Ring C: 4/11: Teonaht

Syntax:

Teonaht is normally OSV in syntax, sometimes SOV, with few declensions,
except in the pronouns.

See the items below for further information on word order.

Nouns:

The agent in Teonaht is the subject that performs an action volitionally.
The man looks at the woman.  The experiencer is the subject that performs an
action non-volitionally.  The man sees the woman.  (i.e., catches a glimpse
of her)

This distinction is marked in the articles, and often in the verbs.

    Example:  Il hovik le gwenda ke(y).  "The woman regards thehouse."
              Il hovik li gwenda keyn.   "The woman sees the house" (by accident)

Indefinite articles follow the noun, and are usually given a consonantal
ending to avoid confusing them with subsequent nouns or verbs.

    Example:  Il hovik gwende-lez ke(y).  "A woman regards the house."

The patient in Teonaht is anything that isn't the subject or experiencer (it
is not an ergative language but a split-nominative); what it deems to be
"indirect objects" it often marks with a preposition.

Teonaht makes a distinction between definite and indefinite nouns, and has
articles to distinguish them.  These show distinctions between agent,
experiencer, and patient.

Verbs:

Teonaht has a gerundive or verbal noun with three suffixes that shouldn't
concern you here; basically the -rem verbs express volitionality, the -ned
verbs express non-volitionality, and the -ndi verbs express the stative.
But I don't think you'll run across this in this text.

Teonaht is zero-copula in the present tense.

 It has very simple verb conjugations wherein tense particles and aspect
modals are prefixed to the pronoun that precedes the verb.

Where subordination is needed, Teonaht often resorts to a mirroring of
syntax:

    Il kyam elry elepma ravvo-el li gwenda hain.

    The book I read loved the girl which.  "I read the book that the girl loved."

Modals are verbs that precede the absolute form of the verb and they are a
closed class.

    Ryddihs euan.  "I want go."  Sometimes you'll see it this way: dihsry euan.

Auxiliary verbs (all but modals) connect to their verb by a form of
possession:



            Example:  I want his buying meat.  "I want him to buy meat."
Your coming

                            here I need.   Her leaving  I expect.  His
arriving I hope.

                            My helping you must try.

Aspect and passivity are expressed by prepositions preceding the gerundive:
bom (with) and tsob (under).

            Example:  Androfaiht li gwenda tsob htindelrem.  The girl with
singing is beautiful.

                        'The girl who's singing is beautiful," "The singing
girl is beautiful."

            Example:  Omffindris li onde tsob silinrem.  Of-glass the bowl
under washing.

                        "The bowl being washed is glass."  "The washed bowl
is glass."

Modifiers:

Adjectives follow nouns and adverbs immediately precede the verb, unless
this conflicts with a verbal idiom in which adverbs are involved:

            Example:  Le gwenda mal htindel.  "The girl is singing"

                             Mal le gwenda htindel.  "Now the girl sings."
"The girl sings now."

Pre- and postpositions:

A large number of prepositions are divided into static and motive.

            Example:  ar il etön, "at the mountain," but aryil etön, "toward
the mountain."

When it comes to expressing deixis, Teonaht has a complicated system of pre
and post positions most often fused with the nouns they modify:  tessandy--
"from city."  i.e., "leaving from the city."  Tessary, "towards the city,"
or  "city-wards."  These constructions involve an open class of nouns.

Hence, word divisions are often different in Teonaht from what they are in
English.

I will give clitics and affixes separately below, preceded or followed by a
hyphen.   NOTA BENE: double consonants merely indicate stress in
pronunciation, NOT semantic division.