South Bolivian Quechua is an
agglutinative,
polysynthetic language with a rich
derivational morphology, allowing the language to convey a large amount of information in a single word. As a result of this, words in South Bolivian Quechua can be very long. Words in the language are purely
suffixal; no other types of
affixes are used. These suffixes are also highly regular, with alternations generally only occurring to maintain syllable structure. Morphemes within a word are ordered as follows: • root + derivational suffixes + inflectional suffixes + clitics
Derivational morphology South Bolivian Quechua has many clearly derivational suffixes, where a noun, verb, or adjective is derived from a different lexical category. The following are a few examples:
Note: -y
is the verb infinitive marker. •
-cha (factive):
wasi "house",
wasi-cha-y "to build a house" •
-naya (desiderative):
aycha "meat",
aycha-naya-y "to feel like eating some meat" •
-ya (autotransformative):
wira "fat",
wira-ya-y "to get fat, put on weight" •
-na (obligative):
tiya "sit",
tiya-na "seat, chair" •
-yuq (possessive):
wasi "house",
wasi-yuq "householder" •
-li (adjective formative from verb):
mancha "fear",
mancha-li "cowardly, fearful" Other suffixes are less clearly categorized as derivational or inflectional, including some aspectual suffixes as well as a class of suffixes termed “auxiliary”. For example, the causative suffix ‘’-chi’’ may seem straightforwardly inflectional in some instances: •
mik"u-chi- "make (someone) eat" •
puri-chi- "make (someone) walk" •
paka-chi- "cause (someone) to hide" But in other cases it can be derivational: •
runa wañu-chi "man killer, murderer" •
puma wañu-chi "puma hunter" •
wasi saya-chi "house builder, carpenter"
Inflectional morphology Verbs There are several categories of
verbal suffixes in South Bolivian Quechua. These include
modal suffixes,
object markers,
tense and
aspect markers, and
person markers. South Bolivian Quechua has a great amount of modal suffixes that are used to express a range of concepts. Some examples include: •
-ra "un-, undo";
wata-ra- "unknot, untie" •
-naya "intend to, about to, do as if to";
willa-naya- "act as if to tell" •
-ysi "help someone";
mik”u-ysi-y "help him eat" •
-na "have to, be able to" (obligative);
willa-na- "have to tell" •
-pu "for someone else" (benefactive);
qu-pu-y "give it to him" Some of these modal suffixes can be derivational if used with a non-verb—for example,
-naya and -na. Person markers differentiate between first, second, and third persons and plurality, as well as an inclusive and exclusive first person plural. Object markers and subject markers are used in the language, and object markers appear before subject markers. The object marker is
-wa for a first person object and
-su for a second person object. The following table details possible combinations of object and subject markers. Some person categories lack a subject and/or object marker. All non-present tenses in the
indicative are marked by a suffix directly preceding the person marking. The present subjunctive is marked with a suffix following the person marking. Examples of tense markers include the simple past suffix
-rqa, past imperfect
-yka, and past perfect
-sqa. Tense suffixes can change form depending on person and can alter person marking in some cases: for instance, in the past imperfect tense, both the third person singular and plural subject markers (typically
-n,
-nchiq, or
-nku depending on object) become
-q, meaning that a verb in the past imperfect with a third person subject would end in
-yka-q.
Nouns Apart from case-marking suffixes,
nouns in South Bolivian Quechua can also be pluralized with the suffix
-kuna (or by a numeral modifier preceding the noun). However, most speakers use the suffix -s, borrowed from Spanish, when the noun ends in a vowel. For example, wasi ("house") becomes wasis ("houses") or runa ("person") becomes runas ("people/persons"). The Quechua suffix -kuna is usually only used when a noun ends in a consonant, such as with yan (road), which becomes yankuna (roads). A collective marker,
-ntin, also exists to denote “togetherness”, as in
alqu michi-ntin "the dog, together with the cat". Possessiveness is marked by a suffix attached to the noun, with the form that the morpheme takes dependent on person, plurality, and whether it is following a vowel or consonant.
Other lexical categories Pronouns in the language have no person markers, but do have plural markers that vary by person. Possessive pronouns are marked by the addition of the appropriate genitive suffix.
Adjectives can be made into superlatives with the suffix
-puni, as in
kosa "good";
kosa-puni "good above all others, best".
Independent suffixes Some suffixes in South Bolivian Quechua can be used with words of any lexical category, and are generally found at the end of the word after all other suffixes. Some examples are: •
-ri "please, nicely, with delight" (polite) •
-pis "even though, even if, and, also" (additive) •
-chu "is it so?" (non-factual, question marker) •
-chus "if, maybe" (dubitative)
Reduplication Reduplication is used extensively for various purposes, and can be derivational: •
llañuy "thin";
llañuy llañuy "very thin" •
wasi "house";
wasi wasi "settlement, collection of houses" •
rumi "stone";
rumi rumi "rocky" Reduplicated stems can be suffixal as well: •
taq "sound of hammer blow";
taq-taq-ya-y "to hit with a hammer" ==Syntax==