Morphology and Syntax Morphological language variation

Ich arbeite Wir arbeit-en I workwe work-plural Ich arbeite-te I work-past ‘I worked’ Wir arbeite-te-(e)n we work-past-plural ‘We worked’

Fusion grad singulargradovi plural grad masculine singulargradovi masculine plural selo neuter singularsela neuter plural grad nominative masc. sing.gradovi nominative masc. plur. grad accusative masc. sing.gradove accusative masc. plur. –ovi, –ove etc. are portmanteau morphemes: they express more than one inflectional category simultaneously.

Agglutination elhand ‘hand’ el-im hand-1poss‘my hand’ el-im-iz hand-1poss-plur ‘our hand’ el-im-iz-ihand-1poss-plur-acc‘our hand’ (in object function) (in object function)

A fusional paradigm masculine neuter feminine masculine neuter feminine grad ‘city’ selo ‘village’ ovca ‘sheep’ grad ‘city’ selo ‘village’ ovca ‘sheep’ sg pl sg pl sg pl sg pl sg pl sg pl Nominative grad gradovi selo sela ovca ovce Genitive grada gradova sela sela ovce ovaca Dative gradu gradovima selu selima ovci ovcama Accusative grad gradove selo sela ovcu ovce Instrumental gradom gradovima selom selima ovcom ovcama Locative gradu gradovima selu selima ovci ovcama

Polysynthetic languages Men-neki-ure-qepl-uwicwen-mek. 1pl-imperative-night-long-ball-play-1pl ‘Let us play ball for a long time at night.’ Pe-ke-ilot-aan-akin-it-o-to-ri. not-they.cause.me-wash-habitual-dative-asp-v-plural- instrumental ‘They do not force me to do the washing for somebody all the time.’

Noun incorporation Yede a-seuan-mũ-ban. that 2sg-man-see-past ‘You saw that man.’ #She is the schoolteacher of this. (does not mean the same as ‘she is the teacher of this school’)

Verb incorporation Sue made Harry buy that book. They let them work harder. Mtsikana anau-gw-ets-a mtsuko. girl agreement-fall-made-aspect waterpot ‘The girl made the waterpot fall’

Adverb incorporation Tpwi i-kay-a-pan-kiak. sago-plural pluralobject-1pluralsubject-definite- pound-tomorrow ‘We will pound sago tomorrow.’

Agreement on verbs is necessary and sufficient in polysynthetic languages: At’ééd ashkii yiyii-tsa. girl boy 3sgobject-3sgsubject-saw ‘The girl saw the boy.’ Yiyii-tsa. 3sgobject-3sgsubject-saw ‘She/he saw her/him.’

Nonconcatenative morphology ‘Root-and-pattern’ morphology: kataba‘wrote’ yaktubu ‘writes’ kitab ‘book’ kutub ‘books’ maktaba ‘library’

Reduplication grapho ge-grapha lúo lé-luka ‘I write’ ‘I have written’ ‘I loosen’ ‘I have loosened’ anak anak-anak gunung gunung-gunung ‘child’ ‘children’ ‘mountain’ ‘mountains’ huil huil-huil speel speel-speel ‘cry’ ‘crying’ ‘play’ ‘playing’