Zotung grammar (Zotung: ) is the study of the
morphology and
syntax of Zotung, a
Kuki-Chin language spoken in the
Indian subcontinent and
Southeast Asia. Zotung is an
agglutinative language with some elements of
fusionality. It has become more
innovative as fusional elements have increased. Its
synthetic nature allows for free
word order, although the dominant arrangement is
subject-object-verb. There are definite
articles and a morphological indefinite article depending on the source.
Subject pronouns and
object pronouns are often dropped due to its
polypersonal agreements found in the plural conjugation of verbs.
Syntax The primary word order is
subject-object-verb. However, almost all nouns undergo
declension, resulting in a fairly free word order. For example, the sentence "
Kae beikinnka hlaw kasak" () can also be ordered as "
Kae kasak hlaw beikinnka" () without losing its original meaning. Sentences in Zotung can be formed in many different ways, the most common being
dative constructions. This construction uses the dative case of nominals and pronominals. Dative constructions can occur with almost all verbs. An example is given below: :
Kae θu kakía / Kae kakía nynn ("I am cold") :
Ynkía (literally means, "cold is to/on me") The first example implicates that the speaker has a cold personality or a body that is cold all around, rather than feeling physically cold. The subject on the first sentence is in the nominative case. The second sentence uses a dative polypersonal conjugation without the transient copula verb
thuavo. This construction is always used to mean one feels physically. It is still a productive construction that can be used with almost all verbs. Its use is a bit different in set proverbs like "
namo nih kezym" ("I trust in you", ).
Nouns Gender Some nouns have
gender; however, nouns with gender are usually sex specific nouns such as animals or natural landscapes like hills, caves, or species of organisms. Most of these nouns have endings like
-nung, -pi, -paw, -ly that tell if they are feminine or masculine, such as
luikunung (name of a hill),
saepaw (elephant),
sapi (female offspring of an animal). Agreement in gender for adjectives can be observed such as with the neuter adjective
ahoy—it has two other forms namely, masculine and common gender
hoivo and feminine
hoino; the initial
a- indicates the common or neuter gender and
-p- and
-n- indicate masculine and feminine gender. Animacy and inanimacy are distinguished in the various usages of certain pronouns. The third person accusative
amo cannot be used with inanimate nouns so therefore the pronoun is dropped and the clitic
a- conjugation is used for both the nominative and accusative cases. This is also true to some extent for the second person personal pronouns. The animate determiner pronoun
hom- cannot be used for inanimate nouns.
Pawmou, ymmo, and
vavoma are used with inanimate nouns instead.
Initial a- The initial
a- is found in some nouns:
arak (ale),
amyn (scent),
arran (branch),
askare (wing). It is used on a very limited number of nouns that are inanimate and cannot stand alone without the prefix. When it is used with a noun that can stand alone, it denotes the genitive case and shows belonging of the object to a person, such as in
arru (its bone),
amitàe (its eyes),
alemæ (its tail). The prefix can also be used to show definiteness in a very limited number of nouns, as in: {{interlinear|indent=2 The prefix is also used to form the adjectival form of verbs: •
khyapaw (to be bitter),
akhak (bitter) •
niapaw (drink),
anian (oily) •
thopaw (to be fatty),
atho (fat/fatty)
Vowel harmony To some extent, Zotung uses
vowel harmony when endings are attached to words. For example, one of the most common endings in the language is
-traw, a diminutive/comparative ending. When a word with closed and/or mid vowel uses the ending
-traw, it changes to
-tri as in
imonuntro (newborn girl) and
syntri (a little while)
. Some nouns with a closed vowel change to have a more open vowel. An example is
zawngpo / zongpaw (ape), which changes to
zuapo / zuapaw in some dialects retaining the difference. Another example is
vo / vaw (stream); when the augmentative ending
-pii is added, the root changes to
va-, resulting in
vapii (river).
Verbs Zotung verbs are heavily
inflected and are highly irregular with many exceptions. They consist of a
stem or base and various
conjugation endings indicating
person,
tense,
aspect,
mood, and more. One way for fusional inflection in verbs is through a process known as
stem alternation (Zotung: ). Each verb has at least two stems, formally named stem I, stem II, and so on. Each stem differs from each other by
apophony,
vowel length, consonant
voicing or devoicing, the addition of a consonant, or entirely changing the lexicon. Since there has not been extensive research done on Zotung, verbs have yet to be grouped into conjugation classes.
Stem alternation Like the other Kuki-Chin languages, Zotung utilizes
apophony as a
grammatical inflection. It is used for various purposes such as
grammatical moods and distinction between noun and verb forms. The most common type of apophony is the Kuki-Chin-specific vowel stem alternation wherein the stem vowel of a verb changes to inflect its mode. These alternations are grouped into Form I, Form II, Form III, and so on. However, there is not a universally accepted way of categorizing them. Examples of vowel stem alternations are given below: An example of a clause using Forms I, II, and III is given below for the verb
niapaw (to drink):
Negation Negation usually follows the verb. There are many words to denote negation, the most common being
lei, khy, nan, and
lou.
Lei is an auxiliary adverb that is commonly used as a compound negator, similar to the French
pas.
Khy is a simple negator used in declarative sentences such as
khocci khy meaning "it is not cold".
Nan is used as an imperative negator such as in
innlae pae nan meaning "do not go out".
Lou is used as an auxiliary as in
khuara lou khy meaning "it has not rain". Additionally, some determiner pronouns in the Lungngo and Calthawng dialects have a negative form leading to some instances of double negation. An example is the word for "what"—its
lemma form is
pawmou in the standard language,
ymmo in the northern dialects, and
vavoma in the Rezua dialect; the corresponding negative forms are
pawmak and
ymma (this form is absent in the Rezua dialect due to a series of vowel mergers and a simplification of grammar in regions with more trade and contact).
Noun derivation There are many endings attached to words to convey a slightly modified meaning. They may also be realized as grammatical cases. The most common are
-no,
-zia,
-po, and
-tu. The ending
-no is used to nominalize verbs while
-zia is for adjectives and occasionally nouns. The ending
-po could be a masculine ending or an infinitive ending; when
-po is an infinitive ending, the word is stressed at the last syllable. The ending
-tu is used to modify verbs to become a noun in the accusative case. For example, •
riapo (v. to read) →
rianaw (n. reading as in scripture) •
hmuipo (v. to see) →
muihnaw (n. sight, vision) •
sei (v. to sin) →
seino (n. sin) •
umtu (n. an attitude) →
umtuzia (n. desired attitudes) •
phuapo / phan (v. to compose) →
phuatu / phantu (n. composer)
Cases All nouns in Zotung inflect for
case. They can be inflected for the nominative, accusative, instrumental, dative, genitive, vocative, and various forms of the locative such as the inessive, intrative, and adessive. The nominative case differs between dialects based on the vowel harmony of a dialect's differing vowels. The unmarked, lemma form of most nouns are in the accusative form. The accusative can be further divided into a separate case depending on if the definite article -
kha is counted as a case suffix, the definite accusative. The instrumental case can also be used to show the extent of a period of time. It is inflected for in some prepositions and postpositions such as
ciate (extent of time),
ryte (with),
liare (by). The dative has become more common and is taking over the role of the locative in younger speech. The genitive is not required when a noun acts as an adjective, but it still is sometimes used even in the adjectival form. An example of the cases in use is: {{interlinear|indent=2 {{interlinear|indent=2 Some case endings of proper nouns and common nouns are differentiated especially in the dative and locative cases. In the dative case, proper nouns take the
-lan or
-lam suffix and change according to the rules of vowel gradation. For example, the village name
Thesi would become
Thesilam for its dative case while
Siangaw would become
Siangalan. Additionally, there are other inconsistencies in how nouns are inflected. These mismatches could be further grouped into noun classes, if Zotung has any. For instance, nouns ending in
-á, -aw, or -
o have an irregular declension. Some nominals have no separate ending in the nominative and dative cases. This group is mostly made up of nouns ending in -
am and -
an. Agreement There are two prominent numbers in Zotung, singular and plural. Each of the cases have a somewhat specific plural suffix. The usual plural suffixes for the accusative in colloquial dialects are
-ae,
-hae, -e, and
-æ. The matter of which to use depends on the previous consonant, stem vowel, and speaker's preference. Most adjectives that describe a noun are also required to agree in number, and occasionally gender and case. Therefore, in the phrase below where the word meaning 'royalties',
boinungeklan, is a feminine noun in the dative plural case, the adjective
amoivaw must also be in the feminine dative plural: While agreement in gender for masculine, common and neuter nouns are optional, agreement in the feminine is explicitly required. Some nouns are naturally plural and thus do not require the regular plural suffixes, such as
zapii (crowd of people),
mipi (people),
ablyn (all that are present), and
loramsa (farm animals).
Question clauses Questions are formed with both intonation and particles. Intonation varies from dialect to dialect and person to person. Question particles also vary from dialect to dialect. The formal standard language based on the Lungngo dialect uses the question particles
i,
ho,
khawp,
tou, and
mou. The particles
tou and
mou have different forms in different contexts.
Tou is derived from
ta but
tou has become more dominant and
ta has become a form of
tou. In all,
tou has four forms:
tou,
ta,
tawh, and
tan. It is used in yes/no questions.
Mou is derived from
mah, similar to the case with
tou.
Mou also has four forms:
mou,
mah,
maw, and
man. It is used in simple questions together with the noun; for example:
Pawcikumou nah hminkha? ('What is [question particle] your name?')
Pronouns In Zotung, there are separate pronouns for the nominative, accusative, dative, and genitive cases that do not reflect the usual declension found in nouns. Examples in the nominative and dative are given below: Pronouns in the dative are marked for both the subject and direct object, also known as polypersonalism. The proclitics are used with different conjugations to achieve clarity.
Conjugation All verbs in Zotung have two or more forms. The different forms are used for different moods and the number of subjects completing the action. Most verbs are only inflected in the plural. Dual number is only realized when the verb is conjugated since there are not separate dual pronouns. Some verbs that are inflected in the singular change stress. However, they aren't shown in the orthography. An example of a regular verb conjugation in the indicative mood is given below.
Tense and aspect Tense in Zotung is similar to other Kuki-Chin languages. Verbs are inflected for in the past and future tenses. The present tense is usually either in the lemma (not infinitive) form or are used with auxiliary verbs and time descriptive words. The continuous present tense can also be shown by suffixing. Regular verbs are inflected like the following: Verbs in Zotung have around two to three infinitives and two
gerunds that can be inflected for aspect and voice. The first infinitive is the one found in dictionary entries. It is formed using the stem II form of verbs plus the endings
-o,
-aw, or
-á. This infinitive form is present in all dialects where the gerund form is used synonymously to the English
-ing gerund. The second infinitive is also formed using the stem II form plus the ending -
an. It can also function as a gerund and is used almost synonymously to the English to-infinitive. However, its use has been diminishing in northern dialects where it is being replaced with the future form of verbs. In dialects where both the future form and second infinitive are used, the future form is created using the stem I form plus the variable endings -
no or -
go. The third infinitive is formed using stem I forms of verbs with the ending -
an. It is synonymous to the English bare infinitive. ==References==