Irina Nikolaeva A Grammar of Tundra Nenets Mouton Grammar Library Edited by Georg Bossong Bernard Comrie Matthew Dryer Patience L. Epps Volume 65 Irina Nikolaeva A Grammar of Tundra Nenets ISBN 978-3-11-032047-3 e-ISBN 978-3-11-032064-0 ISSN 0933-7636 Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data A CIP catalog record for this book has been applied for at the Library of Congress. Bibliographic information published by the Deutsche Nationalbibliothek The Deutsche Nationalbibliothek lists this publication in the Deutsche Nationalbibliografie; detailed bibliographic data are available in the Internet at http://dnb.dnb.de. 6 2014 Walter de Gruyter GmbH, Berlin/Boston Typesetting: RoyalStandard, Hong Kong Printing and binding: CPI buch bücher.de GmbH, Birkach ♾ Printed on acid-free paper Printed in Germany www.degruyter.com Acknowledgment This grammar is the result of many years of cooperation with members of the Tundra Nenets community, whose linguistic intuitions, passion for language, and, last but not least, extraordinary patience in dealing with me made it all possible. I am greatly indebted to all of you. Ңули” сава! I owe a great debt of gratitude to the colleagues with whom I have had the opportunity to work and discuss various intriguing aspects of Tundra Nenets grammar, especially to Farrell Ackerman, Larisa Leisiö and Tapani Salminen. I really miss our joint elicitation sessions; it was a lot of fun! Tapani Salminen was the first to intro- duce me to the language, and his own work on Tundra Nenets has always been a source of inspiration for me. I also thank Tapani and Larisa for their assistance in the practical aspects of my fieldwork. My deepest thanks are due to Simon Carne and Thomas (Sandy) Ritchie, who provided invaluable help in the preparation of the manuscript. I would also like to thank the publisher: my cooperation with Mouton de Gruyter has been very pleasant and smooth at all stages of the production of this book, and the anonymous reviewer for Mouton made many valuable comments which helped to improve the book. Natalia Viktorovna (Tasha) purred on my lap throughout the writing of this book, and provided immense emotional support. My fieldwork was supported by two sources: a major documentation grant from the Hans Rausing Endangered Languages Project (HRELP) awarded to Tapani Salminen in 2003 and a grant from the Academy of Finland awarded to Larisa Leisiö in 2009, project number 125225. This generous support is gratefully acknowledged. Table of contents Acknowledgments v Abbreviations xv 1 Introduction 1 1 Tundra Nenets language 1 1.1 Genetic affiliation 1 1.2 Geographical location 2 1.3 Dialects 4 1.4 The number of speakers 5 1.5 The functions of the language 7 1.6 Basic typological profile 8 1.7 Brief overview of previous studies 10 2 About this grammar 11 2.1 The structure 12 2.2 The data 13 2.3 The transcription 14 2.4 Glossing and translational conventions 15 2 Phonology 17 1 Phonemic inventory 17 1.1 Vowels 18 1.2 Consonants 20 2 Phonological processes 20 2.1 Postlexical alternations 20 2.2 Alternations sensitive to morphology 21 2.2.1 Phonologically conditioned processes 21 2.2.2 Lexically conditioned processes 22 3 Stem types 22 3.1 Primary stems 23 3.1.1 Consonant-final stems 23 3.1.2 Vowel-final stems 24 3.1.3 Irregular stems 24 3.2 Secondary stems 25 3.2.1 Accusative plural stem 25 3.2.2 General finite stem 26 3.2.3 Reflexive stem 27 4 Remarks on prosodic structure 27 4.1 Syllables 27 4.2 Stress assignment 28 viii Table of contents 3 Grammatical classes 29 1 Nouns 29 1.1 Morphosyntactic properties 29 1.2 Nominal derivation 30 1.3 Nominal mixed categories 32 1.3.1 Adjectival forms of nouns 32 1.3.2 Verbal forms of nouns 36 1.3.3 Adverbial forms of nouns 37 2 Adjectives 41 2.1 Morphosyntactic properties 41 2.2 Adjectival derivation 43 3 Verbs 44 3.1 Morphosyntactic properties 44 3.2 Deverbal derivation: aspectual classes 45 3.3 Denominal derivation 46 4 Pronominals 47 5 Adverbs 50 6 Postpositions 51 7 Numerals 52 8 Conjunctions and particles 53 9 Interjections 56 4 Nominal inflection 57 1 Number 57 1.1 Dual 57 1.2 Plural 59 2 Case 60 2.1 Nominative 60 2.2 Accusative 61 2.3 Genitive 61 2.4 Dative 62 2.5 Locative 63 2.6 Ablative 64 2.7 Prolative 65 3 Possessive morphology 66 3.1 Form 66 3.2 Function 68 4 Predestinative 72 4.1 Nominative predestinative 73 4.2 Accusative predestinative 74 4.3 Genitive predestinative 75 5 Predicative forms of nouns 76 Table of contents ix 5 Verbal inflection 78 1 Agreement 78 1.1 Subject agreement 78 1.2 Object agreement 79 2 Tense in the indicative 80 2.1 Present 80 2.2 Past 81 2.3 Future 82 2.4 Habitual 83 2.5 Future-in-the-past 84 3 Mood 85 3.1 Imperative 85 3.2 Hortative 86 3.3 Jussive 87 3.4 Subjunctive 88 3.5 Apprehensive 90 3.6 Necessitative 91 3.7 Potential 92 3.8 Inferential 93 3.9 Reportative 96 3.10 Interrogative 97 3.11 Dubitative 98 3.12 Probabilitative 99 3.13 Approximative 101 3.14 Reputative 104 3.15 Debitive 105 4 Non-finite forms 106 4.1 Participles 107 4.2 Action nominal 108 4.3 Converbs 110 4.4 The conditional 110 4.5 The auditive 113 4.6 The connegative 115 6 Clitics and multi-based affixes 116 1 Clitics 116 1.1 Exclamative =nʹuq 117 1.2 Focus =(ŋo)w° / =ey° 118 1.3 Assertive =ma 120 1.4 Affirmative =m°h 121 1.5 Emphatic =dʹiq 123 2 Multi-based affixes 123 x Table of contents 2.1 Limitative 124 2.2 Focus 128 2.3 Affirmative 129 2.4 Emphatic 132 2.5 Comparative 133 2.6 Polar 134 2.7 Moderative 135 2.8 Diminutive 136 2.9 Pejorative 137 2.10 Augmentative 138 2.11 Intensive 139 7 Noun phrases 141 1 Determiners 141 2 Possessive NPs 142 2.1 The structure 142 2.2 The properties of the agreeing possessor 144 2.3 Predestinative possessive phrases 150 3 Attributive modifiers 151 3.1 Interaction of concord features 151 3.2 Conditions on possessive concord 154 3.3 Quantificational adjectives 156 4 Quantified NPs 159 4.1 Universal quantifiers and numerals 159 4.2 Quantificational nouns 162 5 Non-possessive nominal dependents 165 5.1 Attributive nominative 165 5.2 Non-possessive genitive 167 5.3 Oblique forms of nouns 168 5.4 Deverbal nouns 168 6 Apposition 171 7 Constituent order 171 8 Adjectival, postpositional and adverbial phrases 174 1 Adverbial and adjectival phrases 174 1.1 Comparative and superlative constructions 174 1.2 Degree adverbs 176 1.3 Transitive adjectives 177 1.4 Agreeing adverbs 178 1.4.1 Agentive agreeing adverbs 178 1.4.2 Non-agentive agreeing adverbs 180 1.4.3 NP-internal agreeing adverbs 182 Table of contents xi 1.4.4 Intensifiers 183 1.5 Predicative adverbs 186 2 Postpositional phrases 188 2.1 Basic structure 188 2.2 Postpositional phrases as periphrastic cases 189 9 Basic syntax of simple clauses 194 1 Grammatical functions in active clauses 194 1.1 Subject 194 1.1.1 Coding properties 194 1.1.2 Behavioural properties 196 1.1.3 Non-canonical subjects 200 1.2 Direct object 201 1.2.1 Accusative objects 202 1.2.2 Predestinative objects 210 1.3 Oblique grammatical functions 212 2 Constituent order 213 2.1 Affirmative clauses 213 2.2 Constituent order in negative constructions 217 2.3 Dislocated constituents 219 10 Valence patterns and alternations 224 1 One-place predicates 224 1.1 Inflectional classes of intransitive verbs 224 1.2 Derived intransitives 226 1.3 Weather predicates 227 2 Two-place predicates 229 2.1 Accusative objects 230 2.2 Oblique objects 232 2.3 Genitive objects 234 3 Three-place patterns 234 3.1 Accusative and dative 234 3.2 Accusative and locative 236 3.3 Accusative and other cases 237 4 Passive 239 4.1 The structure and meaning of the passive construction 239 4.2 Grammatical functions 245 4.3 Impersonal passive 248 11 Non-verbal predicates 250 1 Existential constructions 250 2 Identificational constructions 252 xii Table of contents 2.1 Attributive forms as predicates 252 2.2 Nominative nouns as predicates 254 2.3 Pronouns and quantifiers as predicates 257 2.4 Non-finite verbal forms as predicates 258 2.5 Oblique forms of nouns as predicates 260 3 Locational constructions 263 12 Non-declarative clause types and negation 265 1 Interrogatives 265 1.1 Wh-questions 265 1.2 Yes-no questions 267 1.3 Alternative and deliberative questions 267 2 Directives 269 3 Exclamatives and addresses 270 4 Negations 272 4.1 Negation of finite clauses 272 4.2 Negation of non-verbal predicates 274 4.3 Negative polarity items 277 4.4 Constituent vs. clausal negation 278 4.5 Marginal negative auxiliaries 280 13 Overview of dependent clauses 283 1 Finite dependent clauses 283 2 Non-finite dependent clauses 285 2.1 The coding of the arguments 286 2.2 The clausal status 290 2.3 The position of non-finite clauses 294 2.4 Constituent order in non-finite clauses 301 2.5 Negation in non-finite clauses 302 3 Questions in complex sentences 305 3.1 Embedded questions 305 3.2 Questions out of embedded clauses 308 14 Relative clauses 315 1 The participial strategy 315 1.1 Structure 315 1.2 Accessibility to relativization 317 2 The non-participial strategy 322 2.1 Structure 322 2.2 Accessibility to relativization 323 3 Resumptive strategy 328 4 Relativization out of embedded clauses 330 Table of contents xiii 5 Copular relative clauses 336 5.1 Proprietive relative construction 336 5.2 Attributive forms as predicates 338 15 Complement clauses 341 1 Sentential subjects 341 1.1 Impersonal constructions 341 1.2 Personal constructions 344 2 Sentential objects 345 2.1 Subject control constructions 346 2.1.1 Action nominal 346 2.1.2 Converbs 348 2.2 Object control constructions 352 2.2.1 Action nominal and participles 352 2.2.2 Converbs 353 2.3 Non-controlled clauses 356 2.3.1 Accusative action