Archive:Q'eb language

Q'eb language
q'eblat
Ethnicity	Q'eb people
Language family	Q'eb language
CWS code	–

The Q'eb language is a language spoken by the Q'eb people living in the Confederation of Ebo Nganagam and Kema Mi Amo.

Unlike the neighboring Ebo Nganagam language, the Q'eb language has a long writing tradition.

Phonology

Consonants

	Bilabial	Labio-dental	Dental	Alveolar	Post-alveolar	Retroflex	Palatal	Velar	Uvular	Pharyngeal	Epiglottal	Glottal
Nasal	m			n
Plosive	p b			t tʼ d				k kʼ g	q qʼ
Fricative				s z	ʃ ʒ				χ ʁ
Affricate				t͡s t͡sʼ d͡z	t͡ʃ t͡ʃʼ d͡ʒ
Approximant		ʋ					j
Trill				r
Flap or tap
Lateral fric.
Lateral app.				l
Lateral flap

Vowels

	Front	Near-front	Central	Near-back	Back
Close	i				u
Near-close
Close-mid
Mid
Open-mid	ɛ				ɔ
Near-open	æ
Open					ɑ

Phonotactics

The Q'eb language allows an elaborate possibility of consonant clusters, it is not uncommon to have four or five consonants in an initial cluster, clusters consisting eight consonants are not unheard of, for example, ksmrdans /ksmrdɑns/ "he did not make it" has an initial cluster of five consonants, and gvdʁzhvrnan /gʋdʁʒʋrnɑn/ "we did not make someone imagine it" has an initial cluster of eight consonants.

Grammar

The Q'eb language is a highly synthetic agglutinating language, it has both polypersonal agreements and nominal cases.

Morphology

Nouns

Nouns in the Q'eb language inflect for cases and numbers, in the Q'eb language, the number suffixes precede the case suffixes.

There are two major ways to form the plural number of nouns in the Q'eb language: Umlaut and suffix. Only a set of monosyllabic words have umlaut plurals, most of which are nouns indicating people, and all other nouns take the suffix -ed for the plural form, and when using the suffix -ed, in polysyllabic words, the /a/ or /e/ in the last syllable of the stem is frequently dropped when the plural suffix -ed is used. For example:

• le "person" - li "people" (umlaut plural)
• galk "tree" - galked "trees"
• zag "fish(singular)" - zaged "fish(plural)"
• eshgal "world" - eshgled "worlds"(note the elision of the /a/ in the last syllable)

Nominal Cases are shown below:

• Nominative: -
• Ergative-Instrumental: -i(-i becomes -y after vowels)
• Genitive: -a(the /a/ or /e/ in the last syllable of the stem is dropped in polysyllabic words)
• Dative: -ak(the /a/ or /e/ in the last syllable of the stem is dropped in polysyllabic words)
• Locative: -ma
• Ablative: -as(the /a/ or /e/ in the last syllable of the stem is dropped in polysyllabic words)
• Vocative: -o

For example:

Example 1(zag- "fish"):

• Nominative: zag
• Ergative-Instrumental: zagi
• Genitive: zaga(or zga)
• Dative: zagak(or zgak)
• Locative: zagma
• Ablative: zagas(or zgas)
• Vocative: zago

Example 2(eshgal- "world"):

• Nominative: eshgal
• Ergative-Instrumental: eshgali
• Genitive: eshgla
• Dative: eshglak
• Locative: eshgalma
• Ablative: eshglas
• Vocative: eshgalo

Adjectives

In the Q'eb language, adjectives are more similar to nouns, and like nouns, adjectives can take case endings:

• Nominative: -
• Ergative-Instrumental: -i(-i becomes -y after vowels)
• Genitive: -a(the /a/ or /e/ in the last syllable of the stem is dropped in polysyllabic words)
• Dative: -ak(the /a/ or /e/ in the last syllable of the stem is dropped in polysyllabic words)
• Locative: -ma
• Ablative: -as(the /a/ or /e/ in the last syllable of the stem is dropped in polysyllabic words)
• Vocative: -o

Adjectives agree with the nouns they modify in case. For example:

• svam zug - svam zug - sweet.NOM dream.NOM - a sweet dream
• kami ley - kam-i le-i - tall-ERG person-ERG - (with/by) the tall person
• balak t'achkak - bal-ak t'achek-ak - big-DAT stone-DAT - to the big stone

Verbs

The Q'eb language has a complex verbal morphology, the verb has polypersonal agreement and other inflections.

The verbal negation requires the subjunctive mood

The affixes of verbs follow the following order:

• Negation-preverbal subject agreement-preverbal object agreement-causative-(root/stem)-voices-TAM-postverbal object agreement-complementizer/question

Below are the verbal agreements:

• Negation: k-/g-

Agreements:

Subject:

• 1st sg: t-/d-
• 2nd sg: v-
• 3rd sg: -s/-z
• 1st pl: t-/d- + -i(-i becomes -y after vowels)
• 2nd pl: v- + -i(-i becomes -y after vowels)
• 3rd pl: -si/-zi/-i(-i becomes -y after vowels)

Object:

• 1st sg: r-
• 2nd sg: v-
• 3rd sg: χ-/ʁ-/s-(before or after velars)/z-(before or after velars)/0-
• 1st pl: vd-/r- + -i(-i becomes -y after vowels)
• 2nd pl: v- + -i(-i becomes -y after vowels)
• 3rd pl: -i(-i becomes -y after vowels)

Voices:

• passive: -p/-b/-v/-uv
• reflexive/middle: -t/-d/-et

Causative: sh-/zh-(before voiced consonants)/shi-(before silibants)

TAM:

• imperfective: -a(with the the Stem Vowel Alternation)
• subjunctive: -an(with the the Stem Vowel Alternation)
• desiderative(want to...): -ke
• necessitative(should/must...): -o(with the the Stem Vowel Alternation)
• potential(can/may): -me
• optative: -ob(with the the Stem Vowel Alternation)

Complementizer: -ka/-ga

Question: -m/-em

Stem Vowel Alternation

Some verb forms require the umlaut or elision of stem vowels, which is called the Stem Vowel Alternation. Below is the rule of the Stem Vowel Alternation:

• /a/ > 0
• /æ/ > /i/
• /ɛ/ > 0 or /i/, depending on the stem
• /i/ > /i/
• /ɔ/ > /u/
• /u/ > /u/

However, when the stem ends with two or more consonants, and the stem vowel is /a/ or /ɛ/, the stem vowel does not undergo elision, but undergo metathesis with the following consonant.

For example:

• χmradz

  χ-mrad-z

  3.SG.P-make-3.SG.A

  he made it

• χmradmes

  χ-mrad-me-s

  3.SG.P-make-POT-3.SG.A

  he can/could made it

• ksmrdans

  k-s-mrad-an-s

  NEG-3.SG.P-make-SBJV-3.SG.A

  he did not make it

• gvdʁzhvrnan

  g-vd-ʁ-zh-vran-an

  NEG-1.PL.A-3.SG.P-CAUS-imagine-SBJV

  we didn't make someone imagine it.

• gari vkas?

  gari v-ak-a-s?

  how 2.SG-go-IPFV-3.SG

  how are you?(lit: how does it go to you?)

• tχsmlaχtoy

  t-χ-smalχ-t-o-i

  1.PL.A-3.SG.P-immerse-REFL-NEC-1.PL.A

  we should involve in it.

Derivational morphology

-t is a common suffix for creating adjectives.

evidence shows that some adjectives and nouns are created by ablauting the stem vowel, but this seems to be an unproductive process.

Syntax

Word Order

• Basic Word Order: Subject-Object-Verb(SOV)
  • However, the word order is flexible, and under the influence of the Ebo Nganagam language, the use of the Subject-Verb-Object(SVO) order is not uncommon nowadays.
• Adpositions are postpositions.
• Adjectives, demonstratives, numerals, possessors precede the nouns they modify.
• Negations precede the words they negate.

Alignments

There's a split ergativity in the nominal alignment pattern of the Q'eb language, it is triggered by the aspect of the sentence. In the Q'eb language the perfective aspect and the optative mood trigger an ergative-absolutive alignment pattern in nouns, and the imperfective aspect triggers an nominative-accusative alignment pattern:

• le zag χtas

  le zag χ-at-a-s

  person fish 3.SG.P-eat-IPFV-3.SG.A

  the person eats/is eating the fish(imperfective)

• ley zag χats

  le-i zag χ-at-s

  person-ERG/INSTR fish 3.SG.P-eat.PFV-3.SG.A

  the person ate the fish(perfective)

In the first example, both of the subject(le "person") and the direct object(zag "fish") are in the nominative case; while in the second example, the subject is in the ergative case, and the direct object is in the nominative case.

Conjunctions

Conjuctions can precede or follow the clause they modify.

Below are some postclausal conjunctions:

• when: so
• before: χam
• after: ab