Northern Tujia grammar

Overview

• Basic constituent order is subject-object-verb (SOV).
• Direct and indirect objects normally occur before the verb; in double-object clauses, the indirect object precedes the direct object.
• Nominal modifiers can occur on either side of the noun, depending on modifier type and construction.
• Negative adverbs characteristically follow the predicate they negate, although other adverbials generally precede the predicate.
• Verbs make extensive use of post-verbal particles and morphophonological alternations to express aspect, direction and state.

Word classes

The reference grammar distinguishes ten major word classes. Nouns, numerals, classifiers and pronouns form the nominal group; verbs and adjectives form the predicative group.

Word formation

Northern Tujia has both simple and compound words. Simple words may contain one or several syllables. Compound words are built through several productive strategies:

• Sound patterning: alliteration, rhyme, reduplication and internal sound alternation can help form words.
• Semantic extension: an existing word develops a new meaning through metaphor or association.
• Affixation: prefixes and suffixes derive nouns, verbs, adjectives and words referring to people or objects.
• Compounding: roots combine in modifier-head, coordinate, verb-object and subject-predicate patterns.

Common suffix functions include marking a person with a particular quality, a member of an ethnic or social group, plural human reference, occupations, long or granular objects, fruits, and small size. Some prefixes also help identify a word as a noun, verb or adjective.

Compounds may place the modifier before or after the head. This flexibility is also visible in larger noun phrases.

Nouns, classifiers and pronouns

Nouns include proper, common, temporal and locative nouns. They can serve as subjects and objects, while temporal nouns also function as adverbials and locative nouns often combine with particles.

Common noun types

Classifiers are required in many counting expressions. The grammar distinguishes individual classifiers, collective classifiers, measurement terms and verbal classifiers. A noun normally precedes its numeral-classifier expression.

Pronouns include personal, interrogative and demonstrative forms. Spatial demonstratives are especially detailed: the description distinguishes five distance levels, from a location close to the speaker to one outside the visible area.

Personal pronouns

Questions and demonstratives

The five-way spatial series preserves distinctions that English and Chinese often leave to context:

1. gaof[kau³⁵] here, close to the speaker · 这里
2. gier dux[kie²¹tu⁵⁵] nearby · 近处
3. ex giex[e⁵⁵kie⁵⁵] there · 那里
4. af giex[a³⁵kie⁵⁵] farther there · 更远处
5. af giex af giex[a³⁵kie⁵⁵a³⁵kie⁵⁵] beyond the visible area · 视线以外

Verb morphology

Verbs are grouped as action, existential, copular and auxiliary verbs. Action verbs have three especially important grammatical domains:

• Aspect: prospective, immediate/forthcoming, progressive and completive domains, each with finer temporal distinctions.
• Direction: motion or transfer toward the speaker versus away from the speaker, with imperative and declarative patterns.
• State: reciprocal, delimitative/brief and stative or continuing interpretations.

Many meanings are expressed by a verb followed by one or more particles. Some combinations trigger contraction or fusion, so the surface form may differ from the full underlying sequence.

Aspect: the internal course of an event

The aspect system does more than contrast “finished” and “unfinished”. It can locate an event at its beginning, middle, approaching endpoint or completed result.

Direction

Directional marking distinguishes movement toward the speaker from movement away. Imperative and declarative forms use different endings.

State and event shape

Adjectives and adverbs

Adjectives describe qualities and states. They can be intensified with a particle or through reduplication. Different reduplicative shapes are used according to the number and structure of syllables in the adjective.

Some adjectives also distinguish a prospective change of state from a completed change. In other words, the language can differentiate “becoming more/less” from “having already become more/less”.

Adverbs are grouped into six broad semantic types:

Most adverbials precede the predicate. A notable exception is predicate negation, which normally follows the verb or adjective it negates.

Particles and conjunctions

Particles attach to words, phrases or the end of a clause. Four major functional groups are useful for learning:

• Structural particles link modifiers, heads and nominalized expressions.
• Case and relational particles mark roles and spatial or grammatical relationships.
• Aspect and directional particles locate an event in its development or indicate movement toward or away from a reference point.
• Sentence-final particles express statement, question, request, command and exclamation.

Common sentence-final functions

The language has relatively few inherited conjunctions, and a number of conjunctions have entered through contact with Chinese. Conjunctions can express coordination, sequence, choice, cause and hypothesis. In ordinary coordinate clauses, the relationship is often understood without an overt conjunction.

Phrase structure

Eight phrase types are described:

1. coordinate phrases;
2. modifier-head phrases;
3. subject-predicate phrases;
4. verb-object phrases;
5. verb/adjective-complement phrases;
6. appositional phrases;
7. serial-verb phrases;
8. pivot constructions.

Serial-verb phrases express successive actions by the same subject without an overt connector. In a pivot construction, the object of the first verb also functions as the subject of the following predicate.

Basic syntax

The grammar recognizes subject, predicate, object, attributive, adverbial and complement constituents. The most useful ordering generalizations are:

Sentence types

Simple sentences may be subject-predicate clauses or non-subject-predicate clauses. The latter include contextually elliptical clauses, impersonal clauses and one-word or one-phrase utterances.

Complex sentences are divided into coordinate and subordinate types. Coordinate relations include parallel, sequential, adversative and alternative clauses. Subordinate relations include hypothetical, conditional, causal and purposive clauses. Functional sentence types include declarative, interrogative, imperative and exclamative sentences.

Declarative

Interrogative

Imperative