Languages of the World/Materials 482 A short grammar of Latgal ian Nicole Nau full text research abstracts of all titles monthly updates 2011 LINCOM EUROPA LATGALIAN LW/M482 Published by LINCOM GmbH 2011. Contents Preface ............................................................................................................................ 3 LINCOMGmbH 1. Introduction .............................................................................................................. 4 Gmunder Str. 35 J .1 General information .................................................................................................. 4 D-81379 Muenchen 1.2 History ....................................................................................................................... 4 1.3 Research and description ........................................................................................... 7 [email protected] 1.4 Typological overview ................................................................................................ 8 www.lincom-europa.com 2. The sound system ..................................................................................................... 9 2. 1 Phonemes, sounds, and letters ................................................................................... 9 webshop: www.lincom-shop.eu 2.2 Stress and tone ......................................................................................................... 13 2.3 Phonological processes ........................................................................................... 14 All rights reserved, including the rights of translation into any 3. Morphophonology ................................................................................................... 15 foreign language. No part of this book may be reproduced in 3.1 Morphophonological harmony ................................................................................ 15 any way without the permission of the publisher. 3.2 Morphophonological vowel alternations ................................................................. 16 3.3 Morphophonological consonant alternations .......................................................... 18 3.4 Sets of morphophonological processes ................................................................... 20 4. Nominal morphology ............................................................................................... 21 Die Deutsche Bibliothek- CIP Cataloguing-in-Publication-Data 4.1 Nouns ....................................................................................................................... 21 A catalogue record for this publication is available from Die 4.1.1 Stems and declensions ....................................................................................... 21 Deutsche Bibliothek (http://www.ddb.de) 4.1.2 Diminutives ....................................................................................................... 26 4.1.3 Vocatives ........................................................................................................... 27 4.2 Adjectives ................................................................................................................ 28 4.2.1 Stems and inflection .......................................................................................... 28 4.2.2 On the use of the definite endings ..................................................................... 29 Printed in E.C. 4.2.3 Diminutives ....................................................................................................... 30 Printed on chlorine-free paper 4.2.4 Derivation of adverbs from adjectives .............................................................. 31 4.2.5 Comparative forms of adjectives and adverbs .................................................. 32 Cover photograph: Latgalians celebrating the summer solstice with 4.3 Numerals ................................................................................................................. 33 bonfire and songs until sunrise, courtesy llze Sperga. 4.3.1 Stems ................................................................................................................. 33 4.3.2 Inflection ............................................................................................................ 34 4.4 Pronouns .................................................................................................................. 35 4.4.1 Personal reflexive and possessive pronouns ..................................................... 35 4.4.2 Anaphoric, logophoric, and demonstrative pronouns ....................................... 37 4.4.3 Interrogative, relative, indefinite, and negative pronouns ................................. 38 4.4.4 Other pronouns .................................................................................................. 41 5. Verbal morphology ................................................................................................ 42 5.1 Overview: stems, classes, forms ............................................................................. 42 5.2 Conjugation (tense forms) ............................................ ........................................... 45 5.2.1 Simple present ................................................................................................... 46 5.2.2 Simple past ........................................................................................................ 47 LW/M 482 2 LATGALIAN LATGALIAN 3 LW/M 482 5.2.3 Simple future .................................. ............................................. ...................... 48 Preface 5.2.4 Conjugation of byut 'be' and lt 'go' ................................................................. .48 Cikom cylviiks runoj ar cylviiku, ir voliida. 5.2.5 Conjugation of reflexive verbs .............................................................. ........... .48 Kod voliida pallk tikai vuordneicii, lementarl 5 .2 .. 6 Compound tense forms ........................................................................ ············· 50 i lyugsonu gruomatel)ii, nav ari voliidys. *) (IS) 5.3 Further verb-forms and verbal categories ................................................................ 51 5.3.1 Imperative ............................................................................... .................... .... ... 51 The growing interest in Latgalian, in recent years shown especially by scholars of 5.3.2 Subjunctive .... .................................... ..... ....................... , ... ................................ 52 Baltic and Slavic languages, has created the need for more extensive information on 5.3.3 Debitive .............................................................................................................. 53 the structure of this language, accessible also to linguists who do not know Latvian. 5.3.4 Oblique (renarrative) ............................... .......... , ............................................... 54 The present grammar is no more than a small contribution towards answering this need 5.4.5 Passive ................. ................... ............................ , ........ ... ............................. ..... 56 and to making Latgalian known to a broader linguistic audience. 5.4 Participles and converbs ..................... ........ , ................................................... ........ 57 The grammar is based on texts of different times and different genres. The vast 5.5 Infinitive and supine ... .. .............. .............................................................. ..... · · ·· · ·· ·· · 60 majority of examples are taken from texts written in recent years, many of them 5.6 Verbal noun ................................ .......................... ... ................. ....................... ........ 61 published on the Internet. They contain short journalistic prose (squibs), blogs, short 6. Syntax and discourse ....................... .. ..... .............................. .. .................. ... ......... ... 63 stories and literary self-portraits of contemporary writers. I sometimes refer to these 6.1 Phrases and constructions .................................................. .. .. .. .................... ... ......... 63 sources as "modern texts". On the other hand, I used a corpus of traditional narratives, 6.1.1 Noun phrase structure ........................................................................................ 63 fairy-tales collected in the 1890s and the 1920s in two villages of Central Latgalia 6.1.2 Definiteness .............................. ............. :........................................................... 65 (referred to as "traditional texts"). By choosing these two kinds of sources, I chose to 6.1.3 Syntax of cardinal number + noun .................................................................... 68 document varieties of Latgalian that are planned and elaborated, and at the same time 6.1.4 Prepositional phrases .......................... ... ........................... ........ .................... ..... 71 in many respects close to the spoken language. I thus deliberately neglected more 6.1.5 Comparison ................................................................. .... .. ................................. 72 formal written genres, as newspaper articles, academic prose, religious texts, and the 6.1.6 Coordination .....................................................................................................