mene dustar sikene haruhno|haruhnoś|haruhnaś for (*|the|a certain twenty three gentlemen)

With the instrumental, singular marking goes on the noun with all numbers. The locative cases only get partial congruence on the number - the dative, accusative or general ablative, depending on the type of locative case.

However, with nominative and accusative nouns, the 'small numbers part' of the number marks for nominative (or accusative), whereas the noun itself is in the general ablative if indefinite, and genitive if definite or specific. When the noun is genitive (regardless if it's genitive because the NP is nominative, accusative or genitive), the noun is paucal for two and three, and any larger number ending on one to three.

We further get a few odd usages:

The nominative and accusative complements can stand independently as a sort of numerical existential statement:

baust-un-ou dust-utćo

baust-	un-	ou		dust-	utćo
fight-	past	1pauc		ten	-plur.acc.complement

~ they were ten that we fought, it was ten that we fought
A nominative complement -əcə/-aca or -əmcə/-amca would mark how many the subject were. Thus, saying that 'we were five that went there' - źəginið sam miŋvəcə.

The general ablative marks approximation - this can replace the nominative/accusative complements entirely for the construction marked above, i.e.

baust-un-ou dust-ar

baust-	un-	ou		dust-	ar
fight-	past	1pl.pauc		ten	-gen.abl

we fought about ten people

However, when the number is part of the noun phrase, there are a few other constructions - only the last number in the whole phrase gets the case marking attached after its regular case marking. The same approximative function applies with regards to ablative in this use. The complement cases are not used for that type of construction. The comitative-with can be used to mark that an increase by that number has occurred. Genitive marks that, yeah, that's a big number right or a kind of 'reverse exaggeration' - at least so-and-so many. Finally, the dative can mark evidentiality - 'five, yes I counted, five ...'. Doubled case suffixes can appear due to this, but are apparently avoided by some speakers. This often also leads to the number's congruence case being marked for singular indefinite, and the second case - the one which serves this role - agrees for definiteness and number with the noun, giving results like

siŋv-en-ihneś ćan-uhnaś (siŋv-dat.sg.indef-dat.pl.def tables-dat.pl.def) "six-dat-yes, I counted them- tables-dat"

Ćwarmin: Some Marginal Cases

I previously mentioned that Ćwarmin has a number of marginal cases. Some case forms fill gaps in the regular case system for a few nouns, others are limited to just a few nouns altogether. Here are three such marginal cases:

1. Postpositional Case

This case exists for:

• Many nouns that refer to locations that designate parts of a town or village or buildings in general (tretke - town, city, badku - village, wundarś - marketplace, open square, winćə - city gates, rumb - temple, wicxə - house, wruŋna - castle, sirni - temporary building
• agricultural locations (acres - karaž, granaries - perəc, barns - birsi, fallow land - saŋmoru, pasture land - grundu)
• waterways (iməl, river; udug lake; žewə a sound or a narrow maritime passage in general, rəige bay, cove)
• the noun 'ćan', table.

Its suffixes are: singular: -(i)ši|-(u)šu, plural: -(i)žwi|-(u)žwu, paucal: -(i)žmi|-(u)žmu

Morphologically, there's a tendence for the forms to be slightly irregular:

ćan - canšu - ćažwu - ćažmu

winćə - winši - wižwi - wižmi 

wicxe - wiči - witwi -  wimi

karaž - karažžu - karažwu - karažmu

iməl - imiši - imižwi - imižmi

grundu - grundu - gružwu - gružmu

birsi - birsi - biržwi - biržmi

tretke - treči - trežwi - trežmi 

udug - urušu - uružwu - uružmu

It is used with most postpositions.

2. By Order|Permission Of
Titles of authority, family members. There's also the word 'har' ("mr", "mrs", "ms") which serves to combine with person names and can carry this morpheme.

singular indefinite: -sada|-sədə plural indefinite: -samu|-səmi

singular definite: -sandan|-sənden plural definite: -samman|-səmmin

Thus, we get forms like 

tergisədə = by order|authority of a clergyman

jehisəmmin = by (long-standing) obligation to or grant by the royal crown

jehisənden = by order or obligation from the ruling king

Even though notionally definite, har takes the indefinite forms when combined with a name

Geres hasada - by order of (mister) Geres

tretkitite hasamman = by permission|order from the town's men

3.  'Along'
The postposition 'along' - šimšim - has merged with a few nouns.

iməl, river: singular: imitčimš plural: imiwšimš

runa,  road: singular runšumš , plural: runawšumš

wundarś, marketplace: wundruśšumš (more generally 'in the market'), no plural

grundu, pasture - grunšumš:  following a herd on a foraging trip

Ćwarmin: Complements

Although Ćwarmin does have a verb that can serve as a copula, it is not used very often.

The copula is invariant with regards to subject person. In the present, it is au. In the immediate past, it is amca, in the far past its aun. There is also a negative version, ainik, amśik, aunik.

The following circumstances call for a copula:

• an adjectival complement that is not in the nominative-complement case

Ćwarmin adjectives can have their meanings altered by case suffixes. The particular changes in meaning are described here. Nominative complements signal prevailing or constant qualities of something. Even nominative complements require a copula.

• a complement phrase that is headed by a postposition
• a complement that is a heavy phrase, a phrase that has an embedded verb or consists of lots of words with some structure
• Confirming or affirming a statement about something. Pəćitiś dostur au - spirit-plur.acc.def pay.homage-past-1sg is - I do pay homage to the spirits.
• often, the negative copula is used as a negation particle even in transitive utterances.
• when the tense is relevant and not easily inferred from context
  
• with an implicit quality, or a coordinated or contrasted quality (Ešpək suŕurŋaca l Tuśu au. Eshpək is a widower, as is Tusyu.

Normally, the complement goes sentence-finally if no copula is present. If a copula is present, though, the complement precedes it.

Other verbs that take complements are

dəšip - to be named. The name is generally in the complement case, although the verb also can signify membership in a group. In the latter case, the complement is in the general ablative. The negative case can signify both not being a member or not being called something.

xuvop - to become. Complement case signifies becoming, instrumental signifies intensification for some already present quality. Negative signifies cessation of some quality.

daval - to considered oneself something

Object complements generally only are in the object complement case or the accusative case. Therefore, transitive verbs with complements often have more related forms that code for things that cases would code for with the intransitive verb, i.e.

davlap - to consider someone something (complement goes closer to the verb than the object does)

davlakol - not to consider someone something 

Ćwarmin, Bryatesle and Dairwueh: Some Basic Word Order Typology

Ćwarmin is an SOV language, although some flexibility is present. It does follow some tendencies for such languages:

• postpositions
• (Det) (Num) (Adj) Nom, 
• Gen N - although like in most of my conlangs, Gen can be extracted in several ways
• wh- in situ
• auxiliaries follow infinitives
• a tendency towards time-manner-place order in adverbs

Ćwarmin has "historically" developed from an intermediate SVO stage that developed out of a previous SOV stage, so there are a handful of SVO-like features clinging on, although it never thoroughly acquired full SVO compliance. Relative clauses can precede or follow the noun, although there's a more restricted set of ways in which they can be formed before the noun.

Bryatesle too is basically SOV, with the same basic word order tendencies:

• postpositions
• (Det) (Num) (Adj) Nom
• Gen N, although again, the gen can be extracted in several ways
• wh- in situ
• auxiliaries follow infinitives
• a tendency towards time-manner-place order in adverbs

Bryatesle has no traces from any non-SOV systems. Both Ćwarmin and Bryatesle permit OSV and the verb can be fronted as well. SVO and OVS are very uncommon in both, although an extra subject pronoun can appear in Bryatesle after the verb for emphasis. 

Dairwueh, on the other hand, is SVO. It has the following properties:

• prepositions
• Nom (Num) (Det) (Adj) 
• N Gen
• prevalent wh-movement

Both Dairwueh and Ćwarmin have the complication that many verbs that to a speaker of English might seem to serve auxiliary-like roles are not really auxiliaries at all, but rather what we might term 'pragmatic verbs', verbs which serve as building blocks for information structure rather than as a ways of signalling actions or states of participants, and these tend to be coordinated with other verbs rather than being in an auxiliary verb-main verb relationship. In Bryatesle, this is rather dealt with by means of a huge set of conjunctions and discourse particles. 

Some verb-related derivations in Ćwarmin

-enit|-unut - Adverb or noun derived from a verb, denoting the span of time it takes to carry out the action.

-irŋi|-urŋu -  Non-volitional agentive noun; klaturŋu - klutz.

-apur|-əpir - Noun-form that refers to a person whose mandate or responsibility carrying the verb out is. Tends either to be negative or positive in connotation - important titles often end in -apur|-əpir, so do several insults. Neutral designations tend just to use the regular agentive for similar roles.

-edre|-adra - A group-agentive noun, i.e. an ensemble of musicians, a theatre troupe, a crew, etc. Attaches to a verb. In the singular, it denotes one group, in the plural several groups, all who perform some kind of action together.

Ćwarmin: The Noun morphology

Note: this post is prone to corrections as I find errors or change details.

Ćwarmin, as previously stated, has a multitude of cases. It also has three numbers, and a slight definiteness distinction.

With a few exceptions, all nouns use the same suffixes for the cases. The main exceptions occur in some family member terms, some animal terms, some child-speak terms, pronouns,

Nominative

The indefinite nominative does not really have a particular suffix, although a fair share of nominatives do end in some similar suffixes, particularly -a or -kem. Not all nominatives ending in -a have an -a suffix though - the difference being that when inflected for other cases, the nominative ending is removed, and the non-suffix a is not.

The singular idefinite and definite are somewhat irregularly formed, as is the indefinite plural.

	Singular	Plural	Paucal
Indefinite			-imin
Definite	(-iti)|(-utu)	-ijeś|-uwaś	-imməl|-ummal
Specific	-itək|-utak	-ijək|-uwok	-imməl

Nominative Complement

The nominative complement ends in -əcə|-ace or -əmćə|-amce in the singular. In the plural it affixes -ce to the plural marker -il|-ul. Paucal forms are mostly identical to plural, although a few pronouns and adjectives have a separate form formed by -imce|-umco.

No definiteness distinctions are made. (A few words exceptionally use the definite nominatives as complements too - jehir, 'king', among them, obtaining a situation where only the indefinite complement forms are distinct from the regular nominative for those nouns, but also where definite and specific nominative forms are used as complements.)

Accusative

	Singular	Plural	Paucal
Indefinite	-ic|-uc	-ijic|-uwuc	-imin|-umun
Definite	-itiś|-utus	-ijiś|-uus	-imməś|-ummas
Specific	-itəś|-utaś	-ijəś|-uwaś	-imməś|-ummaś

Accusative Complement

The accusative complement does not distinguish definiteness, nor does it have any paucal forms.

The singular and plural forms are -itće|-utćo, -wiće|-wuću

The same situation that applies for nominative complements obtains here, but both definite and specific accusative and nominative forms are attested as object complements for those.

Reflexively Possessed Accusative

This distinguishes singular, plural and paucal, but not definiteness.

-sin|-sun, -ijn|-uwn, -emwin|-umwun

Genitive

Only has definite and specific forms, but distinguishes all three numbers:

Definite: -itite|-ututa, -ijte|-uwtu, -imməte|-ummota

Specific: -itəś|-utoś, -ijəte|-uwotu, -imməte|-ummota

Dative

	Singular	Plural	Paucal
Indefinite	-ene|-ana	-ijne|-uhno	-imene|-umona
Definite	-eneś|-anaś	-ihneś|-uhnoś	-immene|-ummona
Specific	-enəś|-anaś	-ihnəś|-uhnaś	-immene|-ummona

General ablative

The general ablative distinguishes definiteness (but not specificness), and two numbers.

	Singular	Plural
Indefinite	-er|-ar	-ir|-ur
Definite	-erəś|-araś	-irəś|-uroś

{towards, from, at}*{in, on, by} / {(towards, by)}

These do not distinguish definiteness, and paucal is not distinguished in the 'from' row.

The towards-cases are formed by combining the corresponding dative with -ka, -mu, -le (often realized -ek:a, -em:u, -el:e). The 'at'-cases are formed from the accusative by the same suffixes. The final set are obtained by affixing -ka or -mu to the general ablative. Vowel harmony is not as consistent in these as in the other case suffixes, but a tendency towards harmonizing them does exist. In harmonizing varieties they often come out as -kə|-ka, -mi|-mu, -le|-la.

Instrumental

The instrumental always is singular and does not distinguish specificness. Nouns that only have plural forms have an exceptional pseudo-plural instrumental.

Singular -ep|-ap

(Plural -erep|-orap)

Comitative-with

The plural and paucal are merged in both comitatives. Unlike other mergers of plural and paucal, "morphologically paucal-like" forms are here used for plural referents. Two degrees of definiteness are distinguished, viz. indefinite contra definite (which incorporates specific).

	Singular	Plural	Paucal
Indefinite	-eki|-oku		-imeki|-umaku
Definite	-ekiś|-okuś		-immeki|-ummaku

Comitative-to

	Singular	Plural	Paucal
Indefinite	-eti|-otu		-iməc|-umac
Definite	-etic|-otuc		-imməći|-ummaću

Negative

The negative makes no definiteness distinctions.

Unlike other forms where the paucal-plural distinction is missing, the paucal here merges with the singular instead.

Singular-paucal: -istə|-usta

Plural: -itis|-utus

Marginal Cases

A few forms appear only with very specific nouns, and although they are used in case-like ways, are not really as important as the previously mentioned ones. Among these are a number of lexically limited locative cases. Another set are combinations of definiteness and number and case that usually do not appear in the language - some may actually have such forms extant for a limited number of words.

Most marginal forms that are not of the "unusual combination" type do not distinguish definitenesses.

Ćwarmin: The Verb

The Ćwarmin verb behaves fairly straightforwardly for an agglutinating language: it has a stem, to which suffixes and prefixes are added. Some morphophonological things do occur, though.

A few verbs:

to eat - sewkən to drink - itrin  to grip - brewən to reside, to live somewhere, to stay somewhere - twam to walk - rakam to read - xaukam to see - saulto talk - ragamto breathe - taucon

 The form given above is the infinitive. It is not quite similar to the English infinitive, in that it mostly serves as a gerund. However, for most verbs it is fairly close to the verb stem and thus it is a good place to start. -an, -in, -am, -en, -jul, -jig all are suffixes that carry some grammatical information, and some verbs can take several different ones when forming infinitives:

to think - hacan, hacam, hajul

Some slight change in meaning may occur, i.e. hacan signifies thinking about things, hacam tends to pertain to beliefs and convictions, and hajul denotes planning and such. Not all infinitives showcase such a variety of meaning, and the meanings imparted by the different suffixes seem somewhat inconsistent - there is but almost a pattern there.

Non-past (a.k.a. present)

The non-past is formed by removing the infinitive marker and applying the following suffixes:

	singular	plural	paucal
1st	-er|-ar	-e|-o	-ei|-ou
2nd	-əc|-ac	-in|-un	-ie|-wu
3rd	-i|-u	-iy|-uw	-irə|-ura

The paucal has other uses than paucal number. -er, -iy, -in, -id, -iwe, -iru all cause some changes:  . -i, -in, -irre, -iwe, -iru cause changes along these lines:

sewkən  → sewcer, sewkə, sewkei, sewkəc, sewćin, sewćie, sewći, sewćiy, sewćirə

ragam   → raźar, rawo, rawwu, ragac, ragun, rawwu, ragu, raguv (rav), ragura (ragra)

taucon  →  taućar, tauco, taucou, taucac, taućun, taućuu, tauću, taućuv, taućura

-l- sometimes also turns into ź or w

saul   → saular, sauwo, sauwwou, saulac, sauźun, sauwwu, sauwu, sauwuv, saura

Immediate past

The immediate past is formed from the infinitive by use of the subject complement case. I.e. sewkən → sewkəmce, itrəmce, brewəmce. Further forming a personally inflected verb form for this is done for the singular and plural first and second persons, omitting the final e, to obtain sewkəmcer, sewkəmco, sewkəmcəc, sewkəmćin, but these forms are optional.

The object complement case is used in a slightly similar way for causative constructions.

Non-immediate past

The non-immediate past is formed by the suffixes -i(n)-| -u(n)-, sometimes omitting the final consonant of the stem: sewkir, sewkine, sewkinei, sewkinəc, sewkini, sewkini, sewkin, sewkinð, sewkinrə.

The use of the tenses will be described in more detail once the discourse particles are described, in combination with how they interact with case and tense. Omitting the person inflections reduces the certainty. This is utilized, although not mandatorily so, to mark inferred knowledge or knowledge by hearsay.

Passive voices

The regular passive promotes an object to subject status and marking. The agent can be present in the general ablative case. For those verbs that permit the regular passive, person congruence is lost. The suffix is replaced by -aśp. The indirect object being promoted to subject by a different passive is permitted for all verbs, and is formed by replacing the person marker with -əźbel|-ažbul. The past passives are more complicated and they use various weird constructions.

Participles

Combinations of the basic cases and the infinitive serves a lot of the participle-like needs of Ćwarmin. However, a large number of adjectival derived forms that may reasonably be called participles exist. Their formation and use is not described here, and is subject to great lexical variation. Ćwarmin resides on the edge of a sprachbund where this is one of the central languages. The preponderance of pseudo-participles is not the only shared trait, but their use is much more limited to adjective-like constructions in Ćwarmin.

Ćwarmin: The adjective and a bit about the noun phrase

Despite my almost obsession with congruence between adjectives and nouns in NPs, I have decided not to do that in Ćwarmin. As previously noted, Ćwarmin has about 20 cases. The case suffix normally goes on the head noun, but sometimes a determiner will carry the main case marking of the clause, with the head noun either taking the genitive, the general ablative or the possessed objective (the last of which never goes on the determiner).

On occasion, an adjective may be inflected in some case other than the case of the noun. The only cases that do not appear on adjectives standing as attributes of nouns are the reflexively possessed accusative and the accusative.

Determiners

There are a number of determiners - demonstratives, indefinite determiners (including the negative determiner), amount-related determiners (numbers, 'many', 'a few', 'all', etc). As mentioned, these sometimes carry the whole noun phrase's case, in which case the noun either agrees with it in case (if the whole phrase is nominative, accusative or genitive), or takes either the general ablative or genitive.

Those determiners which can have a singular as well as a plural meaning usually have number congruence with the head noun. 

Some special lexemes

'One' - er - in combination with the nominative complement case or genitive, eramće or erća, roughly works like specific or particular. The genitive is most often used with timespans or with mass nouns, but does occur with other nouns as well.

erəmće seltimgə - a specific fisherman

erćə toŋugul - one particular winter

erćə mehwi - a particular loaf of bread

Ćul - 'few' - combines with the complement cases for a meaning along the lines of 'just a few'
ćulamćo nedim, ćulamćan nedim - just a few bits.
In the genitive it signifies 'too few'.

Cases with Adjectives

The cases can also alter how the adjective interacts with the head noun, both for adjectives in attribute position and in complement position.

Negative - the negative simply negates an adjective, essentially like sticking in- or un- or a- before an adjective in English.

Complement cases - the complement cases tend to mark temporary or clearly subjective qualities. The nominative complement is used with rather objective qualities or qualities an animate noun intentionally acquired or maintains, whereas the accusative complement more often implies that the quality has been caused to the noun without its participation or regardless of his or her wishes.

General ablative - roughly like affixing -ish to an adjective in English when used as an attribute. Also for complements that mark what something appears to be. In situations where this and genitive or instrumental could work, the ablative has priority.

Genitive - generally used to intensify the adjective, but also marks flavors when they're complements.

Instrumental - generally used to intensify the adjective. Also marks various sound qualities when as complements.

Locative cases - sometimes nouns with these cases are used as adjectives.

Dative - for some peculiar reason, this marks first-hand knowledge evidentiality.

Comitative-with and comitative-to mark different levels of evidentiality - basically hearsay and 'anything further off than that'.