Uyghur grammar

Uyghur is a Turkic language spoken mostly in the west of China.

 LIM:limitative case LMT:limitative case DV:direction voice PRN:pronominaliser SIM:similitude case EQU:equivalence case EQV:equivalence case INTENT:intention state INDIR:indirect statement mood HEARSAY:hearsay mood SUBJASS:subjective assessment mood OBJASS:objective assessment mood 

Uyghur exhibits the agglutination characteristic to the Turkic family and its basic word order is subject-object-verb. It lacks grammatical gender and does not use articles. The language's inventory of 24 consonants and eight vowels features both vowel harmony and consonant harmony. Nouns are marked for ten cases, in general with suffixes and are additionally inflected for number.

This article uses both the Arabic script (official for the language) and Latin script for Uyghur words.

General characteristics
The typical word order in Uyghur is subject–object–verb, as in the sentence "men uyghurche oquymen", lit., "I Uyghur study" Compare this to English, where the sentence would be expressed with subject–verb–object order: "I study Uyghur".

Uyghur is an agglutinative language, meaning that potentially many suffixes (denoting person, number, case, mood, etc.) are usually all attached to one word stem. For example "to your house," the main word, house, occurs first, and the modifying elements are attached directly to the right and written all in one word:

Nouns are not distinguished for gender (e.g. male, female), unlike in such languages as French, Spanish and German. Nouns are usually pluralized (with the suffix +lAr) except when preceded by a numeral: compare "atlar" ("horses") and "ikki at" (two horses). Instead of using articles (like English "a", "the"), Uyghur uses demonstrative pronouns ("this", "that") and no marker or the numeral one (bir) to indicate definiteness and indefiniteness, respectively, "this cat/the cat" vs. بىر مۈشۈك(bir müshük) "a/one cat" or مۈشۈك(müshük) "cat/cats."

Uyghur verbs take, usually at least for tense (present, past) and person (I, you, s/he, they, etc.), for example

Uyghur verbs can also take other suffixes to mark voice (causative, passive), aspect (continuous), mood (e.g. ability), as well as suffixes that change verbs into nouns—sometimes many all together:

Negation usually also appears as a verb suffix, e.g.

Uyghur has vowel and consonant harmony, a system where vowels or consonants in a word come to match or become similar to each other, especially as suffixes and other elements are attached. Many but not all words and grammatical elements in Uyghur behave according to these harmonic principles. If a suffix is written with one or more capital letters (e.g. +DA, +lAr, +GA, etc.), these capital letters indicate that these sounds are harmonic, that is, variable: D= d/t, G= gh/q/g/k; K= k/q; A= a/e; I= i/u/ü or ø/i/u/ü.

Sound system
There are 32 basic sounds in Modern Uyghur.

Consonants
Uyghur has 24 consonants (listed here according to the Arabic-script alphabet): b, p, t, j, ch, x, d, r, z, zh, s, sh, gh, f, q, k, g, ng, l, m, n, x, h, w, y (and 25 consonants if the glottal stop ‘ is counted). Most are not pronounced much differently than their English counterparts (e.g. Uyghur j in baj "tax" is pronounced like j in judge; Uyghur ch in üch "three" is pronounced like ch in itch; Uyghur h in he’e "yes" is pronounced like h in hello), except that l has palatal or velar variants. A few sounds are not found in English: q gh and x. The voiceless uvular stop q [q] is pronounced like a back k, with the back of the tongue touching the soft palate, as in aq "white," Qeshqer "Kashgar." The sound gh is typically a voiced fricative version of q, also pronounced at the very back of the mouth and sounds like French or German r, as in Roissy or Ruhr. (Near front vowels, gh is often pronounced more front, like French Rue or German Rübe.) Finally, the Uyghur voiceless velar or uvular fricative x is pronounced like ch in Scottish loch, or further back in the mouth, like a back version of German ach.

The four sounds k, g, q and gh are subject to consonant harmony: (1) within a stem (main word), they potentially determine its backness and (2) within a variable suffix, they conform to the backness and voicing of the preceding stem. Consonant harmony is discussed below.

The ژ zh (sounds like English garage), is only for foreign and onomatopoeic words like zhurnal ‘magazine, journal’ and pizh-pizh "sizzling." The letter ج j (normally pronounced as in baj ‘tax’) is in southern Xinjiang often pronounced. Initial y can also be pronounced  before i, e.g. yilan  ‘snake’.

In Uyghur words of Turkic origin, sh is rare, except as a suffix; similarly, since f was borrowed into Uyghur from Arabic and Persian, it is often replaced by p, especially in colloquial and rural usage: fakultët~pakultët ‘academic department’.

Vowels
Uyghur has eight vowels. Vowels are rounded (o, u, ü, ö) and unrounded (a, i, e, ë); this distinction is sometimes termed labial vs. non-labial; they are front (ü, ö, e, ë) or back (u, o, a). These distinctions are critical for harmonic purposes, since Uyghur words are subject to vowel harmony. The orthographic vowel i represents both a front [i] and a back [ɨ] and is not subject to vowel harmony.

Uyghur accent (stress or high pitch, which we will for convenience call stress) is not well understood, yet some general remarks can be made to aid language learning. In Uyghur, stress is mostly determined by the length of syllables. This means that a syllable which is closed (i.e., ends in consonants [CVC or CVCC]) tends to attract stress, while a syllable which is open (i.e. ends in a vowel [CV]) does not. A rule of thumb is: stress the last syllable of the stem, e.g. ayagh "foot," Turpan'gha "to Turfan." (in the vocabulary lists, we underline stressed syllables.)

Harmonic Rules
Word-internal harmony is relatively weak in Uyghur, but when suffixes are added to a word stem, certain suffix vowels and consonants harmonize with those of the stem. There are three variable vowels in Uyghur, A (a/e), I (i/u/ü), and U (u/ü). There are three harmonically variable consonant types: G (k/g/q/gh), K (k/q) and D (d/t). Uyghur's harmony system has three relevant components: voicing, backness and roundness harmony. Note that -AK will always be either -ek or -aq, and -IK can only be ik, iq, uq, or ük. Remember that i represents both a front [i] and a back [ɨ], and is a neutral vowel and thus this can affect vowel harmony in suffixes. For instance: Takes the front versions of archiphonemes G and A, as the word is solely made up of [i]s, but:Takes the back versions, as the word is phonetically [kɑtɨpqɑ], with the /i/ turning to the back vowel [ɨ], due to the /ɑ/.

A-raising
When a stem ends in unstressed a or e (as part of the archiphoneme A), and it is followed by a consonant (i.e. suffixes), this a/e is usually raised to i. When a monosyllabic stem ends in a/e, and is followed by a consonant, its a/e is usually raised to ë. This is reflected in the orthography. Other vowels do not change.

For example:Here the -a of /ˈtʃo.kɑ/ is raised to /i/ to make the plural, /ˈtʃo.ki.lɑr/. Here is an example of a monosyllabic stem changingːWhile the stem /mɑŋ/ is not an open syllable, as Uyghur syllable structure is onset-mandatory, when the stem takes the suffix -(I)wat- the /ŋ/ of the stem breaks off to form a syllable with the /i/ of the suffix, like soː /me.ŋi.wɑ.ti.du/ (here the [me] is not stressed).

Where the a or e is stressed, the vowel does not raise, for instance with:As the syllable is stressed, it does not raise: /ʔɑ.ˈwɑz/, /ʔɑ.ˈwɑ.zim/. Words like this with a stressed final syllable are known as strong nouns and add a y or r between their stem and first/second person personal suffixes. Monosyllabic words ending in a rounded verb always add y.

Names, unfamiliar place names, and non-nativised loan words do not change. Loan words are frequent sources of stressed open final syllables, such as the Arabic loan /dun.ˈjɑ/, from دُنْيَا.

Sound changes not reflected in writing
A-raising also takes place across word boundaries, but this is not reflected in writing, see:Which is pronounced /ˈlɑ.ti xɛdʒ/.

Some loan words ending in p and b change that p/b to w when a vowel-initial suffix is added to them. This is not reflected in any orthography other than Cyrillic.

The table below shows some other sound changes in words that are not reflected in writing.

Personal pronouns
In Uyghur there is one set of personal pronouns used for the first- and third person, while there are three in the second person. The use of the three sets in the second person depends on the formality and politeness.

The personal pronouns are inflected for number and case. Follow the links of each of the personal pronouns to see them inflected.

The second person personal pronoun mostly used among people is the polite سىز, siz, while the informal سەن, sen is used between very close friends or when parents are addressing their children. The informal سەن, sen is also used when the speaker has a higher social rank than the addressed person.

The respectful سىلى, sili is used for respectfully addressing elders, grandparents or other notable persons of a community. Royalty is also addressed using سىلى, sili and sometimes even customers in stores.

Demonstrative pronouns
Uyghur has several demonstrative pronouns with some of them being used for emphasis or as intensifiers, while others have less specific uses. Common for all of the demonstrative pronouns is that their use depends on the distance between the speaker and the thing or person to which is referred.

The demonstrative pronouns are inflected for number and case. In the table below, the demonstrative pronouns can be seen, although only in the singular. Follow the links of each of the demonstrative pronouns to see them inflected.

The most common demonstrative pronouns are بۇ, bu, ئۇ, u and شۇ, shu, the first being translated as this and the remaining two as that. The first is used when referring to an object or person which is visible and close to the speaker, the second is used when referring to an object or person which is away from the speaker and the third is used when referring to a previously mentioned object or person which is not particular close to the speaker in an affirmative statement.

The two first-mentioned demonstrative persons each have an intensified derived form ending in ۋۇ, -wu, ماۋۇ, mawu and ئاۋۇ, awu, respectively. These are used when it is necessary to make it clear that the object or person the demonstrative pronoun is referring to really is the object or person which the speaker means. The two first-mentioned demonstrative persons both also have another derived form, ending in شۇ, -shu, مۇشۇ, mushu and ئاشۇ, ashu, respectively. These are often used for confirming something the speaker is already familiar with.

The examples below illustrate the use of بۇ, bu and its derived forms.

Nouns
Nouns in Uyghur have no grammatical gender or definite marking, although the number 'one' bir can be used to mark indefiniteness. Plurals are marked by -lAr, with the vowel following the rules of vowel harmony. The plural is not used after numbers.

Cases
Uyghur has ten cases, all of which except the nominative are marked by suffixation after possible plural or possessive suffixes. Case always comes after plurals and possessive suffixes. Note that the locative-qualitative, limitative, equivalence, and similitude cases are sometimes not considered to be cases. Note that as the example word, /kitab, has its final consonant devoiced to phonetically be, it uses the unvoiced variants of suffixes.

Nominative
The nominative indicates the subject; that which is predicated in the sentence. It can also indicate the target of address, and names for qualified objects. For example:It can also function as a predicate, for example:

Genitive
The genitive indicates the thing that possesses, and is primarily a qualifier but can function as a predicate, for example:The genitive can also be pronominalised, allowing the noun it indicates as possessed to be dropped. The use of the suffix -ki after it for this is optional, unless the word it is qualifying is not in the nominative case. For example:Not using -ki here is fine as Kasim's dictionary would also be in the nominative, but:As here Tursun's article would also take the accusative case, -ki must be used.

Some nouns in the nominative act like genitive nouns, and require the nouns they qualify to take a possessive suffix. These are known as nouns in the nature of the possessive case, and produce closely bound noun phrases that are usually used in the place of one word. Qualifiers (i.e. adjectives) that come before the phrases qualify the entire phrase, not just the head word. For example:

Dative
Dative nouns are usually subordinate to verbs or verbal phrases and act as adverbial modifiers. They can also be adjectival modifiers. For example, the dative case can indicate the target of an action (usually preceded by "to" in English):It can also indicate:


 * The object of actions expressed by certain intransitive verbs
 * The subject of verbs in the causative voice formed from transitive verbs
 * The purpose of an action
 * The instrument or price of certain actions

Accusative
Accusative-case nouns are subordinate to transitive verbs and indicate the object of their action, for example:Sometimes nouns in the nominative case are the subject of transitive verbs, these are known as nouns in the nature of the accusative case and generalise the nature of the object, making its relation with the verb closer, and creating an object-verb phrase used in place of a simple verb. For example:

Locative
These nouns function as qualifiers (for mostly verbs, but sometimes adjectives) and signify the action's temporal or physical location. They indicate:

When subordinate to an adjective, they indicate the place or field of an activity.When used as a predicate, they indicate the location or source of the subject.
 * The place where an action occurs.
 * The time at which an action occurs, or the time for which it lasts.
 * The circumstances or atmosphere in which an action occurs.
 * The instrument of an action.

Ablative
Ablative nouns are subordinate to verbs and sometimes adjectives and adverbs, and they mostly act as adverbial modifiers. It is usually associated with the pronoun "from" in English

When acting as an adverbial modifier, they can indicate:


 * The point of departure/separation of the subject/recipient, or the object that is passed through.
 * Things which are mentally distanced from the subject of an action.
 * The source of an action.
 * The starting point of a limit connected with an action.
 * The material/components of the subject/recipient.
 * A generality/group from which one or some are related to the action.
 * The field covered by the action.
 * The reason for the action (cause).

Ablative nouns subordinate to adjectives indicate unequal comparison. Some adjectives also sometimes require the ablative case for noun modifiers, for example:

Locative-qualitative
These nouns function as qualifiers (for almost any part of speech) and signify the word's temporal or physical location. The difference between this and the locative case is that the qualifier is not specific, but general/universal. For example:When context is clear, it is possible to drop the noun that the locative-qualitative case noun is qualifying and use this non-dropped noun pronominally, which also takes the cases of the dropped noun.

Limitative
These nouns are subordinate to verbs and function as adverbial modifiers, and sometimes as the predicate.

When they modify verbs, they indicate the final point reached as a limit of an action, for example:When a limitative case noun acts as a predicate, it indicates the final limit of the subject.

Similitude
Nouns in the similitude case can act as qualifiers or adverbial modifiers, in both cases they liken the quality/action to their base noun. For example:

Equivalence
Nouns in the equivalence case can act as qualifiers or adverbial modifiers, in both cases they liken the quality/action to their base noun, with respect to the level/amount/measurement. For example:

Possessive Suffixes
Uyghur, like Uzbek, has possessive suffixes that indicate person. Monosyllabic nouns ending in rounded vowels (i.e. su) will add a y before first and second person suffixes (i.e. suyum, suyingiz but susi).

Noun-formation affixes
Uyghur has a wide variety of affixes which form words from others. This section will go over noun-formation affixes.

Adjectives
Adjectives in Uyghur can often be used as adverbial modifiers, and indicate the quality of an object or action.

Most adjectives can have their degree modified, and these are known as "gradable" adjectives. However, it is impossible to strengthen or weaken some adjectives (i.e. ئەركەك), which are known as "non-gradable" adjectives.

Degree
There are a variety of ways to indicate degree when it comes to gradable adjectives.

Reduplication
This is known as "the repeated form" and emphasises that the quality is unique to a large number of things of the same type, or that the action possessing the quality indicated by the adjective is repeated many times.

Nominalisation
Some adjectives can be directly turned into nouns, for example:They can also function as nouns when the noun is dropped, indicating objects with the quality they have.

Copulas
Like most Turkic languages, copulas are important to verbs, and some are words that have become fixed in a single form ("incomplete copulas", some of which are suffixes), although "complete copulas", which are entirely separate words, do exist.

Null copula
In the present tense, it is not essential to use a copula, for example:

Mood-tense copulas
These copulas can differ between regions, the forms given in the table are those used in Northern Xinjiang.

Negative judgement copula
The negative copula, emes, does not inflect for person or tense. For example:

Verbs
Verbs in Uyghur inflect in a variety of ways, such as for tense, aspect, and mood.

Infinitives
There are two infinitival suffixes in Uyghur, -(I)sh and -mAK. -(I)sh is used in most situations where the infinitive and gerund is used in English, primarily when discussing an action as a noun, as such -(I)sh is often accompanied by the accusative -ni. For example:

Person
While some tenses inflect for person, some such as the future-present tense simply go between the stem and the following personal suffixes. These are by far the most common suffixes, and are known as "type 1" suffixes. The possessive markers are also used with some tenses, and in this context are known as "type 2".

State-Tense
Tömür describes Uyghur as having four states and three tenses, with all of the states being able to take past and present tenses, thus producing nine state-tenses for verbs. Some of these have multiple variants.

The archiphoneme Y here is y after vowels, i after consonants, and yi if the verb is "yu". The archiphoneme K is much like G but is always voiceless.

Simple past tense
The simple past tense always indicates that the action or state expressed by the verb took place before the time of speaking, no matter the mood of the verb.It can also be used in some special senses to indicate that the action will take place immediately, show an absolute determination to carry out the action, or indicate the sense of hypothesis.

Present perfect tense
The present perfect tense indicates the current existence of the state which the action has brought about. It differs from the simple past tense in requiring the action to be completed to a degree that it has changed the state of the object.

Past perfect tense
The past perfect tense indicates the existence of the state which the action has brought about before another related matter, or at a specific point in the past.

Present imperfect tense
The present imperfect tense indicates the present existence the state of an action that regularly/always occurs, or will occur later. This includes actions such as:


 * Actions that always happen according to objective laws and logic
 * Actions that express temperament/habits
 * Actions which express character, special skills, etc
 * Actions which indicate a job or daily activity
 * Actions which always happen according to rule
 * Actions that definitely will happen according to logic, or have been decided will happen.
 * Actions which indicate determination or which the speaker considers will happen.

Past imperfect tense
The present imperfect tense indicates the existence the state of an action that regularly/always occurs, or will occur later, at some point in the past or before a related matter. This includes actions such as:


 * An action/matter that happened continuously in the past, i.e. "used to teach"
 * An intention, plan, or agreement about carrying out an action before a certain matter.
 * A conjecture about an action that has not taken place, or will definitely not take place.
 * When a writer is talking about things that were happening before or at the time of the event.

Present continuous tense
The present continuous tense indicates the present existence of a continuously ongoing or fixed state of an action.

Past continuous tense
The present continuous tense indicates the existence of a continuously ongoing or fixed state of an action at a previous time or before a certain matter.

Present intention tense
The present intention tense indicates the present existence of an action that has been intended or agreed upon.

Past intention tense
The present intention tense indicates the existence of an action that has been intended or agreed upon, before a certain matter.

Mood
These verb endings can differ between regions, the forms given in the table are those used in Kashgar.

Direct statement mood
The direct statement mood indicates that the subject matter is something the speaker knows first-hand. It is the most common mood.

Indirect statement mood
The indirect statement mood indicates that the subject matter is something the speaker knows indirectly (has learned of recently from facts/information given by others). Most often translated with the English word "apparently".

Hearsay mood
The hearsay mood indicates that the subject matter is something the speaker has heard of from others. Mostly translated with "they say that", "SUBJ has heard that", or "supposedly".It can also be used for:


 * Describing dreams
 * Talking in a sarcastic manner

Subjective assessment mood
The subjective assessment mood indicates that the subject matter is something that has been assessed in a subjective manner. Usually translated with "think", "guess", or "believe".

Objective assessment mood
The objective assessment mood indicates that the subject matter is something that has been assessed according to certain facts, and it is usually translated with "looks as", "seems", "must have", etc. It does not inflect for tense, only for state.

Imperative (command-request) mood
The imperative mood, and all following moods, do not inflect based on state-tense.

The objective assessment mood indicates that the subject matter of the sentence is spoken in a matter that denotes:

It may also indicate that the listener is being requested to wait until the subject matter has finished/ceased. The suffix -Gin can also be attached to the end of the verb to give an affectionate mood to the command/request.
 * Requesting
 * Instructing/ordering
 * Complying
 * Appealing
 * Wishing

Hypothesis-objection (conditional) mood
The hypothesis-objection mood can indicate either a hypothetical mood to the subject matter of the sentence, like below:

or it can indicate that the subject matter is spoken in opposition to another, as below:

Hope-polite request mood
This is formed by attaching the -iken auxiliary to the verb's hypothesis-objection mood form. The auxiliary may sometimes be omitted.

It indicates that the subject matter of the sentence is spoken in the manner of a petition, desire, or polite request.

Wish mood
This is formed by attaching the past tense direct judgement copula to the verb's hypothesis-objection mood form. The copula may sometimes be omitted.

Anxiety mood
The underlying structure of this is -ma+GAy+past tense direct judgement copula, but both a's are raised to i.

Aspect
There are a variety of ways to indicate aspect with respect to verbs in Uyghur, including the use of infixes and auxiliary verbs.

Auxiliary Verbs and the -(I)p converb
The addition of the converb suffix -(I)p to the main verb, then followed by an auxiliary inflected verb, can indicate aspect, in a form known as the aspectual complement. Auxiliary verbs can also be used to indicate direction with verbs like bar-, kel-, ket-, (to go, to come, to leave) in a form known as the directional complement. For example:Here the main verb is saqla- (to wait), with tur- being the auxiliary (meaning to continue; keep on, in its auxiliary form). The negative form of -(I)p is -mAy, but the suffix -mAstin can also be used, although it is considerably more informal and limited to the past tense. Example:-(I)p, as a converb suffix, can be used in many other ways, such as to link verbs or even entire clauses and sentences. When this is done only the final verb is inflected for person and tense. For example: The tense and person of all the verbs are indicated by the inflection of the final verb.

Aspect Infixes
Aspect infixes derive from aspect auxiliary verbs merging with verbs in the adverbial form and undergoing sound change.

Verb Formation
Verbs themselves can be word stems unto themselves, or be formed through compounding or verb-derivation suffixes.

Root Verbs
Some examples of root verbs include:

They cannot be broken down into any further morphemes.

Derived Verbs
A variety of verb-formation suffixes can be attached to various words (ranging from nouns and adjectives to other verbs) to form verbs. Many of these suffixes use harmonic rules/archiphonemes earlier described. There are many other highly unproductive suffixes without many examples.

Compound Verbs
These are verbs made up of two words that have merged into one inseparable word, phonetically and semantically, and express a singular lexical meaning. For example:

Participles
There are three groups of participles.

The perfect participle
The Perfect Participle displays the action expressed by itself as a quality that has come into existence (i.e. has been completed).

The continuous participle
The Continuous Participle displays as a quality the continuous state or action expressed by itself.

The imperfect participle
The Imperfect Participle displays the action expressed by itself as a quality which is habitually expressed or will be expressed later, i.e. which has not been completed.

Gerunds
There are seven types of gerund (also called verbal nouns).

The -sh gerund
The -sh gerund expresses as an obiect an action that is neutral with respect to state. It functions as a noun in the sentence. There are also many special cases this gerund can be used in.


 * When used as the subject of a sentence that has its predicate expressed by kërek, lazim, and shert, it indicates the requirement for the action expressed by the gerund to be carried out as well as possible.
 * When used as the subject of a sentence that has its predicate expressed by mumkin it indicates an estimation about the occurrence of the action.
 * When used in the dative and combined with the verb toghra kelmek it indicates the need for the action to be carried out.
 * When used in the dative or combined with the postposition bilen it functions as an adverbial of time, and indicates an action coming into act immediately/soon after the gerund.
 * When combined with bilen it can also indicate an action performed as a means of carrying out another action.
 * When combined with bilen qalmay it indicates that the subject is not confined solely to the action indicated by the gerund, but also carries out another action.
 * When used in the dative (independently) it can indicate an adverbial modifier of direction for some verbs, or a modifier of permission with the verb bol.
 * When in the ablative case as a modifier for the word meqset it indicates an action without implication.
 * When combined with the posposition üchün it functions as an adverbial modifier of purpose with any verb.
 * When in the accusative and in front of a simple past/imperfect present form of the same verb, it turns it into the predicate of a subordinate non-impeding objection clause. (i.e. bërishni baridu - despite my having gone)
 * When in the plural form it basically indicates that the action (i) happens in many places or (ii) is repeated on many occasions. or (iii) possesses a representative character.

Adverbials
There are seven types of adverbial.

General

 * Abdurehim, Esmael (2014), The Lopnor dialect of Uyghur – A descriptive analysis (PDF),Publications of the Institute for Asian and African Studies 17, Helsinki: Unigrafia, ISBN 978-951-51-0384-0
 * Translated by Anne Lee and reprinted in 2003 as Modern Uyghur Grammar (Morphology). Istanbul: Yıldız.
 * Translated by Anne Lee and reprinted in 2003 as Modern Uyghur Grammar (Morphology). Istanbul: Yıldız.
 * Translated by Anne Lee and reprinted in 2003 as Modern Uyghur Grammar (Morphology). Istanbul: Yıldız.
 * Translated by Anne Lee and reprinted in 2003 as Modern Uyghur Grammar (Morphology). Istanbul: Yıldız.