Funky Feature Friday: Nez Perce case marking

[wm.annis]

Because of my terrible conlanging hobby — to say nothing of simple curiosity — I often find myself reading grammars and linguistics papers on somewhat obscure languages, or obscure linguistic topics.  It seemed like it might be interesting to a few other people to hear a little bit about how other languages, worked, so today I'm kicking off a series of posts called "Funky Feature Friday."  I have a few topics lined up, and Taronyu has said he'll post a few.  We'll give this a try for a month or so, to see how the interest is, and see how it goes.



I've decided to start off with an interesting bit of syntax from Nez Perce.  You can hear what Nez Perce sounds like here: YouTube - Broadcast Yourself.

The main reason I've been looking at Nez Perce recently is because it is one of the few human languages which, like Na'vi, uses a tripartite case structure.  That is, it has separate case endings for (1) the subject of an intransitive clause, (2) the subject of a transitive clause and (3) the direct object of a transitive clause.  Let's look at some examples:

1. sík'em hi-wleke'yx-tee'nix háamti'c
horse 3SUBJ-run-HAB.PL fast
Horses run fast.

2. 'ip-ním pée-qn'i-se qeqíi-ne.
3SG-ERG 3/3-dig-IMPERF edible.root-OBJ
He digs qeqíit roots.

3. pit'íin-im páa-'yax-na picpíc-ne.
girl-ERG 3/3-find-PERF cat-OBJ
The girl found the cat.

So, notice in sentence (1) that there's no case ending for the subject of an intransitive clause, just like Na'vi.  In sentence (2) and (3) we see forms of the agentive/ergative case, -ním, -nm, -m, and one of the direct object/patientive/object -ne.  This is also like Na'vi, but notice what is happening to the verb.  In addition to marking the cases, the Nez Perce verb has different conjugations (marked by prefixes) which also reference what is going on with the verbs.  So, hi- is the prefix for a 3rd person, intransitive subject.

So, except for the verb marking, this is quite like Na'vi.  However, there is syntax in Nez Perce where a transitive verb takes nouns with no case marking.  It occurs in two situations.

First, Nez Perce has an antipassive.  That is syntax you use to downplay or demote the importance or relevance of the direct object of a transitive verb.  In some languages, you cannot even mention the direct object in an antipassive, but those languages that do allow a direct object usually give the meaning of "some" to the direct object.  Here's the Nez Perce example, perfectly parallel to example 2 above:

4. 'ipí hi-qn'íi-se qeqíit.
3SG 3SUBJ-dig-IMPERF edible.root
He digs qeqíit roots.

So, in sentence (4) the direct object is included only for completeness, but isn't especially relevant to the conversation.  Note that in Nez Perce antipassives neither the subject nor the direct object has any case marking, and the verb once again has the hi- 3rd person intransitive subject prefix.

What I've mentioned so far is completely parallel to structures I have seen in ergative languages, even if this is a tripartite language.  It's the last use of omitting case marking on a transitive verb that completely blew my mind. 

5. pit'íin hi-'yáax-na pícpic.
girl 3SUBJ-find-PERF cat
The girl found her cat.

Note the translation for the direct object — her cat.  The other place Nez Perce allows you to drop the normal case marking for a transitive verb is when the direct object is possessed by the subject.  Here's another one:

6. 'iin láwlimq-sa pískis.
1SG fix-IMPERF door
I am fixing my door.

So, it's sentences (5) and (6) that inspired me to use Nez Perce for Funky Feature Friday.  If I had invented a language that used this sort of case dropping to mark possession, I'd have assumed it to be completely unseen in human languages.  And yet there it is.


The examples for this post come from the paper Ergative case and the transitive subject: a view from Nez Perce.  Linguistics types can find a preprint here.  It's full of the usual Generative black magic, but the examples are interesting.

[Reyi Pxaypxiwll]

(Using a touchscreen keyboard on a borrowed cell phone, so please bear with me.)

I am doing all I can not to squee...  My inner Johnny5 is basking in the presence of more "iiiinpuuuut..."

Irayo for sharing this little tidbit of language with us, Mr. wm.annis.  Pokey and I look forward to more installments from you and Mr. Taronyu next week! ...and the next week... and the next week...

Pokey the thornbush: *rattlefweesh...* >>;;

[Plumps]

Very interesting indeed.
Would be good if you could tell us where these languages are spoken. I take it, it's a native American language

[wm.annis]

[I take it, it's a native American language.

Yep.  The Wikipedia article on it has a map of where it's original range was, a practice followed for most native languages in the English part of WP, at least.

[Txur’Itan]

This is quite interesting.

Qe'ci'yew'yew' ~ Thank you.

I like the sound bytes, they definitely draw a clearer picture of where the language comes from, and how it sounds.

http://www.nezperce.org/Official/vowel.htm

Elongated vowels gave me trouble in trying to properly pronounce certain things in other languages, I don't have the precision of some people to do it as effectively.