Hkətl’ohnim [ʰkə.ˈt͡ɬ’o̞.ʰɲ̥im]
Period	c. 0 YP
Spoken in	eastern Tuysáfa
Total speakers	unknown
Writing system	unknown
Classification	T1 languages Hkətl’ohnim
Typology
Basic word order	verb-initial
Morphology	polysynthetic; agglutinating w/ some fusion
Alignment	split-ergative
Credits
Created by	Cedh

Hkətl’ohnim is a language spoken in eastern Tuysáfa around 0 YP. It is part of the T1 language family, and thus related to Cednìtıt, East and West Yalan, Omari, Tumetıęk, and the Northeastern Bay Language.

The name literally means "we language-talk together".

Phonology

Phoneme inventory

Consonants

	labial	dental	lateral	alveolar	palatal	velar	labio-v.	uvular	labio-uv.	pharyng.	glottal
plosive	p	t	tɬ	ts	tʃ	k	kʷ	q	qʷ
ejective	p’	t’	tɬ’	ts’	tʃ’	k’	kʷ’	q’	qʷ’
fricative			ɬ	s	ʃ					ħ	h
approximant			l	ɹ	j		w
nasal	m	n			ɲ

All consonants are written as in IPA, except that /tɬ tɬ’ ɬ tʃ tʃ’ ʃ ɹ j ɲ/ are represented by tl tl’ ł č č’ š r y ny.
[ɲ] could probably be analysed as underlying /n/ or /nj/ in all positions, but it is much more common than any other Cj sequence, maybe even more frequent than /j/ on its own, and it definitely occurs more often than some other consonants which are clearly phonemic. What is more, there is a class of words where word-final [n] alternates with [ɲ] when a vowel follows, so for both distributional and morphophonological reasons the palatal nasal will be treated as an independent segment in this document.

Vowels

	front	central	back
close	i · iː		u · uː
mid	e · eː	ə	o · oː
open		a · aː

All short vowels are written as in IPA.
Long vowels take a macron diacritic: ī ē ā ō ū.

Prosody

Hkətl’ohnim has a dynamic stress accent, which is typically located on the last long vowel in a word, or else on the penultimate syllable. If the penultimate syllable contains the reduced vowel /ə/ and the antepenultimate syllable contains a full vowel, the antepenultimate syllable is accented.

In words with irregular accent placement, the stressed vowel is marked with an acute if short (í é á ó ú), and with a circumflex if long (î ê â ô û).

Phonetic detail and distribution

The maximal syllable structure of Hkətl’ohnim is roughly (F)C(j,w)V((C)C).
Any non-fricative onset consonant may be preceded by one of /s h ħ/ (although the latter only occurs before /q qʷ/). However, this forms a complex onset only word-initially; otherwise the fricative is reanalysed as a coda consonant.
Any non-approximant onset consonant other than /ħ/ may be followed by one of /j w/.
/h ħ/ may not appear immediately after another consonant.
Three-consonant onsets only appear when the second of these consonants is a plosive, and only in word-initial position.
All consonants except /j w/ may appear in coda position word-finally.
Word-medially, coda consonants are limited to the coronal fricatives /ɬ s ʃ/ (can occur before nasals and plain or ejective plosives), to the laryngeal fricatives /h ħ/ (the former can occur before resonants and plain plosives, the latter only before /q qʷ/), to the resonants /n ɹ l/ (can occur before almost any non-identical consonant; note that the nasal |n| represents a neutralisation of /m n ɲ/ in this position, being realised at the same POA as the following consonant), and to the ejectives /p’ t’ k’ q’/ (can only occur before nasals).
Coda clusters appear almost exclusively in word-final position. They are limited in shape to /ɬ s ʃ h ħ n l/ followed by a (plain or ejective) plosive or affricate; again, /ħ/ appears only before /q qʷ/, and |n| assimilates in POA to the following consonant.
/h/ is typically realised as preaspiration before another consonant, often with some frication at the latter's POA so that e.g. /hp ht hk/ may variously be heard as [ʰp ʰt ʰk] ~ [ɸp θt xk]. Resonants immediately preceded by /h/ become voiceless, which leads to a merger of |hl| into /ɬ/ in this position. /hɹ hj hw/ vary between [θ ç ɸ] and [ʃ ʃ xʷ] rather freely.
/h ħ/ are only distinguished when not adjacent to a consonant. Neither sound occurs in cluster-final position; /ħ/ is found in clusters only before /q qʷ/; /h/ may appear before all other non-fricative consonants. Illegal combinations are resolved by POA assimilation of the fricative to the following consonant.
/ħ/ may not occur adjacent to the vowels /i iː ə u uː/. Where this would occur, the vowels are lowered to e ē a o ō respectively. Underlying |ə| is also lowered to a when adjacent to an uvular plosive or ejective.
The affricates /tɬ ts tʃ/ are reduced to fricatives /ɬ s ʃ/ whenever they occur before plosives, ejectives, or non-lengthening nasals. This is reflected in the transcription by using the graphemes ł s š. If the preceding vowel is short and stressed, it will undergo lengthening.
Labialisation on dorsal obstruents is distinguished (and written) only before the vowels /i iː e eː a aː/ and word-finally. All velar and uvular stops are pronounced as labialised when followed by a rounded vowel.
Underlying |ə| merges into /u/ after labialised consonants, and into /i/ after /tʃ’ tʃ ʃ ɲ/. The underlying sequences |wə jə| also surface as /u i/ when not preceded by a vowel.
Underlying consonant clusters /ts’j k’j/, /tsj kj/, and /sj/ are generally neutralized to /tʃ’/, /tʃ/, and /ʃ/ respectively, unless preceded by a fricative other than /h/. The same obstruent mergers are observed before /i iː/. Since both changes have phonemic status, they are reflected in the transcription by using č’ č š for the resulting sounds (so that e.g. |kjə| → či).
Underlying /nj/ similarly collapses into [ɲ]; /n/ is also pronounced as [ɲ] before /i iː/. The sequence [ɲi] will be transcribed as ni in this document, regardless whether it represents underlying |ni|, |njə|, |ɲi|, or |ɲə|.
The lateral obstruents /tɬ’ tɬ ɬ/ are often de-lateralised before the high vowels /i iː u uː/, especially in unstressed positions. The resulting sounds are typically dental [tθ’ tθ θ], but may be assibilated to [ts’ ts s] before /i iː/.
The coronal fricatives /ɬ s ʃ/ are typically pronounced as voiced [ɮ~ð z ʒ] when immediately preceded by a nasal. For some speakers, a voiced stop may be inserted into these clusters, yielding [ndɮ~ndð ndz ndʒ]. De-lateralisation of /ɬ/ to a central dental fricative or affricate is quite common in this environment before vowels of any quality, thereby preventing a merger of underlying /nɬ nl/.
A sizeable proportion of speakers pronounces /ɹ/ as [ɾ] in prevocalic position, often strengthening it to [r] word-initially or if the following vowel is stressed. The sound still patterns as an approximant though.
Non-ejective plosives are often lightly aspirated in stressed syllables.
Ejectives may sometimes be realised as preglottalised voiced plosives in unstressed intervocalic positions or when followed by a nasal. In the latter environment, they may even lose all independent POA information by reducing to [ʔ], especially if the nasal is homoorganic.
Word-final stressed vowels in content words must always be long. In case a stressed short vowel ends up in word-final position, it will be lengthened; this is reflected in the orthography.

Morphophonology

There are a few morphophonological alternations which may occur at morpheme boundaries. Most of these are morphologically conditioned, i.e. they only occur with specific word stems or affixes.

Nasal mutation

Nasal mutation is triggered by many (but not all) stems which end in a nasal consonant. It affects single morpheme-initial plosives and some instances of single morpheme-initial fricatives. Word-initial /w/ may be affected as well (but note that this can only occur in nominal stems). Word stems which do not belong to one of the nasalisable stem classes are generally not affected.

Nasal mutation is indicated by marking the triggering morpheme boundary with a tilde ‹~›.

p kʷ qʷ w sm šm	→	ːm
t s sn šn	→	ːn
k q sny šny	→	ːny
š ħ	→	ːm / ːny
h	→	hm / hny / ːm

The triggering nasal consonant itself will be deleted. ‹ː› indicates that a preceding short vowel undergoes lengthening. In some morphemes (notably the 3rd person object verbal prefixes), the quality of the preceding lengthened vowel is not phonologically predictable and must thus be given explicitly; the presence of the spurious morpheme-final nasal will be indicated in these cases by using ‹~ɴ› instead of a plain tilde.

The variant outcomes for /ʃ ħ h/ are determined on a lexical basis, and thus treated as separate capital stem classes.

If a single morpheme triggers both nasal mutation and labialisation, labialisation will apply first.

Glottalic mutation

Glottalic mutation is triggered by most stems which end in a plain plosive (optionally preceded by a consonant other than /h ħ/) and by some stems which end in a nasal. It affects single prevocalic plosives and affricates, and additionally those single stem-initial fricatives which are also susceptible to nasal mutation.

Morpheme boundaries which trigger glottalic mutation are marked with the symbol ‹ˀ›.

p t tɬ ts tʃ k kʷ q qʷ	→	p’ t’ tl’ ts’ č’ k’ kʷ’ q’ qʷ’
s ħ h	→	t’ q’ p’
š	→	č’ / k’

If the triggering morpheme ends in a plosive, the plosive will be deleted. In case the mutated consonant was a fricative originally, this will go along with lengthening of a preceding short vowel and de-glottalisation of the ejective, so that the actual outcomes will be ːp ːt ːč ːk ːq instead of *p’ t’ č’ k’ q’.

If the triggering morpheme ends in a nasal, the vowel before this nasal will be shortened, usually with a change in quality which is the reverse of the quality change associated with lengthening. Since this is not entirely predictable, the mutated form of nasal-final glottalising morphemes will have to be learned separately.

The variant outcomes for /ʃ/ are determined as follows: In n-stems the outcome will be č’ ~ ːč, and in ny-stems the outcome will be k’ ~ ːk.

If a single morpheme triggers both glottalic mutation and labialisation, glottalic mutation will apply first.

When preceded by a glottalising morpheme, prevocalic instances of the fricatives /ɬ s ʃ/ which are immune to glottalic mutation will instead be fortified to the affricates tl ts č. If the triggering morpheme ends in a nasal, vowel shortening will also occur; if it ends in a plosive, the plosive will be deleted.

Hard mutation

Hard mutation is triggered by most stems which end in a single fricative or affricate. It affects those single stem-initial fricatives which may also undergo nasalisation, and those single stem-initial nasals which always trigger lengthening of a preceding short vowel (indicated in the lexicon by a preposed ‹ː›).

Since hard mutation (for stems which are susceptible to this process) is the default behavior after morpheme-final fricatives, hardening environments will not be marked explicitly.

s ħ h	→	t q p
š	→	č / k
ːn	→	t
ːny	→	k / q
ːm	→	p / kʷ / qʷ

/ʃ/ becomes č after /h ħ/, and k after /ɬ s ʃ/.

The variant outcomes for /ːɲ ːm/ are determined on a lexical basis, and thus treated as separate capital stem classes.

Labialisation

Labialisation is triggered by stems of various different shapes, and may be combined with most other types of mutations. Labialising stems often contain a rounded vowel, but this is by no means a rule. The process regularly affects morpheme-initial /k k’ q q’/, even when preceded by another consonant; a few instances of /ɲ/ in suffixes also exhibit labialisation (since this is exceptional, the corresponding suffix allomorph will be listed separately). If the labialising morpheme ends in an unrounded vowel, following vowel-initial morphemes will also be affected.

Labialising morpheme boundaries are marked with the symbol ‹ʷ›.

k q	→	kʷ qʷ
k’ q’	→	kʷ’ qʷ’
ny	→	m
V	→	wV

Where labialisation co-occurs with other morphophonological processes, the order of evaluation will be (1) glottalic mutation > (2) labialisation > (3) nasal mutation.

Vowel syncope / epenthesis

Unstressed short vowels before a morpheme boundary will often be deleted when another morpheme follows, especially when the following morpheme itself begins with a vowel other than /ə/ (in this case, stem-final /u o/ preceded by a dorsal plosive or ejective are usually contracted into consonant labialisation). If the following morpheme begins with a consonant, stem-final vowels will only be syncopated if they belong to a stem of the consonantal caudal stem class and if regular morphophonological processes can create a legal consonant cluster across the morpheme boundary. Vowels at the end of an incorporated noun stem may be syncopated only when followed by a vowel.

Conversely, an epenthetic /ə/ will be inserted at all morpheme boundaries where the resulting consonant cluster would be illegal. It should be noted that the epenthetic vowel will surface as a after non-labialised /q’ q ħ/ or before /ħ/, as u after labialised consonants, as i after /tʃ’ tʃ ʃ ɲ/, and as ə elsewhere.

Vowel lengthening

The term "vowel lengthening" in the context of Hkətl’ohnim grammar may refer to two different phenomena. The first of these is the purely phonological requirement that any stressed word-final vowel must be long, so whenever a stressed short vowel ends up in word-final position, it will be lengthened with no change in quality. This is reflected in the orthography; however, in the lexicon such stems will always be cited with a short vowel.

When referring to the second, more complex phenomenon, the term is usually written in small caps (lengthening). This second phenomenon is a morphophonological process that is triggered in various contexts, most importantly before a number of morphemes beginning with a nasal consonant, as a side-effect of nasal mutation and glottalic mutation in some circumstances, and for all stressed vowels which are immediately followed by a prevocalic resonant /m n ɲ l ɹ/. The resulting vowel will always be long if it ends up in stressed position (hence the name), but this will usually go along with a change in quality, and vowels in unstressed positions may be shortened again so that the modified vowel quality may in fact be the only surface realisation of lengthening.

lengthening is indicated with the symbol ‹ː›. The regular outcome of this process is as follows:

i	→	ē
e	→	ī
a	→	ē / ā
o	→	ū
u	→	ō

Various irregular outcomes are possible; these typically involve lengthening with no change in quality (this is reasonably common for /a/ → ā, and rare for all other vowel qualities). Vowels adjacent to a lexically stressed syllable within the same morpheme do not undergo lengthening at all. Otherwise, lengthened vowels will become short again (but retain their new quality) when they end up immediately before a stressed syllable or before a syllable containing another long vowel, starting at the end of the word.

Nominal morphology

Nouns

Person and number

	singular			plural
	_V	_C	_CC	_V	_C	_CC
1st person	t-	tə-	tə-	s-	əs-	sə-
2nd person	l-	əl-	lə-	ny-	ni-	ni-
3rd person	Ø-			n-	(nə-)	nə-

The "prevocalic" variants of the prefixes are used not only before vowels, but also before /j w/. If the 2sg prefix is followed by one of these semivowels plus a vowel other than /ə/, the _CC variant of the prefix will be used instead.
Many nouns have irregular plural stems, which are typically marked by a mutated stem-initial consonant, and sometimes also a different first vowel in the stem. If the plural stem begins with a single nasal, these nouns do not take the normal 3pl prefix nə-. Examples: wahə ‘lion’ → 3pl mahə (plural stem -mahə-); sqēmi ‘river’ → 3pl naħēmi (plural stem -ħēmi-). A few of these nouns use the plural stem for all forms except for the 3rd person singular; an example is rāna ‘woman’ → 3pl nōna, whose stem is -ōna- in all non-3sg forms. Stem alternations will be indicated in the lexicon.
Sometimes a separate mutation takes place in the 1st person plural and 2nd person singular; for instance, the 2sg of wahə ‘lion’ is əlpahə.

Case

Nouns in Hkətl’ohnim inflect for a total of five cases, which are marked with suffixes. Case marking follows a split-ergative, dechticaetiative pattern (dir-acc in the nonpast tense, erg-dir in the past tense; see here for details).

	V_	C_
direct	-Ø
ergative	-ł	-əł
accusative	-n	-ən
instrumental	-u
genitive	-a

The ergative suffix coalesces with stem-final /t ts tʃ/ into /tɬ/, and with stem-final /t’ ts’ tʃ’/ into /tɬ’/ (e.g. qat ‘man’ → erg qatl).
The instrumental and genitive suffixes delete any preceding short vowel, and the instrumental suffix additionally causes lenition of preceding intervocalic /t/ to -s-, and of preceding intervocalic /p k kʷ q qʷ/ to -h- (cf. qat ‘man’ → instr qasu; wiq ‘pattern, decoration’ → instr wihu). Nouns ending in a stressed vowel typically add an epenthetic glide before the instrumental and genitive suffixes (usually -w- after /u uː/ (gen only) and /o oː/, -y- after /i iː e eː/, and -h- otherwise, cf. skəłō ‘owl’ → instr skəłōhu, gen skəłōwa). Irregular formations of the instrumental case are fairly common; a few irregular genitives also exist.
Some words have a separate oblique stem, which is used for all non-direct cases (e.g. tlir ‘cliff’ → erg tlērəł, acc tlērən, instr tlēru, gen tlēra).

Deixis

All nouns come in three different "deictic stems", which can be interpreted as fusional combinations of the noun stem with a demonstrative affix. The non-deictic stem (the citation form) is used for indefinite and unfocused definite instances of the noun; the proximal deictic stem is used for focused definite instances within reach or at their expected position; and the distal deictic stem is used for focused definite instances further away or at unexpected positions as well as for "obviative" (4th person) usage.

Nouns can be divided into three major and several minor groups according to how they form their deictic stems. The group labels are derived from the shape of the distal suffix.

H nouns (H), which form their distal stem with the suffix -(a)ħ-. There are three subgroups:
1. Vocalic H nouns (H), whose basic stem ends in a vowel or a plosive. For these nouns (the most common class, and the default for new loanwords), the proximal stem is formed with the suffix -(ə)t-.
  ēyə ‘shoe’ → prox ēyət-, dist ēyaħ-
  kēri ‘girl, unmarried woman’ → prox kērit-, dist kēreħ-
  nyap ‘string, cord, sinew’ → prox nyapət-, dist nyapaħ-
2. Nasal H nouns (HN), whose basic stem ends in a single nasal consonant (optionally followed by an unstressed vowel), or in a sequence /jV/. For these nouns, the proximal stem is formed by syncopating the final vowel (if there is any) and replacing the nasal or glide with the suffix -nti-.
  rāna (-ōna-) ‘woman’ → prox rānti- (-ōnti-), dist rānaħ- (-ōnaħ-)
  mīyu ‘mother’ → prox mīnti-, dist mīyaħ-
3. Dental H nouns (HT), whose basic stem ends in /t/ or /tV/. For these nouns, the proximal stem is formed by replacing this ending with -t’i-.
  qat ‘man’ → prox qat’i-, dist qataħ-
  hołta ‘rowboat, canoe’ → prox hołt’i-, dist hołtaħ-
Q nouns (Q), which form their distal stem with a suffix -qʷ- or similar. There are four subgroups, which are fully predictable from the shape of the stem and will thus be labeled identically in the lexicon:
1. Simple Q nouns, whose basic stems end in a fricative, affricate, or liquid (optionally followed by an unstressed vowel). For these nouns, the proximal stem is formed with the suffix -ti- and the distal stem is formed with the suffix -qʷ-. If the basic stem ends in a vowel, this vowel is deleted. If the last consonant in the basic stem is one of the affricates /tɬ ts tʃ/, it is reduced to the corresponding fricative (i.e. one of /ɬ s ʃ/) in both deictic stems.
  htoš ‘hat, cap’ → prox htošti-, dist htošqʷ-
  wahə ‘lion’ → prox wahti-, dist waħqʷ-
  čīlə ‘scorpion’ → prox čīlti-, dist čīlqʷ-
2. Glottalising Q nouns, whose basic stem ends in a plosive. For these nouns, the proximal stem is formed by replacing the stem-final consonant with the suffix -t’i-, and the distal stem is formed by deleting the stem-final consonant, lengthening a preceding stressed vowel, and adding -qʷ-; note that this subclass of distal stems has an irregular instrumental case in -ħo.
  əráq ‘knife’ → prox ərat’i-, dist ərēqʷ-, dist.instr ərēħo
  ulkət ‘evil spirit’ → prox ulkət’i-, dist ulkaqʷ-, dist.instr úlkaħo
3. Nasal Q nouns, whose basic stem ends in a nasal (optionally followed by an unstressed vowel). For these nouns, both deictic stems are formed by shortening the vowel before the nasal (with an accompanying change in quality of /iː eː aː oː uː/ to e i a u o and of any short vowel to |ə| (note that this may surface as ə a i u depending on the surrounding consonants), and adding -t’i- for the proximal stem and -qʷ’- for the distal stem.
  hūm ‘tooth, edge, peak’ → prox hont’i-, dist honqʷ’-
  skuhōmu ‘prisoner, slave’ → prox skuhunt’i-, dist skuhúnqʷ-
4. Cluster-final Q nouns, whose basic stem ends in a cluster of a fricative and a plosive. For these nouns, the proximal stem is formed by replacing the final plosive with -t’i-, and the distal stem is formed by replacing the final plosive with -qʷ’-.
  sułt ‘coat, poncho’ → prox sułt’i-, dist sułqʷ’-
M nouns (M), whose basic stems end in a nasal consonant. They form both deictic stems by lengthening a preceding stressed vowel and replacing the stem-final nasal with -ni- for the proximal stem and -mu- for the distal stem.
lōn ‘lake’ → prox lūni-, dist lūmu-
mōšin ‘body, skeleton, frame’ → prox mōšini-, dist mōšimu-

Some nouns do not neatly fit into these groups, mostly because they exhibit unexpected stem alternations. Two prominent examples are tset ‘bird’ → prox čīti-, dist čīqʷ- and sast ‘corner, joint’ → prox sašit-, dist sašiqʷ-. Irregular deictic noun stems will be mentioned in the lexicon.

Pronouns

Personal pronouns

Personal pronouns are very similar in form to the nominal person/number prefixes. There are some irregularities in the case paradigm, especially in the genitive.

	1st person		2nd person		3rd person
	singular	plural	singular	plural	singular	plural
direct	tu	sa	la	nya	u	na
ergative	tuł	sał	lał	nił	uł	nał
accusative	tūn	sān	lān	nīn	ūn	nān
instrumental	tō	sō	lō	nyō	ō	nō
genitive	nē	tā	łā	kā	mō	nō

Forms with short vowels may be lenghtened when the pronoun is emphasized.

Demonstratives

The basic personal pronouns do not have deictic stems of their own; instead, a separate set of demonstratives is used for deictic purposes. In the 3rd person, these pronouns exhibit an additional distinction between human, nonhuman, locative, and temporal referents; note that the latter can also be used for sentential arguments and as a pro-adverb. All demonstratives inflect for case more or less like regular nouns, so only the direct case forms will be listed here.

Singular:

1sg nyū → prox nyūt-, dist nyōħ-
2sg čū → prox čūt-, dist čōħ-
3sg human nū → prox nut-, dist noħ-
3sg nonhuman ā → prox āt-, dist āħ-
3sg locative ān → prox ēni-, dist ēmu-
3sg temp./adv. yū → prox yuhti-, dist yoħqʷ-

Plural:

1pl tənī → prox tənīt-, dist təneħ-
2pl kənī → prox kənīt-, dist kəneħ-
3pl human mē → prox met-, dist meħ-
3pl nonhuman ē → prox ēt-, dist ēħ-
3pl locative nān → prox nēni-, dist nēmu-
3pl temp./adv. hmū → prox hmut-, dist hmoħ-

Interrogative pronouns

Hkətl’ohnim has four series of interrogative pronouns, which line up with the distinctions made in 3rd person demonstratives. They do not inflect for number. The direct case forms are as follows:

human (‘who’): tīn → prox tēni-, dist tēmu-
nonhuman (‘what’): łū → prox łut-, dist łoħ-
locative (‘where’): etən → prox et’ni-, dist et’mu-
temp./adv. (‘when/how’): et → prox et’i-, dist īqʷ-

Verbal morphology

Overview

The general structure of the Hkətl’ohnim verb can be summarised as follows:

-4	-3	-2	-1	0	+1	+2	+3
participant marking; tense	<target>	(preverb)	<theme>	STEM	(negation)	(adverbials)	(valence; role)

The only obligatory elements are the verb stem itself (which is usually a monomorphemic root, but it may also be formed by compounding or by adding a derivational suffix) and a fusional prefix for participant marking and tense. Most of the other morphemes operate semi-derivationally; while some of them are required in certain situations, they tend to provide additional semantic information rather than having purely grammatical significance.

The preverb is a lexical stem extension found in a significant percentage of verbs. It precedes the main stem and may be separated from it when a noun in the role of instrument or theme is incorporated. Most preverbs belong to a closed inventory of morphemes indicating certain types of location, direction, manner, or purpose, but the semantics of these elements are often rather hazy. The most common and straightforward preverbs can be used productively to form new verbs (sometimes with valence-increasing effects), but others are fairly rare and mostly unproductive, especially if their meaning is not immediately obvious.

Following the verb stem there is the negation suffix, and after that an agglutinative layer of adverbial suffixes with a wide array of meanings: Some of them can be described as modals, some as evidentials, some as aspects or aktionsarten, and yet others specify the manner or circumstance of the action. Adverbials are generally optional; they are typically not used if the notion they express is irrelevant or clear from context, but will be present when the speaker wants to stress a particular semantic configuration. Verbs may also contain more than one adverbial suffix.

A number of valence- and role-adjusting suffixes may appear at the very end of the verb. They include e.g. a causative, a non-causative transitiviser, a detransitiviser, a mediopassive, an action nominaliser, a state nominaliser, and the imperative. Some of these morphemes may be combined with each other.

Another prominent feature of Hkətl’ohnim verbal morphosyntax is noun incorporation, which is done by integrating a bare noun stem (unmarked for person or case, but optionally marked for deixis) into the verb, between pronominal prefix and stem. There are two different types of incorporation, which may sometimes co-occur in a single verb:

Target incorporation involves an argument corresponding to the primary object of the verb (typically in the semantic role of patient, experiencer, goal, recipient, or beneficiary) and generally reduces the valence by one, which requires the use of an appropriate preverb or transitivising suffix if the verb stem is lexically intransitive.
Theme incorporation involves an oblique argument (typically in the semantic role of theme, instrument, source, manner, or cause); it does not affect the valence of intransitive verbs, may or may not reduce that of transitives, and will reduce the valence of ditransitive stems to monotransitive.

If a preverb is present, an incorporated target will precede the preverb while an incorporated theme will follow it.

Stem classes

Verb stems can be grouped into several different classes according to their morphophonological behaviour when affixes are attached. There are two largely independent parameters determining the class of each individual stem - the capital stem class which describes interaction with prefixes and incorporated noun stems, and the caudal stem class which describes interaction with suffixes.

Stem classes are assigned purely according to the behavior of the stem itself. Individual stems may also trigger certain types of morphophonological alternations in adjacent morphemes, which is indicated with diacritics (see above for details).

Capital stem classes

Vocalic stems (V), which begin with a vowel. These stems acquire an epenthetic glide when they appear after another vowel (typically -w- after labialising prefixes and after /u uː o oː/, -y- after /i iː e eː/, and -h- otherwise; a small subgroup of vocalic stems (cited with initial ‹ʰ›) always inserts -h-). If the stem itself begins with /ə/, this segment will coalesce with preceding morpheme-final /ə/ into a single ə, and with a vowel of a different quality into a lengthened version of the latter.
Consonantal stems (C), which begin with a consonant or consonant cluster. Their initial boundary may undergo labialisation and/or glottalic mutation, and an epenthetic /ə/ may be added to prevent illegal consonant clusters, but they are immune to the nasal and hard mutations.
Nasalisable stems, whose initial boundary undergoes nasal mutation when preceded by a nasalising morpheme. In other environments they behave like consonantal stems. There are two major and five minor subgroups:
1. Aspirating nasalisable stems
  Most stems beginning with /h/ fall into this class. There are two subtypes, both of which drop their initial /h/ after a consonant, causing lenition of single preceding morpheme-final /p t k(ʷ) q(ʷ)/ to hw s š ħ in the process (note that /hw/ simplifies to /h/ before /u uː o oː/):
  1. hm-stems (hm), whose initial consonant mutates to -hm- under nasalisation.
    -hit’əň~ ‘chew’ → 1sg>3.np nəhmit’ən ‘I am chewing it’
  2. hny-stems (hny), whose initial consonant mutates to -hny- under nasalisation. If the regular stem vowel is /e eː/, this vowel will be raised so that the stem-initial syllable comes out as -hni(ː)-.
    -hastə-ʷ ‘promise, vow’ → 2sg>3.pst ihnyastə ‘you promised him/her/them sth.’
    -hēnqa- ‘use up, exhaust’ → 1pl>3.pst sohnīnqa ‘I have used all of it’
2. Lengthening nasalisable stems
  All other nasalisable stems, including a few starting with /h/ (which is dropped after a consonant, but does not cause lenition of preceding plosives). When preceded by a nasalising morpheme, these stems will cause the final vowel of the preceding morpheme to undergo lengthening. This stem class has four subtypes:
  1. m-stems (m), whose initial consonant mutates to -ːm- under nasalisation. If the regular stem begins with prevocalic /ʃ ħ h/, the stem will also be subject to hard mutation.
    -pīnkun~ʸ ‘be allied with’ → 1pl>3.np hemīnkun ‘we are allied with them’; 1pl>2.np həłpīnkun ‘we are allied with you’
    -hoha- ‘interrupt, disturb’ → 1sg>3.pst somoha ‘I have interrupted him/her/them’; 2sg>1pl.np rəspoha ‘you are disturbing us’
  2. n-stems (n), whose initial consonant mutates to -ːn- under nasalisation. If the regular stem begins with prevocalic /s ʃ/, the stem will also be subject to hard mutation.
    -tēmu-ʷ ‘be an enemy of’ → 1pl>3.np henēmu ‘we are their enemies’; 1pl>2.np həłtēmu ‘we are your enemies’
    -sōn~ ‘help’ → 1sg>3.pst sonōn ‘I have helped him/her/them’; 2sg>1pl.np rəstōn ‘you are helping us’
  3. ny-stems (ny), whose initial consonant mutates to -ːny- under nasalisation. If the regular stem begins with prevocalic /ʃ ħ/, the stem will also be subject to hard mutation. Note that ny-stems beginning with the sequences /-kə- -ke(ː)- -qe(ː)- -ħe(ː)- -je(ː)-/ exhibit vowel raising, so that the nasally mutated stem will start with -ːni(ː)-.
    -kahku-ʷ ‘seek, look for’ → 1sg>3.pst sonyahku ‘I was looking for him/her/them’; 1sg>2.pst səłkahku ‘I was looking for you’
    -ħet-ˀ ‘be a sibling of one's parent’ → 1sg>3.np nenit ‘I am him/her aunt/uncle’; 2sg>1pl.np rəsqet ‘you are our aunt/uncle’ = ‘we are your nieces/nephews’
Fortifiable stems, which begin with a nasal consonant and go along with mandatory lengthening of a preceding morpheme-final vowel. They will undergo hard mutation of the stem-initial consonant when preceded by a morpheme-final fricative, and they may optionally undergo labialisation as well, but they are immune to other types of morphophonological alternations. Since the result of hard mutation is not entirely predictable, fortifiable stems are subdivided into four groups:
1. ːm/p stems (ːN/p), whose initial consonant fortifies to -p- after a fricative.
  -ːmenqʷa- ‘destroy, defeat’ → 3sg>1pl.np həspenqʷa ‘he is defeating us’
2. ːn/t stems (ːN/t), whose initial consonant fortifies to -t- after a fricative.
  -ːnōmi- ‘exceed, surpass’ → 1pl>2.pst ułtōmi ‘we surpassed you’
3. ːny/k and ːm/k stems (ːN/k), whose initial consonant fortifies to -k⁽ʷ⁾- after a fricative.
  -ːnyots-ʷ ‘scratch’ → 1sg>3:deictic.pst səhkots ‘I scratched that thing’
4. ːny/q and ːm/q stems (ːN/q), whose initial consonant fortifies to -q⁽ʷ⁾- after a fricative.
  -ːmōmun~ʸ ‘irrigate’ → 1sg>3:deictic.np naħqōmun ‘I am watering these (plants)’
Rhotic stems, which begin with /r/ in their citation form. When preceded by a fricative, the resulting cluster collapses into -š-, with a following /e(ː)/ raising to -i(ː)-. After all other consonants (including the spurious morpheme-final nasal of nasalising prefixes), the /r/ is deleted and the following vowel (now in stem-initial position) undergoes a change in quality. There are two subgroups of rhotic stems, which are distinguished by the resulting vowel in the stem-initial syllable:
1. r/o-stems (r/o), which begin with -o(ː)- when preceded by a consonant.
  -rūłaq- ‘split, divide’ → 1pl:refl.pst ukōłaq ‘we parted (from each other)’; 3pl>1pl.pst səšūłaq ‘they have divided us’
2. r/u-stems (r/u), which begin with -u(ː)- when preceded by a consonant.
  -rihə- ‘be a sister of’ → 3sg>3sg.np həmūhə ‘she is his/her sister’; 3sg>1pl.np həšihə ‘she is our sister’

Caudal stem classes

Vocalic stems, which end in a vowel that is always present. When followed by another vowel, the stem will be extended by an epenthetic glide (typically -w- after labialising stems and after /u uː o oː/, -y- after /i iː e eː/, and -h- otherwise). There are two subclasses:
1. Plain vocalic stems (V), which do not exhibit internal change.
  -tsumō- ‘be experienced’ → +intensive -tsumōwaq-ˀ ‘be highly experienced’
  -masni- ‘be sick’ → +intensive -másniyaq-ˀ ‘be seriously ill’
  -ahmē-ʷ ‘flirt with so.’ → +intensive -ahmēwaq-ˀ ‘be very obviously determined to seduce so.’
2. Ablauting vocalic stems (V+), which consist of only a single syllable with a short vowel. The vowel will become long (without a change in quality) when appearing in word-final position, and undergo lengthening (usually with a change in quality) before a prevocalic resonant; note that epenthetic glides do not trigger lengthening.
  -int’e- ‘be worried about sth.’ → 3sg>3sg.np hmint’ē ‘he/she is worried about it’; +potential hmint’īma ‘he/she might be worried about it’
  -ntla- ‘dye, paint’ → 1sg>3.pst sontlā ‘I painted it’; +inchoative sontlāyə ‘I was starting to paint it’
Consonantal stems, which end in a consonant or consonant cluster, optionally followed by an unstressed short vowel that may be syncopated before vowels and certain consonants. There are three subclasses of consonantal stems; all of them may additionally trigger labialisation and/or hard mutation.
1. Plain consonantal stems (C), which end in a consonant. When followed by a consonant-initial morpheme with which the stem cannot form a legal medial cluster, an epenthetic -ə- is inserted; note that this vowel surfaces as -a- after non-labialised /q’ q ħ/ or before /ħ/, as -u- after labialised consonants, and as -i- after /tʃ’ tʃ ʃ ɲ/. If the last consonant in the stem is an affricate, it will be reduced to the corresponding fricative before morphemes beginning with a single plosive or non-lengthening nasal; a preceding stressed short vowel will undergo compensatory lengthening in this situation. In a few stems, final /n/ shifts to -ny- before a vowel; these instances of /n/ are transcribed as ň in the lexicon.
  -əltōn- ‘grow’ → 3sg.pst ultōn ‘it grew’; +potential ultōnəma ‘it might have grown’; +accidental ultōntərə ‘it grew as a side effect’
  -saht- ‘be hard, be solid’ → 3sg.np həsaht ‘it is solid’; +intentional həsahtlu ‘it is meant to be solid’; +accidental həsahtətērə ‘it has become solid by accident’
  -šokʷ- ‘spread out, distribute’ → 1sg>3.np nənšokʷ ‘I am distributing it’; +intentional nənšókulu ‘I am distributing it intentionally’; +sceptical nənšókuhmo ‘I am distributing it reluctantly’
2. Syncopating consonantal stems (Cə), which end in a short vowel. The stem-final vowel is deleted before another vowel or when a legal consonant cluster can be formed, and reduced to -ə- before non-nasal consonants otherwise unless colored to -i- -a- -u- by the preceding consonant; note that a deleted or reduced /u/ causes labialisation of prevocalic dorsal plosives, and that a deleted /i/ turns preceding /n/ into -ny-. A few syncopating stems ending in /jV/ change this to n when followed by a non-ejective plosive or affricate or by a sibilant; this is indicated in the lexicon by a ‹+› symbol at the morpheme boundary.
  -ōma- ‘accidentally prevent sth.’ → 1sg>3:deictic.pst səhōma ‘I accidentally prevented that’; +potential səhōmama ‘I may have accidentally prevented that’; +repentant səhōmum ‘I was stupid enough to accidentally prevent that’
  -espi- ‘fail to understand’ → 1sg>3sg.np nəmespi ‘I don't understand it’; +immediate nəmespen ‘I'm not understanding it yet’; +attenuative nəméspinim ‘I don't understand all of it (but I understand something)’
  -pāyu+ʷ ‘think, suppose’ → 3pl>3:deictic.pst səhpāyu ‘they were thinking so’; +prospective səhpāyəhkʷ ‘they would soon come to think so’; +traditional səhpāmpəhni ‘they were traditionally thinking so’
3. Leniting consonantal stems (C+), which end in a plosive that will undergo lenition when followed by a vowel (including epenthetic ones), a plosive, or a nasal. The observed alternations are /p t k⁽ʷ⁾ q⁽ʷ⁾/ → hw s š ħ; note that /hw/ simplifies to /h/ before /u uː o oː/ or a consonant.
  -nop- ‘curse, wish bad luck upon’ → 1sg>2.np nəłnop ‘I curse you’; +intensive nəłnohwaq ‘I curse you severely’; +iterative nəłnoħqałt ‘I curse you again’
  -tsak- ‘trap’ → 3sg>3.pst untsák ‘he/she laid out a trap for him/her’; +resultative untsašim ‘he/she successfully trapped him/her’; +iterative untsašqałt ‘he/she laid out a trap for him/her again’
Glottalic stems, which end in a non-ejective plosive or in a nasal. They behave like plain consonantal stems in most situations, but they trigger glottalic mutation when followed by a prevocalic plosive or affricate. There are two subclasses:
1. Plain glottalic stems (ʔ), which end in a plosive that will be deleted when a following consonant undergoes glottalic mutation. If the stem ends in one of /kʷ qʷ/ and the following consonant is underlyingly one of /k q/, the resulting dorsal ejective will be labialised.
  -tsəskāqʷ-ˀ ‘improve sth.’ → 3sg>3.np həntsəskāqʷ ‘he/she is improving it’; +iterative həntsəskāqʷ’ałt ‘he/she is improving it step by step’
  -mālt-ˀ ‘be interesting’ → 2sg.np rəmālt ‘you are an interesting person’; +durative rəmālč’i ‘you are fascinating all the time’
2. Ablauting glottalic stems (ʔ+), which end in a nasal. When they trigger glottalic mutation, the vowel before the stem-final nasal consonant will be shortened with an accompanying change in quality of /iː eː aː oː uː/ to e i a u o and of any short vowel to |ə| (note that this may surface as ə a i u depending on the surrounding consonants). Exceptions will be marked in the lexicon.
  -łēm-ˀ ‘get, obtain, receive’ → 2sg>3.pst inłēm ‘you received it’; +dubitative inłints’ə ‘you probably didn't receive it’
  -qałč’ūn-ˀʷ ‘settle down’ → 3pl.pst taqałč’ūn ‘they settled down’; +iterative taqałč’onqʷ’ałt ‘they settled down again’
Nasalising stems, which end in a nasal and trigger nasal mutation of following obstruents. The stem-final nasal will typically be deleted in the process, or else assimilate in POA to a following consonant. A subset of nasalising stems changes their stem-final nasal to -y- when followed by a vowel (with a preceding unstressed /i/ reducing to -ə-); this is indicated with the diacritic ‹ʸ›. Apart from this minor variation, nasalising stems can be divided into two subclasses:
1. Plain nasalising stems (N), which do not exhibit further changes.
  -hnām~ ‘hear’ → 1sg>2.pst tləhnām ‘I heard you’; +accidental tləhnānərə ‘I overheard you accidentally’; +durative tləhnānči ‘I listened to you (for a while)’
  -sāk’ən~ʸ ‘block, oppose’ → 1pl>3.pst unsāk’ən ‘we resisted them’; +iterative unsāk’əniłt ‘we resisted them several times’; +intensive unsāk’əyaq ‘we resisted them fiercely’
2. Ablauting nasalising stems (N+), which exhibit vowel lengthening when not appearing in word-final position. Note that most of these stems have a long vowel in their word-final allomorph already, so often the vowel is actually modified only in quality, not in length. Many ablauting nasalising stems also exhibit an alternation between /n/ (word-final) and -ny- (before a vowel); this is indicated in the lexicon by transcribing the stem-final consonant as ň.
  -tlastōň~ ‘wash’ → 1sg:refl.np nətl’astōn ‘I wash myself’; +iterative nətl’astūniłt ‘I wash myself regularly’
  -p’āň~ ‘punch, hit’ → 3sg>1sg.pst wip’ān ‘he/she hit me’; +iterative wip’ēniłt ‘he/she hit me several times’; +intensive wip’ēnyaq ‘he/she hit me forcefully’

Some of the above caudal stem classes have a few members with irregular behavior, involving e.g. deletion of a medial vowel in prevocalic position, an unexpected shift in vowel quality, or an alternation between palatal and non-palatal consonants. Such irregularities will be indicated in the lexicon.

Pronominal prefixes

Hkətl’ohnim verbs are mandatorily marked for their subject, and also for their object if they are transitive. This is done with two sets of slightly fusional prefixes; the choice of the prefix set signals the tense of the verb. Unlike case marking on nouns, verbal person marking is aligned in a straightforward nominative-accusative pattern; i.e. the subject markers refer to the direct case argument in intransitive clauses and in nonpast tense transitive clauses, and to the ergative case argument in past tense transitive clauses.

There is a considerable amount of syncretism in the paradigm; for instance, the 1sg subject forms are always identical to the 3pl subject forms, and the 3sg subject forms are identical to the 1pl subject forms. Also, 2nd person objects do not distinguish number at all, and 3rd person objects do so only when the object is non-deictic and the morpheme following the pronominal prefix begins with a vowel other than open-syllable ə. (But note that 3rd person objects distinguish whether their referent is deictic or not, and that there is a separate reflexive inflection for verbs where subject and object refer to the same participant.)

object →		none	1st person		2nd person	3rd person			reflexive
Non-past tense
subject ↓		none	singular	plural	2nd person	singular	plural	deictic	reflexive
1st person	singular	n-/nə-	(refl.)	nəs-	nəł-	nəm-/ne~ɴ	nən-/ne~ɴ	nəh-	nək-ˀ
1st person	plural	h-/hə-	həy-/he-	(refl.)	həł-	hm-/he~ɴ	hn-/he~ɴ	həh-	hk-/hək-ˀ
2nd person	singular	r-/rə-	rəy-/ri-	rəs-	(refl.)	rəm-/ra~ɴ	rən-/ra~ɴ	rəh-	rək-ˀ
2nd person	plural	ny-/ni-	ny-/ni-	nis-	(refl.)	nim-/ni~ɴ	nin-/ni~ɴ	nih-	nik-ˀ
3rd person	singular	h-/hə-	həy-/he-	həs-	həł-	hm-/he~ɴ	hn-/he~ɴ	həh-	hk-/hək-ˀ
3rd person	plural	n-/nə-	ny-/ni-	nəs-	nəł-	nəm-/ne~ɴ	nən-/ne~ɴ	nəh-	nək-ˀ

object →		none	1st person		2nd person	3rd person			reflexive
Past tense
subject ↓		none	singular	plural	2nd person	singular	plural	deictic	reflexive
1st person	singular	t-/tə-	(refl.)	ts-/səs-	tl-/səł-	sm-/so~ɴ	sn-/so~ɴ	səh-	skʷ-/səkʷ-ˀ
1st person	plural	w-/u-	uy-/wi-	(refl.)	uł-	um-/o~ɴ	un-/o~ɴ	uh-	ukʷ-ˀ
2nd person	singular	y-/i-	əy-/e-	is-	(refl.)	im-/i~ɴ	in-/i~ɴ	ih-	ikʷ-ˀ
2nd person	plural	kʷ-/ku-	kuy-/kʷi-	kus-	(refl.)	kum-/ko~ɴ	kun-/ko~ɴ	kuh-	kukʷ-ˀ
3rd person	singular	w-/u-	uy-/wi-	us-	uł-	um-/o~ɴ	un-/o~ɴ	uh-	ukʷ-ˀ
3rd person	plural	t-/tə-	səy-/ši-	ts-/səs-	tl-/səł-	sm-/so~ɴ	sn-/so~ɴ	səh-	skʷ-/səkʷ-ˀ

Where two variants of a prefix are given, the first form appears before vowels and the second form before consonants.
As an exception to the above rule, the intransitive 3sg and 1pl prefixes in the non-past tense (h-/hə-) will also lose their vowel before a prevocalic approximant or non-ejective plosive.
Prefixes marked with ‹~ɴ› cause nasal mutation of single p kʷ qʷ w into m; of single t into n; and of single k q into ny. Before a single ejective or one of l ł s š, the prefix will come out with a final homoorganic nasal (i.e. identical in form to the prevocalic allomorph unless the latter doesn't have any vowel, in which case an epenthetic ə will appear before the nasal).
The final h of the 3rd person deictic object suffixes becomes hw before a vowel other than u o.
The final k⁽ʷ⁾ of the reflexive prefixes will cause glottalic mutation of any following plosive or affricate into an ejective, and combine with following single l ł s š into tl tl ts č. It will become an ejective when followed by a nasal, and it will coalesce with ħ h into ħ š (with the preceding vowel acquiring the quality listed for the nasalising 3rd person object forms). Labialisation in the past tense is preserved only on resulting prevocalic dorsal stops.

Preverbs

Some of the most common preverbs in Hkətl’ohnim are listed below, with approximate meanings.

All instances of /ə/ at the edge of a preverb will be deleted when adjacent to another vowel, and may be colored to /i a u/ depending on the surrounding consonants. Where the preverb begins or ends with a consonant, epenthetic vowels may be added to prevent illegal consonant clusters.

-əl-/-əltə-: telic, perfective, with a purpose, intended to have a predictable result

-sə-: benefactive, for the sake of, exchanging sth.

-stə-: into a container

-se-/-səy-: into a bounded area (-se- before consonants; -səy- before vowels; -ːne-/-ːnəy- after nasalising morphemes; -te-/-təy- after fricatives)

-əłtə-: out of a container

-qan-: out of a bounded area (-ːnin- after nasalising morphemes)

-mə-: to, towards, in the direction of

-əlmə-: up to, reaching

-im-: around, regarding, dealing with, taking time for

-hə-: across, beyond, through, straightforwardly

-ōnə-: in circles, back and forth, here and there, on and off, this and that

-ših-: upwards, towards the deictic center, with increasing importance

-sqa-: downwards, away from the deictic center, with decreasing importance

-ēq-: there, at the aforementioned location

-īn-/-īy-: on, at, near (stative) (-īn- before consonants and /i iː/, -īy- before other vowels)

-uh-ʷ: inside a container (stative)

-pə-: inside a bounded area (stative)

Negation

Verbs can be negated with the suffix -ːnē-. It should be noted that the vowel in this suffix always retains its quality, even when followed by a morpheme that usually triggers lengthening.

Adverbial suffixes

Any verb may appear with zero, one, or more adverbial suffixes (however, more than three such morphemes in a single verb are very rare). If a verb contains several adverbials, morphemes referring to the manner of the action itself tend to appear closest to the verb stem, followed by morphemes referring to the temporal structure of the event, followed by morphemes referring to the attitude of a participant or of the speaker, followed by morphemes referring to the epistemic status of the proposition, followed by morphemes referring to external factors. It seems that the order of elements is somewhat variable though, and that some suffixes may be interpreted differently depending on where in the adverbial complex they appear; further analysis is required here.

A list of some common adverbial suffixes follows, roughly ordered by relative position. Note that adverbials will typically receive stress if they end up in the penultimate syllable of the word unless adjacent to a lexical long vowel or immediately preceded by a monosyllabic verb root, and that most adverbial suffixes have different stressed and unstressed allomorphs. Since the stressed variants are more distinctive, they will be used as the citation forms.

-q’al-: in a single motion; as a one-off event; quickly; instantly; suddenly (-aq’al- after a plosive or a consonant cluster)

-čī-: ongoing for an extended period of time; prolonged up to a certain point in time; repeated over and over (-či- when unstressed; combines with a preceding fricative into -hčī-/-hči-)

-īmə-: fully; completely; having finished successfully; having resulted in a new state (-im- when unstressed)

-šim-: having passed (according to a natural sequence of events); having been useful; to the full extent; exhaustively (-šēm- when stressed before a consonant)

-ːtōn-ʷ: having stopped (without the implication of success); being in the process of stopping (-ːtūm- before a vowel; -t’ōn-ʷ/-t’ūm- after a consonant; -ːtən-ʷ/-ːtəm-/-t’ən-ʷ/-t’əm- when unstressed; causes labialisation of a following dorsal plosive)

-ihk-: soon; being about to begin; being about to show noticeable consequences (-(ə)hk- when unstressed)

-nī-: having started; being in the process of starting (-yē- after a vowel; -ni-/-yə- when unstressed)

-ots-: normally; typically; according to general knowledge; as expected (-os-ʷ before a consonant; -(ə)ts-/-(ə)s-ʷ when unstressed; causes labialisation of a following dorsal plosive)

-ēn-ˀ: now; currently; immediately; directly (-en-ˀ when unstressed; causes glottalic mutation of a following plosive)

-qałt-ˀ: frequently; regularly; repeatedly; being independently performed by several different agents; affecting multiple objects of the same type; affecting the same object several times (-ːniłt-ˀ after nasalising stems; causes glottalic mutation of a following plosive)

-su-: later on; next; as a result or goal; presumably (-s- between a vowel and an obstruent; -tu- after non-plosive consonants; combines with a preceding plosive into -tsu-)

-tsā-: speculatively; probably not; judged unlikely; known through an unreliable source (-s- when unstressed between a vowel and an obstruent; -ts(ə)- when unstressed otherwise)

-ːma-: maybe; possibly; judged likely (-pa- after a non-nasal consonant; -ːm(ə)-/-pə- when unstressed)

-ːmōr-ʷ: clearly; obviously; assumed from context; with plenty of reliable evidence (-ːmōru- word-finally when not immediately preceded by a stressed syllable; -ːmur- when unstressed before a vowel; -ːmu-ʷ when unstressed otherwise; causes labialisation of a following dorsal plosive)

-lu-ʷ: on purpose; being planned; being hoped for; being the favoured option (-ːlu- word-finally after a stressed vowel; -l-ʷ between a vowel and an obstruent; combines with a preceding fricative into -łu-ʷ and with a preceding plosive or affricate into -tlu-ʷ; causes labialisation of a following dorsal plosive)

-tēr-: by chance; accidentally; involuntarily; as a side effect (-tērə- word-finally when not immediately preceded by a stressed syllable; -ːnēr(ə)- after nasalising stems; -tər(ə)-/-ːnər(ə)- when unstressed)

-ːnas-: necessarily; without viable alternatives; under moral or social obligation (-ːnəs- when unstressed; -ːns- before a stressed vowel)

-hmo-: reluctantly; with scepticism; being warned against; deviating from socially accepted norms (-hmə- when unstressed)

-pəhni-: customarily; according to tradition; in a morally appropriate way (-pəhn- before a vowel; -pəh- before a nasal; -ːməh(n(i))- after nasalising stems)

-īm-ˀ: focusedly; in a tailored way; extraordinarily well-adapted to the situation (-yēm-ˀ after a vowel; -im-ˀ/-yəm-ˀ when unstressed; causes glottalic mutation of a following plosive)

-sēyə-ʷ: enough; sufficiently; successfully (but only barely so) (-sēyu- word-finally when not immediately preceded by a stressed syllable; -sēy- before a vowel; -səyu word-finally when unstressed; -səy(ə)-ʷ when unstressed otherwise; causes labialisation of a following dorsal plosive)

-ispi-: unsuitably; insufficiently; failing to succeed (-isp- before a vowel; -spi- after a vowel; -spē- between a vowel and a nasal; -(ə)sp(ə)- when unstressed)

-aht-: unfortunately; unwanted; to the detriment of someone (-ahtə- before a non-fricative consonant; -ːht- after a vowel; -(ə)ht(ə)- when unstressed)

-ōm-ʷ: stupidly; excessively; with devastating consequences; to one's own detriment (-ōmu- word-finally when not immediately preceded by a stressed syllable; -hōm(u)-ʷ after a vowel; -(h)um-ʷ when unstressed; causes labialisation of a following dorsal plosive)

-ra-: against the rules; unfairly; in an unacceptable way; mischievously; defiantly (-əra- after a consonant; -ːrə- word-finally after a stressed vowel; -(ə)rə- when unstressed otherwise)

-nim-: together; towards each other; reciprocally; with low intensity (-nīm- when stressed before a consonant; -ːnim- word-finally after a stressed vowel)

-aq-ˀ: strongly; forcefully; with great impact; with extraordinary determination; to a remarkable extent (-ːq- after a stressed vowel; -q- after an unstressed vowel; causes glottalic mutation of a following plosive)

-aħqʷ-: unexpectedly; unusually; disruptively; in contrast to something else (-ħqʷ- after a vowel)

Valence/role suffixes

Hkətl’ohnim verb stems are generally associated with a very specific argument structure. In order to add or remove a core argument, a number of valence-adjusting suffixes can be added to the end of the verb. A few other suffixes with miscellaneous meanings may also appear in verb-final position; because some of these may combine with valence suffixes in a fusional manner, they are also discussed here.

-qa-: causative: Increases valence by adding a new subject; the original subject is demoted to primary object. (-q- after a vowel; -ːnya- after nasalising stems)

-ːnin-: non-causative transitiviser: Increases valence by adding a primary object to an otherwise intransitive verb. (-ːmun- after labialising stems that end in a vowel; -kən- after a fricative)

-əł-: detransitiviser: Decreases valence by removing the primary object from a transitive verb. (-uł- after a labialised consonant; -ł- after a vowel)

-ən-: mediopassive: Decreases valence by promoting an original primary object to subject; the original subject is removed but may optionally appear in the genitive case. When added to a ditransitive verb, the original theme is promoted to primary object. (-un- after a labialised consonant; coalesces with a preceding unstressed vowel to stressed -ōn-; always -šin- if the verb stem was originally ditransitive)

-səm-: inverse of ditransitive: Exchanges the syntactic positions of theme and recipient of a ditransitive verb with no change in valence. It may also increase the valence of a monotransitive verb by adding a new primary object and demoting the original primary object to a theme (marked with the instrumental case). (-təm- after a liquid or fricative; -ːnəm- after nasalising stems)

-ta-: action nominaliser: Turns the inflected verb into a noun referring to a single, specific instance of the action involving precisely those participants marked in the pronominal prefix. Participants may also be overt; an overt subject of a nominalised verb takes the genitive case. The nominalised verb itself will also inflect for case according to its role in the matrix clause. (-t- after a vowel; -ːna- after nasalising stems; combines with the causative -qa- into -(ə)tsa-, with the mediopassive -ən-/-šin- into -(š)ōna-, and with the inverse -səm- into -sēna-)

-ːmu-: state nominaliser: Turns the inflected verb into a noun referring to a stative, generalised (or generalisable) situation associated with the action, typically with a durative meaning for atelic verbs and a resultative meaning for telic verbs. This state is interpreted to apply to the primary object if the verb is transitive and the object is deictic, or otherwise to apply to the subject. Arguments may be overt; an overt primary object will always appear in the direct case (even in the non-past tense), and an overt subject will take the ergative case if the object is deictic, and the genitive case otherwise. The nominalised verb itself is also inflected for case. (-ku- after a single obstruent; -īmu after a consonant cluster; combines with the transitiviser -ːnin- into -ːnīnku-, with the detransitiviser -(ə)ł- into -(ə)łki-, with the mediopassive -ən-/-šin- into -(š)ōnku-, and with the inverse -səm- into -sēnku-)

-ê-: imperative: Marks the verb as a command or request, which is directed at the subject. This suffix is always stressed and always the final morpheme in the word; it can co-occur with the valence suffixes, but not with the nominalisers -ta- and -ːmu-. (-hê- after a long vowel, which gets shortened in turn; any immediately preceding original short vowel is deleted)

Derivation

Some productive derivational affixes are listed below.

Nominalising affixes

-(ə)skə: n/v → n; instrument used for the action denoted by the base (if the base is verbal), or having some kind of property associated with the base (if the base is nominal). Nouns derived with this suffix have an irregular instrumental case in -ːšu.

-su: n/v → n; location associated with the base

-(ə)m(ə): n/v → n; person associated with the base

-un: n/v → n; domesticated animal related to the base

-(a)ħo: n/v → n; small object related to the base

-šin: n/v → n; large object related to the base

-yələ/-ilə: n/v → n; person, animal, location, or object having the base as a characteristic feature or property

-(ə)rə/-i: v → n; abstract nominalisation. When added to nasalising verb stems, this suffix appears in the allomorph -ːya.

Verbalising affixes

-(h)u-: n → v; action carried out with the base as an instrument

-rən~/-on~: n/v → v; motion verb with the base as a target or theme (if the base is nominal), or with the base describing the manner of motion (if the base is verbal)

-yən-ʷ/-in-ʷ: n/v → v; all-purpose verbaliser, describes a specialised action related to the base

Syntax and usage

Hkətl’ohnim is, in general, a head-initial and right-branching language. The verb is typically the first element in a clause, followed by its arguments, and the noun is typically the first element in a noun phrase, followed by most of its modifiers. The basic constituent order is verb-subject (VS) in intransitive clauses, verb-patient-agent (VOS) in transitive clauses, and verb-recipient-donor-theme (VOSX) in ditransitive clauses. However, this is freed up considerably by case marking on the nouns and polypersonal agreement on the verbs. In practice, the constituents of a sentence may appear in a wide range of possible orderings, which are chosen on the basis of pragmatic considerations. Also, if the amount of syncretism in the agreement morphemes on the verb permits, core arguments are frequently dropped so that it's not uncommon for only focused constituents to appear overtly.

Morphosyntactic alignment

Hkətl’ohnim displays a split-ergative, dechticaetiative morphosyntactic alignment with regard to case marking, which can be summarised as follows:

	intransitive	transitive		ditransitive
	S	A	P	D	T	R
nonpast	dir	dir	acc	dir	instr	acc
past	dir	erg	dir	erg	instr	dir

Intransitive clauses have only one core argument, which generally takes the unmarked direct case (dir). (There are a few intransitive verbs that lexically require their subjects to be marked with one of the other cases, but this is sufficiently rare and unsystematic to be treated as an irregularity, rather than labeling the language as "split-S".)

Case marking in mono- and ditransitive clauses exhibits split-ergativity based on the tense of the verb. Note that verbal agreement does not participate in split-ergativity, treating all subjects alike and thus following a nominative-accusative pattern.

In the nonpast tense, case marking is nominative-accusative: The subject (typically in the semantic role of agent, causer, force, or donor) appears in the direct case (dir), and the primary object (typically in the semantic role of patient, experiencer, goal, recipient, or beneficiary) appears in the accusative case (acc).
In the past tense, case marking is ergative-absolutive: The subject is marked with the ergative case (erg), while the primary object appears in the direct case.

Ditransitive clauses are aligned dechticaetiatively, which means that the primary object is linked to the target role, not to the theme role. The recipient or beneficiary thus appears in the accusative or direct case depending on the tense of the clause, while the secondary object (typically in the semantic role of theme, instrument, manner, or cause) is marked with the instrumental case (instr).

Noun phrases

Quantifiers

Numerals

Hkətl’ohnim uses a base-10 number system:

1.	nō	11.	nūntə
2.	yak	12.	nīntə	20.	yahna
3.	sā	13.	sēntə	30.	sēna
4.	qep	14.	qāntə	40.	qehna
5.	rē	15.	rīntə	50.	rīna
6.	toqʷ	16.	tóħantə	60.	tohna
7.	mul	17.	muləntə	70.	mulna
8.	hē	18.	hīntə	80.	hīna
9.	ūla	19.	ūləntə	90.	ūlna
10.	ēntə			100.	ēntəna

The numbers 110, 120, (...), 190 are formed by suffixing the decimal multiplier morpheme -na to the words for 11, 12, (...), 19.

110 nūntəna

170 múləntəna

More complex numerals up to 199 can be formed by compounding, with the single digit coming first. Note the following special combining forms: 1 no- (noy- before a vowel); 2 yah- before a voiced consonant or /h/; 3 sa- (sey- before a vowel); 4 qeh- before a voiced consonant or /h/; 5 re- (rey- before a vowel); 6 toħ-; 8 he- (hey- before a vowel); 9 ūl- (ūlə- before /r/); 50 -šīna after a consonant; 150 -šīntəna after a consonant.

21 noyahna

47 mulqehna

56 točīna

64 qet’ohna

115 renūntəna

133 sasēntəna

Multiples of 100 are built with the special form -qēntəna by prefixing the appropriate multiplier. 1000 is łēn; multiples of 1000 are built with -qałēn.

300 saqēntəna

6000 toqʷ’ałēn

Numbers higher than 200 which are not multiples of 100 are formed analytically using the conjunction ši.

219 yaq’ēntəna ši ūləntə

483 qepēntəna ši sahīna

1140 łēn ši qāntəna

9522 ūlqałēn ši reyēntəna ši yačahna

Indefinite quantifiers

The most important indefinite quantifiers are:

išin ‘some, a few, a group of’
tsu ‘many’
ma ‘all, every’
īn ‘each one’
kən ‘a certain number of’
k’nyusēn ‘no, none of’

Quantifier usage

Hkətl’ohnim quantifiers are mostly verbal in nature. When they are used as the main verb of a clause, the meaning is existential if the referent is non-deictic, and predicative if the referent is deictic.

Nəsā mahə.
nə-sā n-wahə-Ø
3PL.NP-three 3PL-lion-DIR
There are three lions.

Nəsā maħqʷ.
nə-sā n-waħqʷ-Ø
3PL.NP-three 3PL-lion.DIST-DIR
Those lions, there are three of them.

An ordinal meaning can be achieved by using singular agreement.

Həsā wahə.
hə-sā Ø-wahə-Ø
3SG.NP-three 3SG-lion-DIR
He is the third lion.

When the referent is non-deictic, it can be backgrounded by being incorporated into the numeral. Because quantifier verbs are normally intransitive, they must take a causative suffix when used in this construction.

Nəwahəsāq.
nə-<wahə>-sā-q
3PL.NP-<lion>-three-CAUS
There are three (lions).

The following example shows how the full range of verbal morphology can be used to expand the meaning of numerals:

Tēqasāqałtəht mahə.
t-ēq-sā-qałt-əht n-wahə-Ø
3PL.PST-there-three-ITER-ADVERS 3PL-lion-DIR
Unfortunately, there were often three lions at that place.

Sample text

The young lion

Wahə həhkē.

Kōnim qa-t’ī wahə, ši nerikēmu nəlīku nemā, so ā hruskuq, həšamáłaq, hčihpēħaq, həskaħosqoqʷ.

Nya wahti həhkē. Hēnenyáłəts t’īn ā nin həsmīnči, ši həłūyəsquts ēħan nəlikʷák nemā suču, ši ħqanēyuts ut’iłkimostu. Latsu nehnām ši nehkotawānəs nəlīku nəmā yuhtin: Nəhrika ēħ, ān kōnim qa-t’ī wahti. Ši hōnsu hət’īqanēyuts ut’iłkimostu, ši hwahtimešu həhwaq’mə, “Ritsōł! Rəmōšinəhētaq, rəšamáłaq, rəčihpēħaq! Nəłənšihni hołu ‘Hruskum’!”

Ōni tərēn həsmīni. Hyōləhpəhni wahti həhkē, ši həhmešpəhni həhwaq’mə, “Rəmōšinəhētaq, rəhonts’aspiq, rənūwepuq! Ramuhamōru nitun nəruskʷim nəwahəlet!”

Ān mu həhmešt’ūmaħqʷ ši hənsāri yuhtin: “Šīq nehkotawānəs. Ranōməts nəlikʷák suču. Rət’īsenyáłəts ši rət’īqanēyuts it’iłkimostu, ši risēhnits yuhu račīkomōru ēn nemā. Šīq əlkōnim qa-t’ī. Ān səresu həntluhnəhk, ritsōł! Mu rət’īsenyáłəhk, ši rəheqāyəhtērə šihmūltin həseč hkohka, halt ši hənłūših tohan. Rihnāmimē, ritsōł! Rəšamáłaq, rəčihpēħaq, rəskaħosqoqʷ, rəhonts’aspiq! Ān həntluhnəht, rəhāyəh šihmūltin həseč hkohka, ši łohumu hemaqēhəhk nalmaqun tlak, ān hahtaq rət’īqanēyonēhaħqʷ. Həhmōra šihmūltin həseč hołu ‘Čīm’.”

Interlinear gloss

Wahə: Ø-wahə-Ø; 3SG-lion-DIR; he-is-a-lion

həhkē.: h-hkeʷ; 3SG.NP-young; he-is-young

The young lion.

Kōnim: Ø-kōnim-Ø; 3SG-chieftain-DIR; he-is-a-king

qa-t’ī: qa=; of=; of=

: Ø-t’ī-a; 3SG-forest-GEN; it-is-a-forest

wahə,: Ø-wahə-Ø; 3SG-lion-DIR; he-is-a-lion

The lion is king of the forest,

ši: ši; and; and

nerikēmu: nəm-rika-ːmōrʷ; 3PL>3SG.NP-be_subordinate-obviously; they-are-obviously-subordinate-to-him

nəlīku: nə-līku-Ø; 3PL-predatory_animal-DIR; they-are-beasts

nemā,: nə-ːma; 3PL.NP-all; they-are-all-of-them

and all the beasts are clearly subordinate to him,

so: so; because; because

ā: ā-Ø; 3SG:NH-DIR; this_one

hruskuq,: h-rusku-aq; 3SG.NP-strong-EMPH; he-is-very-strong

həšamáłaq,: h-<šān>-hwał-aq; 3SG.NP-<chest>-thick-EMPH; he-is-very-thick-of-chest

hčihpēħaq,: h-<čīhʷ>-pēħa-aq; 3SG.NP-<waist>-slim-EMPH; he-is-very-slim-of-waist

həskaħosqoqʷ.: h-<skaħo>-sqoʷ-aq; 3SG.NP-<foot>-agile-EMPH; he-is-very-swift-of-foot

because he is very strong, thick of chest, slim of waist, and swift of foot.

Nya: nya; TOP; look

wahti: Ø-wahə-ti-Ø; 3SG-lion-PROX-DIR; this-one-is-a-lion

həhkē.: h-hkeʷ; 3SG.NP-young; he-is-young

Well, there is this young lion.

Hēnenyáłəts: həm-se‹›nyał-ots; 3SG>3SG.NP-go_into_area-HAB; he-always-goes-into-it

t’īn: Ø-t’ī-n; 3SG-forest-ACC; it-is-a-forest

ā: ā-Ø; 3SG:NH-DIR; this_one

nin: nin; when; when

həsmīnči,: h-smēn-čī; 3SG.NP-be_morning-DUR; it-is-early-in-the-day

He always goes into the forest when it is early in the day,

ši: ši; and; and

həłūyəsquts: həhʷ-l‹›ūyəsqʷ-ots; 3SG>3:DEICTIC.NP-compete_with-HAB; he-always-competes-with-them

ēħan: ē-ħ-n; 3PL:NH-DIST-ACC; those

nəlikʷák: nə-<līku>-ak; 3PL.NP-<predatory_animal>-be_another; they-are-other-beasts

nemā: nə-ːma; 3PL.NP-all; they-are-all-of-them

suču,: Ø-suči-u; 3SG-strength-INSTR; with-strength

and he always competes with all the other beasts with regard to strength,

ši: ši; and; and

ħqanēyuts: h-qan-ēyuʷ-ots; 3SG.NP-out_of_area-arrive-HAB; he-always-arrives-out-of-there

ut’iłkimostu.: w-t’iłk-īmə-ots-ta-u; 3SG.PST-win-RES-HAB-VN-INSTR; with-him-having-won-as-expected

and he always returns victorious.

Latsu: latsu; therefore; therefore

nehnām: nəm-hnām; 3PL>3SG.NP-hear; they-hear-it

ši: ši; and; and

nehkotawānəs: nəm-hkotawə-ːnas; 3PL>3SG.NP-recognise-OBL; they-recognise-it-as-required

nəlīku: nə-līku-Ø; 3PL-predatory_animal-DIR; they-are-beasts

nəmā: nə-ːma; 3PL.NP-all; they-are-all-of-them

yuhtin:: yū-ti-n; 3SG.T/A-PROX-ACC; this-thing

Therefore all the beasts hear these news and recognise:

Nəhrika: nəhʷ-rika; 3PL>3:DEICTIC.NP-be_subordinate; they-are-subordinate-to-him

ēħ,: ē-ħ-Ø; 3PL:NH-DIST-DIR; those

ān: ān; but; but

kōnim: Ø-kōnim-Ø; 3SG-chieftain-DIR; he-is-a-king

qa-t’ī: qa=; of=; of=

: Ø-t’ī-a; 3SG-forest-GEN; it-is-a-forest

wahti.: Ø-wahə-ti-Ø; 3SG-lion-PROX-DIR; this-one-is-a-lion

They are subordinate to him, but the lion is king of the forest.

Ši: ši; and; and

hōnsu: hōnsu; every_day; every-day

hət’īqanēyuts: h-<t’ī>-qan-ēyuʷ-ots; 3SG.NP-<forest>-out_of_area-arrive-HAB; he-always-arrives-out-of-the-forest

ut’iłkimostu,: w-t’iłk-īmə-ots-ta-u; 3SG.PST-win-RES-HAB-VN-INSTR; with-him-having-won-as-expected

And every day he returns from the forest victorious,

ši: ši; and; and

hwahtimešu: h-<wahə-ti>-m‹›ešuʷ; 3SG.NP-<lion-PROX>-worship; she-praises-the-lion

həhwaq’mə,: həhʷ-aq’məʷ; 3SG>3:DEICTIC.NP-be_parent_of; she-is-his-parent

and his mother praises the lion,

“Ritsōł!”: rəy-tsōł; 2SG>1SG.NP-be_descendant_of; you-are-my-descendant

“You are my child!”

“Rəmōšinəhētaq,: r-<mōšin>-hēta-aq; 2SG.NP-<body>-large-EMPH; you-are-very-large-of-body

rəšamáłaq,: r-<šān>-hwał-aq; 2SG.NP-<chest>-thick-EMPH; you-are-very-thick-of-chest

rəčihpēħaq!”: r-<čīhʷ>-pēħa-aq; 2SG.NP-<waist>-slim-EMPH; you-are-very-slim-of-waist

“You are large of body! You are thick of chest! You are slim of waist!”

“Nəłənšihni: nəł-nšihni; 1SG>2.NP-grant; I-grant-to-you

hołu: Ø-hołi-u; 3SG-name-INSTR; with-the-name

‘Hruskum’!”: h-rusku-m; 3SG.NP-be_strong-PERSON; he-is-a-strong-one

“I grant you the name ‘Strong One’!”

Ōni: ōni; FOC; well

tərēn: tərēn; now; now

həsmīni.: h-smēn-nī; 3SG.NP-be_morning-INC; it-is-very-early-in-the-day

Well, now the morning is beginning to break.

Hyōləhpəhni: h-yōləhʷ-pəhni; 3SG.NP-stretch_muscles-TRAD; he-stretches-his-body-as-usual

wahti: Ø-wahə-ti-Ø; 3SG-lion-PROX-DIR; this-one-is-a-lion

həhkē,: h-hkeʷ; 3SG.NP-young; he-is-young

The young lion stretches his muscles as usual,

ši: ši; and; and

həhmešpəhni: həhʷ-m‹›ešuʷ-pəhni; 3SG.NP>3:DEICTIC.NP-worship-TRAD; she-praises-him-as-usual

həhwaq’mə,: həhʷ-aq’məʷ; 3SG>3:DEICTIC.NP-be_parent_of; she-is-his-parent

and his mother praises him as usual,

“Rəmōšinəhētaq,: r-<mōšin>-hēta-aq; 2SG.NP-<body>-large-EMPH; you-are-very-large-of-body

rəhonts’aspiq,: r-<hūm>-tsaspi-aq; 2SG.NP-<tooth>-sharp-EMPH; you-are-very-sharp-of-teeth

rənūwepuq!”: r-<nū>-epu-aq; 2SG.NP-<soul>-brave-EMPH; you-are-very-brave-of-soul

“You are large of body! You are sharp of teeth! You are brave of soul!”

“Ramuhamōru: rən-kuhə-ːmōrʷ; 2SG>3PL.NP-own-obviously; you-obviously-possess-them

nitun: n-katu-n; 3PL-arm-ACC; they-are-arms

nəruskʷim: nə-rusku-īmˀ; 3PL.NP-strong-suitably; they-are-suitably-strong

nəwahəlet!”: nə-<wahə>-let; 3PL.NP-<lion>-belong_to; they-belong-to-a-lion

“You really possess the strong arms of a lion!”

Ān: ān; but; but

mu: mu; then; then

həhmešt’ūmaħqʷ: həhʷ-m‹›ešuʷ-ːtōnʷ-aħqʷ; 3SG.NP>3:DEICTIC.NP-worship-CESS-MIR; she-suddenly-stops-praising-him

ši: ši; and; and

hənsāri: hm-sāri; 3SG>3SG.NP-say; she-says-it

yuhtin:: yū-ti-n; 3SG:TA-PROX-ACC; this

But then she suddenly stops praising him and says this:

“Šīq: šīq; truly; truly

nehkotawānəs.”: nəm-hkotawə-ːnas; 1SG>3SG.NP-recognise-OBL; I-recognise-it-as-required

“It is true, I must acknowledge it.”

“Ranōməts: rən-ːnōmi-ots; 2SG>3PL.NP-surpass-HAB; you-always-surpass-them

nəlikʷák: nə-<līku>-ak; 3PL.NP-<predatory_animal>-be_another; they-are-other-beasts

suču.”: Ø-suči-u; 3SG-strength-INSTR; with-strength

“You always surpass the other beasts with regard to strength.”

“Rət’īsenyáłəts: r-<t’ī>-se‹›nyał-ots; 2SG.NP-<forest>-go_into_area-HAB; you-always-go-into-the-forest

ši: ši; and; and

rət’īqanēyuts: r-<t’ī>-qan-ēyuʷ-ots; 2SG.NP-<forest>-out_of_area-arrive-HAB; you-always-arrive-out-of-the-forest

it’iłkimostu,”: y-t’iłk-īmə-ots-ta-u; 2SG.PST-win-RES-HAB-VN-INSTR; with-you-having-won-as-expected

“You always go out into the forest and you always return out of there victorious,”

“ši: ši; and; and

risēhnits: rəy-s‹›ēhni-ots; 2SG>1SG.NP-prove_to-HAB; you-always-prove-it-to-me

yuhu: yū-u; 3SG:TA-INSTR; this

račīkomōru: rən-čīkuň-ːmōrʷ; 2SG>3PL.NP-be_superior-obviously; you-are-obviously-superior-to-them

ēn: ē-n; 3PL.NH-ACC; those

nemā.”: nə-ːma; 3PL.NP-all; they-are-all-of-them

“and you always show me that you are really superior to all the other beasts.”

“Šīq: šīq; truly; truly

əlkōnim: l-kōnim-Ø; 2SG-chieftain-DIR; you-are-a-king

qa-t’ī.”: qa=; of=; of=

: Ø-t’ī-a; 3SG-forest-GEN; it-is-a-forest

“You are truly king of the forest.”

“Ān: ān; but; but

səresu: səresu; someday; someday

həntluhnəhk,: h-ntluhonʷ-ihk; 3SG.NP-happen-PROSP; it-will-come-to-pass

ritsōł!”: rəy-tsōł; 2SG>1SG.NP-be_descendant_of; you-are-my-child

“However, a certain day will come, my child!”

“Mu: mu; then; then

rət’īsenyáłəhk,”: r-<t’ī>-se‹›nyał-ihk; 2SG.NP-<forest>-go_into_area-PROSP; you-will-go-into-the-forest

“Then you will go out into the forest,”

“ši: ši; and; and

rəheqāyəhtērə: rəh-ēq-āyəh-tēr; 2SG>3:DEICTIC-there-encounter-ACCID; you-will-accidentally-meet-him-there

šihmūltin: Ø-šihmūlu-ti-n; 3SG-game_animal-PROX-ACC; this-one-is-a-game-animal

həseč: h-seč; 3SG.NP-weak; he-is-weak

hkohka,: h-kohka; 3SG.NP-naked; he-is-naked

“and you will meet a small naked creature there,”

halt: h-altˀ; 3SG.NP-stand_upright; he-stands-upright

ši: ši; and; and

hənłūših: hm-łūšihʷ; 3SG>3.SG.NP-carry_on_shoulders; he-carries-it-on-his-shoulders

tohan.”: Ø-toha-n; 3SG-head-ACC; it-is-a-head

“which stands upright and carries his head above his shoulders.”

“Rihnāmimē,: rəy-hnām-īmˀ-ē; 2SG>1SG.NP-hear-suitably-IMP; you-must-listen-to-me

ritsōł!”: rəy-tsōł; 2SG>1SG.NP-be_descendant_of; you-are-my-child

“Listen to me, my child!”

“Rəšamáłaq,: r-<šān>-hwał-aq; 2SG.NP-<chest>-thick-EMPH; you-are-very-thick-of-chest

rəčihpēħaq,: r-<čīhʷ>-pēħa-aq; 2SG.NP-<waist>-slim-EMPH; you-are-very-slim-of-waist

rəskaħosqoqʷ,: r-<skaħo>-sqoʷ-aq; 2SG.NP-<foot>-agile-EMPH; you-are-very-swift-of-foot

rəhonts’aspiq!”: r-<hūm>-tsaspi-aq; 2SG.NP-<tooth>-sharp-EMPH; you-are-very-sharp-of-teeth

“You are thick of chest! You are slim of waist! You are swift of foot! You are sharp of teeth!”

“Ān: ān; but; but

həntluhnəht,: h-ntluhonʷ-aht; 3SG.NP-happen-ADVERS; it-will-sadly-come-to-pass

rəhāyəh: rəh-āyəh; 2SG>3:DEICTIC-encounter; you-will-meet-him

šihmūltin: Ø-šihmūlu-ti-n; 3SG-game_animal-PROX-ACC; this-one-is-a-game-animal

həseč: h-seč; 3SG.NP-weak; he-is-weak

hkohka,”: h-kohka; 3SG.NP-naked; he-is-naked

“However, it will come to pass that you meet this small naked creature,”

“ši: ši; and; and

łohumu: Ø-łohu-mu-u; 3SG-day-DIST-INSTR; with-that-day

hemaqēhəhk: hm-mə-qēh-ihk; 3SG>3SG.NP-towards-go_down-PROSP; it-will-go-down-towards-it

nalmaqun: Ø-nalmaqʷ-n; 3SG-horizon-ACC; it-is-the-horizon

tlak,”: Ø-tlak-Ø; 3SG-sun-DIR; it-is-the-sun

“and on that day the sun will go down to the horizon,”

“ān: ān; but; but

hahtaq: hahtaq; unfortunately; unfortunately

rət’īqanēyonēhaħqʷ.”: r-<t’ī>-qan-ēyuʷ-ːnē-aħqʷ; 2SG.NP-<forest>-out_of_area-arrive-NEG-MIR; you-will-unexpectedly-not-return-from-the-forest

“but unfortunately you will not return from the forest.”

“Həhmōra: həh-mə-ōra; 1PL>3:DEICTIC.NP-towards-call; we-call-it

šihmūltin: Ø-šihmūlu-ti-n; 3SG-game_animal-PROX-ACC; this-one-is-a-game-animal

həseč: h-seč; 3SG.NP-weak; he-is-weak

hołu: Ø-hołi-u; 3SG-name-INSTR; with-the-name

‘Čīm’.”: Ø-čīm-Ø; 3SG-person-DIR; he-is-a-person

“We call this small creature ‘Man’.”

Source of the sample text: Roy S. Hagman, Nama Hottentot grammar, Bloomington/Indiana: Indiana University Press, 1977.

Lexicon

Hkətl’ohnim/Lexicon

Hkətl’ohnim