Archive:Q'eb language
Q'eb language | |
---|---|
q'eblat | |
Ethnicity | Q'eb people |
Language family |
|
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.
Orthography
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