Komi grammar

Last updated

This article deals with the grammar of the Komi language of the northeastern European part of Russia (the article "Komi language" discusses the language in general and contains a quick overview of the language.)

Contents

Pronouns

Komi pronouns are inflected much in the same way that nouns are. However, personal pronouns are usually only inflected in the grammatical cases and cannot be inflected in the locative cases.

Personal pronouns

Komi personal pronouns inflect in the grammatical cases and the approximative case. Personal pronouns in the nominative case are listed in the following table:

Personal pronouns
KomiEnglish
Singular
меI
тэyou
сійӧhe/she/it
Plural
миwe
тіyou
найӧthey

Nominals

As with other languages in the Uralic family, Komi does not encode grammatical gender. Nouns and personal pronouns make no gender distinction; сійӧ/sijö means both 'he' and 'she', depending on the referent.

Cases

Komi has seventeen noun cases: nine core grammatical cases and eight locative cases. The locative cases are usually only used with inanimate references with the exception of the elative, terminative, approximative and egressive cases. There is no difference in the meaning of the translative and prolative cases.

Komi cases
CaseSuffixEnglish prep.ExampleTranslation
Core grammatical cases
nominative -керкаhouse
genitive -лӧнof / 's керкалӧнof a house / house's
accusative -ӧс-керкаӧсhouse (as an object)
ablative -лысьfromкеркалысьfrom a house
dative -лыto/forкеркалыto a house
instrumental -ӧнwith/by means ofкеркаӧнby means of a house
comitative -кӧдwith/accompanied byкеркакӧдwith a house
caritive -тӧгwithoutкеркатӧгwithout a house
consecutive -лаgone/come for [1] керкалаfor a house
Locative cases
inessive -ынinкеркаынin a house
illative intoкеркаӧinto a house
elative -ысьfromкеркаысьfrom a house
translative -тіalongкеркатіalong a house
prolative -ӧдalongкеркаӧдalong a house
terminative -ӧдзend upкеркаӧдзend up at a house
approximative -ланьtowardsкеркаланьtowards a house
egressive -сяньstarting fromкеркасяньstarting from a house

Stem extension

Preceding suffixes that start with a vowel, nouns may use an extended stem.

Nouns ending in в often change this consonant to л, e.g. ныв ("girl") → нылыс ("his/her girl").

Some nouns ending in дз, дь and ль undergo gemination, e.g.:

видз ("lawn") → виддзыд ("your lawn");
додь ("sled") → доддьыс ("his sled");
куль ("demon") → кулльысь ("from a demon").

Another group of nouns undergoes epenthesis, e.g.:

пон ("dog") → понйыс ("his/her dog");
ун ("dream") → унмӧн ("by means of a dream");
ош ("bear") → ошкысь ("from a bear");
гӧп ("puddle") → гӧптын ("in a puddle");
кыв ("language") → кывйын ("his/her language").

Personal pronouns

The declension of personal pronouns is quite systematic as well:

Komi personal pronoun declensions
Case1st pers. sing.2nd pers. sing.3rd pers. sing.1st pers. pl2nd pers. pl.3rd pers pl.
nominative метэсійӧмитінайӧ
genitive менамтэнадсылӧнмиянтіянналӧн
accusative менӧтэнӧсійӧсмиянӧстіянӧснайӧс
ablative менсьымтэнсьыдсылысьмиянлысьтіянлысьналысь
dative менымтэныдсылымиянлытіянлыналы
instrumental меӧнтэӧнсыӧнмиянӧнтіянӧннаӧн
comitative мекӧдтэкӧдсыкӧдмиянкӧдтіянкӧднакӧд
caritive метӧгтэтӧгсытӧгмиянтӧгтіянтӧгнатӧг
consecutive мелатэласыламиянлатіянланала
elative меысьтэысьсыысьмиянысьтіянысьнаысь
terminative меӧдзтэӧдзсыӧдзмиянӧдзтіянӧдзнаӧдз
approximative меланьтэланьсыланьмиянланьтіянланьналань
egressive месяньтэсяньсысяньмиянсяньтіянсяньнасянь

Plural

There are two types of nominal plurals in Komi. One is the plural for nouns -яс (with the exception of -ян in пиян, "the sons / boys" and -ана/-яна in words ending on -анин/-янин, e.g. зыряна, "Zyrians") and the other is the plural for adjectives -ӧсь.

Nominal plural

In attributive plural phrases, the noun is always in plural, while the adjective is not required to be in the plural:

Attributive plural
KomiEnglish
мича(ӧсь) нывъяс(the) beautiful girls

The plural marker always comes before other endings (i.e. cases and possessive suffixes) in the morphological structure of plural nominal.

Morphological order
KomiEnglish
нывъяслыto the girls

Since -яс, -ян and -яна start with a soft vowel, they may be preceded by either a hard sign (ъ) or a soft sign (ь), depending on the preceding letter:

Morphological order
KomiEnglish
ва; ваясwater; waters
ун; унъясdream; dreams
лӧдз; лӧдзьясhorsefly; horseflies

Predicative plural

As in Hungarian, if the subject is plural, the adjective is always plural when it functions as the sentence's predicative:

Attributive plural
KomiEnglish
нывъяс мичаӧсьthe girls are beautiful
керкаяс ыджыдӧсьthe houses are big

Possessive suffixes

Nominal possessive suffixes

Komi possessive suffixes are added to the end of nouns either before or after a case ending. The possessive suffixes vary in the nominative and accusative cases and with case endings.

Nominative possessive suffix
Suffix endingKomiEnglish
-ӧйёртӧй my friend
-ыдёртыдyour friend
-ысёртысhis/her friend
-нымёртнымour friend
-ныдёртныдyour (pl) friend
-нысёртнысtheir friend

Accusative possessive suffixes

Accusative possessive suffixes are shown in the following table. Note that the possessive of the first person in the accusative matches the simple accusative.

Accusative possessive suffix
Suffix endingKomiEnglish
-ӧсёртӧсmy friend
-тӧёрттӧyour friend
-сӧёртсӧhis/her friend
-нымӧсёртнымӧсour friend
-нытӧёртнытӧyour (pl) friend
-нысӧёртнысӧtheir friend

Verbs

Komi infinitives are marked with -ны. as in мунны, 'to go'. Some infinitives have a so called connecting vowel ы which is dropped in the verbal stem when affixing, for example, a personal ending such as in the verb велӧдчыны ‘to study’ → велӧдча 'I study'.

There is one phoneme which undergoes consonant gradation when adding a suffix beginning with a vowel. This change is вл as in овны ‘to live’ → олан ‘you live’. Another exception is the verb локны, which has an epenthetic [t] added before a suffix beginning with a vowel, e.g. локтан ‘you come’.

The indicative mood has four tenses: present, future and two past tenses. In addition, there are four past tense structures which include auxiliary verbs. Verbs are negated by use of an auxiliary negative verb that conjugates with personal endings. Separate personal pronouns are not required in verb phrases.

Present tense

The verbal personal markers in the Komi present tense are:

Personal endings of verbs
PersonEnding
SingularPlural
1st-ам
2nd-ан-анныд
3rd-ӧны
Present tense
PersonуджавныEnglish
Singular
1stуджалаI work
2ndуджаланyou work
3rdуджалӧhe/she works
Plural
1stуджаламwe work
2ndуджаланныдyou work
3rdуджалӧныthey work

The negative indicative present is formed by the auxiliary о- negative verb and the verbal stem in the first person and with -ӧй in the first and second person plural and -ны in the third person plural.

The negative verb conjugates with the ending in first person, in the second person and in the third person. The first and second person plural is marked with .

Present tense negative
PersonуджавныEnglish
Singular
1stог уджавI do not work
2ndон уджавyou do not work
3rdоз уджавhe/she does not work
Plural
1stогӧ уджалӧйwe do not work
2ndонӧ уджалӧй you (pl) do not work
3rdоз уджавныthey do not work

Future tense

The affirmative and negative future tense in Komi is basically the same as in the present with the exception of the third person in the affirmative, ending in -ас (singular) and -асны (plural):

уджаласhe/she will work
уджаласныthey will work

Past tense

The conventionally used designations preterite and perfect are used with denotations which are divergent from their usual meanings in the grammar of other languages.

Preterite I

The first preterite can be compared with the simple past in English. Preterite I is marked with і/и.

Preterite I
PersonуджавныEnglish
Singular
1stуджаліI worked
2ndуджалінyou worked
3rdуджалісhe/she worked
Plural
1stуджалімwe worked
2ndуджалінныдyou worked
3rdуджалісныthey worked

The negative preterite I is formed by the auxiliary э- negative verb with the same personal endings as in present tense. The main verb is the same as in the present tense

Preterite I negative
PersonуджавныEnglish
Singular
1stэг уджавI did not work
2nd эн уджавyou did not work
3rdэз уджавhe/she did not work
Plural
1stэгӧ уджалӧйwe did not work
2ndэнӧ уджалӧйyou did not work
3rdэз уджавныthey did not work

Preterite II

The second preterite is a past tense with an evidentiality distinction. It can be compared to the English perfect in which the speaker did not personally observe the past event. The preterite II is marked with -ӧм-, which is historically related to the third infinitive in Finnish.

Preterite II
PersonуджавныEnglish
Singular
1stуджалӧмаI evidently worked
2ndуджалӧмыдyou evidently worked
3rdуджалӧмаhe/she evidently worked
Plural
1stуджалӧмаӧсьwe evidently worked
2ndуджалӧманыдyou evidently worked
3rdуджалӧмаӧсь/уджалӧмныthey evidently worked

The negative preterite II is formed by including the auxiliary copular negative verb абу 'is not', e.g. абу уджалӧма (I have evidently not worked), абу уджалӧмыд (you have evidently not worked) etc.

Auxiliary past tenses

There are four past tenses in Komi which use a preterite form of the main verb and a preterite form of the auxiliary verb 'to be'.

Preterite III

The Komi preterite III makes use of the main verb in the present tense and the auxiliary вӧлі, 'was' in third person singular, in simple past. The pluperfect I tense expresses a continuation of action that has happened in the (distant) past.

Preterite III
PersonуджавныEnglish
Singular
1stвӧлі уджалаI was working
2ndвӧлі уджаланyou were working
3rdвӧлі уджалӧhe/she was working
Plural
1stвӧлі уджаламwe were working
2ndвӧлі уджаланныдyou were working
3rdвӧлі уджалӧныthey were working

The negative preterite III is formed by including the auxiliary copular verb вӧлі ‘was' with the main verb in the present negative.

Preterite III negative
PersonуджавныEnglish
Singular
1stвӧлі ог уджавI was not working
2ndвӧлі он уджавyou were not working
3rdвӧлі оз уджавhe/she was not working
Plural
1stвӧлі огӧ уджалӧйwe was not working
2ndвӧлі онӧ уджалӧй you were not working
3rdвӧлі оз уджавныthey were not working
Preterite IV

The Komi preterite IV (pluperfect) makes use of the main verb in the preterite II form and the auxiliary вӧлі, 'was' in third person singular, in simple past. The preterite IV tense expresses an evidently completed action that has happened in the (distant) past.

Preterite IV
PersonуджавныEnglish
Singular
1stвӧлі уджалӧмаI have evidently worked
2ndвӧлі уджалӧмыдyou have evidently worked
3rdвӧлі уджалӧмаhe/she has evidently worked
Plural
1stвӧлі уджалӧмаӧсьwe have evidently worked
2ndвӧлі уджалӧманыдyou have evidently worked
3rdвӧлі уджалӧмаӧсь/уджалӧмныthey have evidently worked

The negative preterite IV is formed by including the auxiliary copular negative verb абу 'is not', e.g. вӧлі абу уджалӧма (I have evidently not worked), вӧлі абу уджалӧмыд (you have evidently not worked) etc.

Preterite V

The Komi preterite V makes use of the main verb in the present form and the auxiliary вӧлӧм, 'apparently was' in third person singular, preterite II. The preterite V tense expresses an evidently continuous action that has happened in the (distant) past.

Present tense
PersonуджавныEnglish
Singular
1stвӧлӧм уджалаI was evidently working
2ndвӧлӧм уджаланyou were evidently working
3rdвӧлӧм уджалӧhe/she was evidently working
Plural
1stвӧлӧм уджаламwe were evidently working
2ndвӧлӧм уджаланныдyou were evidently working
3rdвӧлӧм уджалӧныthey were evidently working

The negative preterite V is formed by including the auxiliary copular verb вӧлӧм 'evidently was' with the main verb in the present negative.

Preterite V negative
PersonуджавныEnglish
Singular
1stвӧлӧм ог уджавI was not evidently working
2ndвӧлӧм он уджавyou were not evidently working
3rdвӧлӧм оз уджавhe/she was not evidently working
Plural
1stвӧлӧм огӧ уджалӧйwe were not evidently working
2ndвӧлӧм онӧ уджалӧй you were not evidently working
3rdвӧлӧм оз уджавныthey were not evidently working
Preterite VI

The Komi preterite VI makes use of the main verb in the preterite II form and the auxiliary вӧлӧм, 'apparently was' in third person singular, preterite II. The preterite VI tense expresses an evidently completed action that has happened in the (distant) past.

Preterite VI
PersonуджавныEnglish
Singular
1stвӧлӧм уджалӧмаI had evidently worked
2ndвӧлӧм уджалӧмыдyou had evidently worked
3rdвӧлӧм уджалӧмаhe/she had evidently worked
Plural
1stвӧлӧм уджалӧмаӧсьwe had evidently worked
2ndвӧлӧм уджалӧманыдyou had evidently worked
3rdвӧлӧм уджалӧмаӧсь/уджалӧмныthey had evidently worked

The negative preterite VI is formed by including the auxiliary copular negative verb абу 'is not', e.g. вӧлӧм абу уджалӧма (I had evidently not worked), вӧлӧм абу уджалӧмыд (you had evidently not worked) etc.

Participles

Komi verbs have past and present participles. These participles can also be passive or active. In addition to affirmative participles, Komi also has a caritive participle.

The present participle is -ысь. It is a participle which expresses continuous action and is always active. It is affixed to the stems of the verb.

ParticipleEnglish
велӧдысь нывa girl that studies
сьылысь пиa boy that sings

In addition to functioning as regular attributive participle, the present participle also functions as a nominalizing derivational suffix.

as a participleEnglishas a nounEnglish
велӧдысь нывa girl that studiesвелӧдысьstudent
сьылысь пиa boy that singsсьылысьsinger

The participle -ан/-ана denotes continuous action and can be active as in сетан ки ‘a giving hand’. It can also be passive, formed from a transitive verb with the noun acting as the object as in лыддян небӧг, 'a book being read'. The agent in the phrase is in the instrumental case: Тайӧ мамӧй вуран дӧрӧм, ’This is a shirt sewn by mother’.

The past participle is -ӧм. It is an attributive participle which expresses completed action. It can be active with the head noun as agent велӧдчӧм морт 'a learned person', passive formed from a transitive verbs велӧдчӧм урок 'a lesson that was learned', the noun acting as the object as in гижӧм небӧг 'a book that was written'. The agent in the phrase is in the instrumental case: Иван Куратовӧн гижӧм небӧг, 'A book written by Ivan Kuratov'.

The caritive participle is -тӧм.

ParticipleEnglish
гижтӧм небӧгa book which has not been written
небӧг гижтӧмthe book cannot be written

Sources

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Novial</span> Constructed language

Novial is a constructed international auxiliary language (IAL) for universal human communication between speakers of different native languages. It was devised by Otto Jespersen, a Danish linguist who had been involved in the Ido movement that evolved from Esperanto at the beginning of the 20th century, and participated later in the development of Interlingua. The name means 'new' + 'international auxiliary language'.

The Finnish language is spoken by the majority of the population in Finland and by ethnic Finns elsewhere. Unlike the languages spoken in neighbouring countries, such as Swedish and Norwegian, which are North Germanic languages, or Russian, which is a Slavic language, Finnish is a Uralic language of the Finnic languages group. Typologically, Finnish is agglutinative. As in some other Uralic languages, Finnish has vowel harmony, and like other Finnic languages, it has consonant gradation.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Northern Bavarian</span> Bavarian dialect

Northern Bavarian is a dialect of Bavarian, together with Central Bavarian and Southern Bavarian. Bavarian is mostly spoken in the Upper Palatinate, although not in Regensburg, which is a primarily Central Bavarian–speaking area, according to a linguistic survey done in the late 1980s. According to the same survey, Northern Bavarian is also spoken in Upper Franconia, as well as in some areas in Upper and Lower Bavaria, such as in the areas around Eichstätt and Kelheim. Few speakers remained in the Czech Republic, mostly concentrated around Aš and Železná Ruda, at the time of the survey, but considering the time which has passed since the survey, the dialect may be extinct in those places today. If it still exists there, it would include the ostegerländische Dialektgruppe. Ethnologue estimates that there were 9,000 speakers of Bavarian in the Czech Republic in 2005, but does not clarify if these were Northern Bavarian speakers.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">English verbs</span> Verbs in the English language

Verbs constitute one of the main parts of speech in the English language. Like other types of words in the language, English verbs are not heavily inflected. Most combinations of tense, aspect, mood and voice are expressed periphrastically, using constructions with auxiliary verbs.

Swedish is descended from Old Norse. Compared to its progenitor, Swedish grammar is much less characterized by inflection. Modern Swedish has two genders and no longer conjugates verbs based on person or number. Its nouns have lost the morphological distinction between nominative and accusative cases that denoted grammatical subject and object in Old Norse in favor of marking by word order. Swedish uses some inflection with nouns, adjectives, and verbs. It is generally a subject–verb–object (SVO) language with V2 word order.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Bengali grammar</span> Grammar of the Bengali language

Bengali grammar is the study of the morphology and syntax of Bengali, an Indo-European language spoken in the Indian subcontinent. Given that Bengali has two forms, চলিত ভাষা and সাধু ভাষা, it is important to note that the grammar discussed below applies fully only to the চলিত (cholito) form. Shadhu bhasha is generally considered outdated and no longer used either in writing or in normal conversation. Although Bengali is typically written in the Bengali script, a romanization scheme is also used here to suggest the pronunciation.

This article describes the grammar of Afrikaans, a language spoken in South Africa and Namibia which originated from 17th century Dutch.

Yiddish grammar is the system of principles which govern the structure of the Yiddish language. This article describes the standard form laid out by YIVO while noting differences in significant dialects such as that of many contemporary Hasidim. As a Germanic language descended from Middle High German, Yiddish grammar is very similar to that of German, though it also has numerous linguistic innovations as well as grammatical features influenced by or borrowed from Hebrew, Aramaic, and various Slavic languages.

The grammar of the Polish language is characterized by a high degree of inflection, and has relatively free word order, although the dominant arrangement is subject–verb–object (SVO). There commonly are no articles, and there is frequent dropping of subject pronouns. Distinctive features include the different treatment of masculine personal nouns in the plural, and the complex grammar of numerals and quantifiers.

Hungarian grammar is the grammar of Hungarian, a Finno-Ugric language that is spoken mainly in Hungary and in parts of its seven neighboring countries.

The grammar of Ukrainian describes its phonological, morphological, and syntactic rules. Ukrainian has seven cases and two numbers for its nominal declension and two aspects, three tenses, three moods, and two voices for its verbal conjugation. Adjectives agree in number, gender, and case with their nouns.

Icelandic is an inflected language. Icelandic nouns can have one of three grammatical genders: masculine, feminine or neuter. Nouns, adjectives and pronouns are declined in four cases and two numbers, singular and plural.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Erzgebirgisch</span> Central German dialect

Erzgebirgisch is a (East) Central German dialect, spoken mainly in the central Ore Mountains in Saxony. It has received relatively little academic attention. Due to the high mobility of the population and the resulting contact with Upper Saxon, the high emigration rate and its low mutual intelligibility with other dialects, the number of speakers is decreasing.

Verbs in Middle High German are divided into strong or weak verbs. Strong verbs indicate tense by a change in the quality of a vowel, while weak verbs indicate tense by the addition of an ending.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Inflection</span> Process of word formation

In linguistic morphology, inflection is a process of word formation in which a word is modified to express different grammatical categories such as tense, case, voice, aspect, person, number, gender, mood, animacy, and definiteness. The inflection of verbs is called conjugation, and one can refer to the inflection of nouns, adjectives, adverbs, pronouns, determiners, participles, prepositions and postpositions, numerals, articles, etc., as declension.

This article deals with the grammar of the Udmurt language.

Old Norse has three categories of verbs and two categories of nouns. Conjugation and declension are carried out by a mix of inflection and two nonconcatenative morphological processes: umlaut, a backness-based alteration to the root vowel; and ablaut, a replacement of the root vowel, in verbs.

Portuguese verbs display a high degree of inflection. A typical regular verb has over fifty different forms, expressing up to six different grammatical tenses and three moods. Two forms are peculiar to Portuguese within the Romance languages:

The grammar of Old Saxon is highly inflected, similar to that of Old English or Latin. As an ancient Germanic language, the morphological system of Old Saxon is similar to that of the hypothetical Proto-Germanic reconstruction, retaining many of the inflections thought to have been common in Proto-Indo-European and also including characteristically Germanic constructions such as the umlaut. Among living languages, Old Saxon morphology most closely resembles that of modern High German.

This article describes the grammar of the Old Irish language. The grammar of the language has been described with exhaustive detail by various authors, including Thurneysen, Binchy and Bergin, McCone, O'Connell, Stifter, among many others.

References

  1. Kittilä, Seppo; Västi, Katja; Ylikoski, Jussi (2011). Case, Animacy and Semantic Roles. John Benjamins Publishing. ISBN   978-90-272-0680-0.