User:Kalathei95/sandbox/KalaviTest001/KalaviGrammar

Kalavi grammar is the body of rules describing the properties of the Kalavi language. Kalavi makes use of extensive grammatical cases and fusional inflections, as well as noun classes and animacy to convey meaning.

Syntax
Overview

Kalavi is a largely fusional, head final language which exhibits split ergativity depending on the grammatical class and animacy of a given noun or noun phrase. Kalavi words are derived through a rich system of affixation, marking nouns for morphological alignment to conjugating verbs. Word order is generally free, as morphological relationships are marked on the nouns, though typically defaults to SOV word order. Adjectives almost always precede nouns, but follow verbs when affixed with an adverbial. Postpositions typically follow nouns as particles or may be affixed to form prepositional noun cases (which may also serve locative functions). Kalavi does not distinguish definiteness (there are no definite or indefinite articles); demonstratives and the cardinal number 1 iy may be used periphrastically for definiteness.

Nouns
Nouns in Kalavi are complex. They are divided into three grammatical genders: feminine, masculine and common (or neuter), which themselves are further subdivided into noun classes containing three, five and seven subclasses respectively. Each class and subclass is either animate or inanimate. Each class may be declined for the nominative, accusative, ergative, absolutive, genitive, dative, instrumental, comitative, locative, abessive and vocative case. Nouns are also declined for singular and plural, and distributive only in the instrumental and locative cases. Kalavi features split ergativity, where nominative–accusative alignment is used when the subject is animate, and ergative-absolutive alignment if the subject is inanimate.

All Kalavi nouns possess lexical gender, even inanimate objects. A noun's class is primarily determined by its animacy and or its association with biological sex. Derivational affixes may alter nouns by promoting or demoting them on the animacy hierarchy, applying grammatical gender to periphrastically indicate grammatical possession, agree with a topic, or change how they are declined. Noun declensions are very consistent, with remarkably little to no irregularities.

Case marking
Nouns and adjectives are marked for case through a rich inventory of suffixes. Adjectives agree with the nouns they decline for. In theory, a single noun can be declined in 263 ways, though in reality, Kalavi nouns are generally restricted to fixed classes as agreed by semantics or context.

Grammatical gender
Grammatical gender in Kalavi is divided into: feminine, masculine and common/neutered. Typically, natural phenomenon such as fire, wind or life are feminine, while vegetation, medicine and food are masculine. All nouns are marked for gender, as well as its constituent adjectives which agrees with its noun. Despite the prevalence of gendered personal names, they are categorised and declined under the common/neutered paradigm. Which noun falls into which gender is generally predictable and understood by context and semantics, though there are a notable exceptions. For example, the word for 'menstruation' nexivamaten is in the Masculine IV class, and pollen dås is considered under Common II class.

Animacy hierarchy
As a split-ergative language, Kalavi sentences display different morphosyntactic alignment depending on the relationship of object classes of any given transitive sentence. If the subject and object of a transitive sentence are both animate, the sentence features nominative-accusative alignment. If the subject of a transitive sentence is animate, but the object is inanimate, it becomes nominative-absolutive. If both the subject and object are inanimate, it takes on the ergative-absolutive. Tripartite alignment is used if the subject is inanimate and the object animate.

Nominative-accusative
Nominative-accusative alignment is used when both subject and object are animate classes. In this case, two animate entities are the subject and object of the following transitive sentences.

"Master stopped teaching (the) student years ago." Kłqanðavm-ai-Ø-za daŕq-ai-Ø-za enex-an dḷax⟨y⟩u-ḷad.

restless-F(CL3)-NOM-PL spirit-F(CL3)-NOM-PL people.C(CL1)-ACC.SG suffer-COND.CAUS.FUT.3PL.PFV

"The restless spirits would cause suffering to people (in the future)."

Nominative-absolutive
Nominative-absolutive sentences occur when the subject and object are animate and inanimate respectively. In this case, both subject and object are unmarked. This is by far the most common alignment in every day speech. "Our company's legal advisor lost his car key."

Ergative-absolutive
Ergative-absolutive alignments occur when both the subject and object are inanimate in a transitive sentence. Kav-er-el qidi-hōsiq-on-Ø malpyusokorz-vå (yaze).

bridge-M(CL5)-ERG.SG ILL-waterbody-M(CL3)-ABS.SG collapse-ACT.IND.PFV.PST.3SG (below).

"The bridge collapsed into the waters below."

Tripartite
Tripartite alignment occurs when the subject is inanimate and the object is animate. These types of sentences are significantly less common."The falling lamppost almost struck the stray cat."

Genitive case
The genitive case marks nouns as modifying another noun, noun phrase or adjective. The Kalavi genitive is used to convey a noun's relationship with another noun, which may be possessive or complementary in nature. Hudráz-Ø-ex iþa kvanrev-Øex kurikul-Ø-a ğakkjo-êr-iþ gvyens-xaq.

complex-C(CL3).ABS.PL CONJ(and) kurikul-C(CL1)-ABS.PL bureaucratic-C(CL3)-ABS.PL school-M(CL5)-GEN.PL district-C(CL3)-GEN.PL.

"Overtly complex and bureaucratic school district curricula."

Dative case and indirect objects
The dative case is used to mark indirect objects, but may also convey a secondary benefactive meaning.Jovegkjírt-ir-Ø kyaramtyet-o⟨ŕ⟩-an ŋaśfa-vå lyot opera-Ø-s teŋrźe-Ø-ju smirz-Ø-uha.

audience-F(CL2)-NOM.SG producer-M(CL2)-ACC.PL jeer-ACT.IND.PFV.PST.3SG REL opera-C(CL1)-GEN political-C(CL3)-DAT.PL message-C(CL1)-DAT.PL

"The audience primarily booed at the producers given the political messages of the opera."

Instrumental case
The instrumental case indicates a noun is being used by another case, usually inanimate nouns. Kovok-or-an ħlek-er-żas iþa mreŋ-Ø-żah h⟨y⟩ił-en.

dog-M(CL2)-ACC.SG ladder-M(CL5)-INSTR.PL CONJ(and) rope-M(CL1)-INSTR.PL rescue-ACT.IND.PFV.FUT.1PL

"We will rescue the dog using ladders and rope."