Miluk grammar notes - Part 3

Basic phrase and clause structure

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The basic core clause

The basic clause in Miluk minmally consists of a predicate in final position, usually a verb, although the predicate postion can also be occupied by a noun. In most cases, the clause starts with a conjunction (e.g. yi "if", cū "then"), or the negative marker an.

cū
then

wəs:i
return

"then he returned"

cū
then

ġalam
take:3O

"then he seized her"

Nouns without article make up part of the core clause, and immediatly precede the verb:

c̓ehem
whale

dan:dan:u
come.ashore

"a whale came ashore"

hei
CONJ

ayu
indeed

k̓aʰ
person

k̓łāwi
see:3O

"and indeed he saw a person"

This also inludes nouns with an overt case marker, e.g. the ergative prefix χ- indicating the transitive actor, or the locative suffix -ǯe.

χ-heƛ̓ē=də
erg-older.brother=3P

kʷī
3

hāwau
raise:3O

"his older brother raised him"

cu
then

zūƛ
elk.grease

yeis-əǯe
mouth-LOC

yahwi
rub:3O

"he rubbed elk grease on [her] mouth"

Within the core clause, a number of second position-clitics can appear. These include enclitic personal pronouns and several markers of mood and referentiality. The following examples illustrate how the enclitic =u attaches to different hosts.

ēšən=u
wild.being=1s

"I am a wild being"

hūməs=u
woman=1s

ġalam
catch:3O

"I have caught a woman"

an=u
not=1s

hūməs
woman

dūhay’a
want:3O

"I don't want a woman"

The following examples show the combination of three second-position clitics, a personal pronoun followed by the future marker =hanƛ and the habitual marker =dū:

χwēn=ł=hanƛ=du
thus=1p=FUT=HAB

"we will do it like that"

an=n=anƛ=dū
thus=1p=FUT=HAB

ʒīʒe
work

"you won't have to work"

In the preceding examples we have seen how nouns without article appear as part of the core clause. On the other hand, noun phrases headed by an article appear outside of the core clause, usually following the verb. In the following section, I will describe the basic properties of the determined noun phrase. Here are a few sample clauses illustrating the contrast to clause internal nouns.

wi
and

dēǯe
enter

ƛə~gʷeis
ART~girl

"And the girl went inside"

cū=gʷum
then=PERF

cāu
kill:3O

ƛə~dīluł
ART~young.man

ƛe~χ-yek̓lu
ART~ERG-dog

"Then the dog killed the young man"

The noun phrase

The Miluk noun phrase minimally consist of a noun, which can be expanded by three basic elements: articles, case marking affixes, and possessive enclitics.

Articles

Miluk has four articles, ƛə, kʷə, e and də. ƛə is the most common of these in narratives, since it indicates referents remote from both speaker and adressee. kʷə mostly appeears in dialogues and refers to things in the vicinity of speaker and adresse. Də and e are quite rare even in dialogues, and appear to have special deitcic emphasis indicating proximity to the speaker and adressee, respectively.

Articles are used with definite and referential participants in a discourse. Referentiality is quite important, as can be seen with expressions such as "my mother" or "my parents", which by nature are definite, but which can appear without article if not aforementioned.

Structurally, the article heads the noun phrase, as can be seen from the behavior of possessive enclitic (see below), and also from the fact that articles also can appear as heads of temporal or focus clauses.

Case marking

Case is indicated by affixes directly attached to the noun. Case marking affixes include: χ- 'ergative', -(ə)ǯe 'allative', -(ə)č 'locative', -ū 'locative'. Combined affixes with special meaning include: χ- -(ə)č 'ablative', χ- -ū 'instrumental'.

Case marking of core noun phrases follows an ergative pattern: S and O are unmarked, where A takes the ergative case prefix. This pattern is illustrated by the two sample sentences above:

intransitive: wi dēǯe [ƛə~gʷeis]_S
transitive: cū=gʷum~cāu [ƛə~dīluł]_O [ƛe~χ-yek̓lu]_A

[EXAMPLES for other cases]

The element də in possessive constructions like kic-də-t̕ēt (elk-də-meat) 'elk's meat' is best analzed as a genitive interfix, even though it is homophonous to the third person posessive enclitic =də. The position of -də- is fix between possessor and possessee, even if the possessive construction is headed by an article: ƛə~gʷeis-di-yek̓lu 'the girl's dog'. The possessive construction also behaves as a tight-bound unit if functioning as predicate: ƛ̕wēχ-də-ʒēƛ̕əs=nə (alder-GEN-bark=2s) 'you are alder bark', or if framed by a case-marking circumfix like χ- -(ə)č, e.g. ƛə=de~χ-{ene-də-gāc̓}-əč (ART=3P~ABL-{mother-GEN-breast}-ABL) "from its mother's breast".

Enclitic possessive pronous

The bound possessive pronouns are second position enclitics just like their core marking counterparts. In most cases in the corpus, they appear attached to the article in a determined noun phrase: kʷə=n̓ə~ene (ART=1sP~mother) 'my mother', ƛə=ne~χ-dēmił (ART=2P~ERG-husband) 'by your husband'.

This however is not the basic position of the enclitic possessive pronoun, as can be seen on its position following the noun in the absence of an article: mūyusə-ǯe=də (anus-ALL-3P) 'into his anus'. This occurrence is mostly observed with nouns carrying a case affix. For unmarked nouns in absolutive case, there is a special construction, which I will call the "possessive clause". This "possessive clause" has a simple internal but a very particular external syntax and will be treated in a separate post here.

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