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akkkkkkkkkkka · 11 months

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Okinawan Verbal Morphology / 沖縄語の動詞形態論

Okinawan has an agglutinative morphology which involves “glueing together” bits of information. This is very similar to languages such as Japanese and Korean.

Okinawan, and many Ryukyuan languages, have retained some grammatical forms now obsolete in Modern Japanese. One of these is the attributive form. The present and past tense of verbs in Okinawan inflect for the attributive form, as well as a terminal form ie the dictionary form. However, other innovations have occurred in Okinawan such as losing the object marker and the subject and genetive marker sounding phonetically the same in certain contexts. In this lesson I will only teach the plain form to introduce the basic verbal morphology. I will also not be teaching the specific conjugation rules. A full list of tenses can be found at the end under further reading.

NOTES:

In all lessons, romanisation will not be used. A full guide to hiragana will be attached under further reading.

Lessons will include a colour code: new terms and concepts will be blue and feature focuses will be red. The words in blue will be defined at the bottom of the page under definitions.

Further reading gives additional resources which will help in your study of Okinawan.

Affirmative:

Present:

The present tense ending is simply the dictionary form of a verb.

For example:

咬むん(かむん) - to eat; (I) eat

言ん(っゆん) - to say; (I) say

考ーゆん(かんげーゆん) - to think; (I) think

聞ちゅん(ちちゅん) - to hear; (I) hear

話すん(はなすん) - to speak; (I) speak

Past:

All past tenses comprise of an alveolar consonant (or avleolo-palatal) + aん:

〜たん,〜ちゃん, 〜だん, 〜じゃん

For example:

咬だん - (I) ate

言ちゃん - (I) said

考げーたん - (I) thought

聞ちゃん - (I) heard

話ちゃん - (I) spoke

Negative:

Present:

The negative is a little bit less predictable since they are a mixture of alveolar sounds, [k] and [m]. They also are of the structure aん like the affirmative tenses:

あん, かん, がん, さん, らん, まん, だん

For example:

咬まん - (I) don’t eat

言やん(っやん) - (I) don’t say

考げーらん - (I) don’t think

聞かん - (I) don’t listen

話さん - (I) don’t speak

Past:

The past negative is actually pretty simple, it comprises of the negative form plus たん:

あんたん, かんたん, さんたん etc

For example:

咬まんたん - (I) didn’t eat

言やんたん - (I) didn’t say

考げーらんたん - (I) didn’t think

聞かんたん - (I) didn’t listen

話さんたん - (I) didn’t speak

Attributive:

The attributive form is made by removing ん and adding る in the present and present negative.

Examples:

広いさる（ふぃるさる）猫（まやー）- A big cat

話さんたる女子（うぃなぐ） - A woman who didn't speak

Conclusion:

This lesson was focused on the plain form present, past, negative and past negative forms. This was by no means a detailed guide of the individual rules. The attached Google Doc will give more information on the specific conjugation types arranged into tables. It also has other forms including the passive, desiderative and causative among others. That Doc will give the detail that this lesson was missing simply because there’s not much to say on the specific conjugation types that can’t be included in tables.

> Definitions:

• Agglutinative - from the Latin “agglūtinō”, “to glue (together)” which involves adding morphemes to a root. These morphemes usually don’t mean much (if anything) on their own. This is contrasted with fusional languages where one morpheme can be used in different situations and these are usually “words” as defined in English.

• Attributive Form - a form of a verb to use it to describe anything (in this case) after it ie as an adjective

• Object Marker - marks the object of a sentence ie the thing that the verb is affecting eg I eat watermelon, “watermelon” is the one receiving the “eating” - Japanese: 私は西瓜を食べる (watashi wa suika wo taberu), “wo” = object marker, marking “suika”. Okinawan: 我んねー西瓜咬むん (wannee shiikuwa kamun), lack of an object marker unlike Japanese.

• Subject Marker - the subject and topic markers are very similar in usage and both handle information being known or not. The best way to understand the usages is to see them in a sentence.

• Genetive Marker - this shows possession eg 猫ぬ目 (mayaa nu mii) - the eye of the cat. This marker is used in the same position as the ‘s strategy of possession in English eg the cat’s eye; the marker directly follows the possessee.

> Further Reading:

Full Conjugation Tables: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1-ew99qbNZHqpuNwDHYTzsTEpoLWdD1OANqWVic7LS4I/edit

Hiragana Tables: https://docs.google.com/document/d/12Z__i6Ay7wXm1H-40wLTqRKluyz_IlOYrRxrHWDnm8s/edit

#うちなーぐち #language #okinawan #言語

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akkkkkkkkkkka · 1 year

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< Conlang Showcase: Lyëkënob (Introduction) >

NOTE: ë = ɛ, ü = ʊ, ï = ɪ, y = j, ng = ŋ, the stops are aspirated, the fricatives s + z are retracted, n, t, d, s, z are laminodental, r, l are apical alveolar.

Syllable Structure: (C)V(C), where it is only possible when it is the last syllable of a word, any previous syllables are strictly (C)V.

The variety of the Lyëkënub language sampled here is the Southeastern dialect, where the standard language is based.

The Frogs and The Ox / Bak uni suk (first two lines)

hën qyëraruk tyënër súk nur púrukin násamük úsuqan

in.order.to drink-PERF AUX.PRFV ox towards reed-ADJ pool come.down-IMP

An Ox came down to a reedy pool to drink

ëk basanáruk sínik nur nyëmëk, ëtyër gïkin bak nan yëmëk

when hit.PERF 3.p.s to water, crush-PRFV young frog in mud

As he splashed heavily into the water, he crushed a young Frog into the mud

< Vocabulary List >

hën (+ the perfective converb form of the verb): in order to

qyëra: to eat, to drink, to take (e.g. medicine)

tásan: auxiliary verb (used to convey more specific tenses)

súk: ox

nur: towards

púruk: reed, cane, any long thin plant

-in: turns nouns into adjectives

násamük: lake, puddle, any (relatively small) body of water

úsuk: to run, to travel

ëk (+ the perfective converb form of the verb): when, as

básan: to hit, to knock (e.g. on a door)

sínik: I, me

nyëmëk: water

ásab: to push (down), to poke, to click

gïkin: young, inexperienced, person who has just started something

bák: frog

nan: in, on, at

yëmëk: mud

< Interesting Features >

- VSO word order but it can change if an auxiliary verb is used and if there is a possessive clause in the sentence.

- fusional

- Head initial

- Internally headed relative clauses

- Makes pervasive use of converbs in the verbal paradigm

- stressed e, ë, o/ü are pronounced ye, yë and wo respectively

- there are three dialect groups: Western, Central and Eastern.

#conlang #language #conlanging

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