pjaukra grammar notes

š, ŋ, and ɣ in this document are supposed to be s with hachek, eng, and gamma, respectively.

There are four declensions of the noun and adjective, depending on the final vowel in the nominative singular (the citation form). Nouns inflect for case and number, and adjectives agree with nouns they modify.

            sg   pl       sg   pl       sg   pl       sg   pl
nominative  -a   -e       -e   -i       -ji  -wi      -u   -i
accusative  -u   -i       -i   -e       -e   -we      -a   -e
genitive    -ai  -ei      -ei  -ja      -ja  -wa      -ui  -ja
locative    -au  -eu      -eu  -ju      -ju  -u       -u   -ju

For certain consonants, the following j is realized as palatalization (though the orthography doesn't always show it).

tj > š, kj > kj, dj > gj, gj > gj, sj > š, xj > š, ɣj > j, nj > nj, ŋj > ŋj, lj > lj, jj > j

If the combination ji remains it is written as i.

There are also some changes involving clusters with w.

pw > w, bw > w, mw > m, tw > sw, ww > w

Pronouns decline irregularly. These pronouns appear:

            1pl   3sg   3pl
nominative  res   i     jeri
accusative  ren   ju    jere
genitive    rei   ja    jerja
locative    reu   ju    jerju

There is one conjugation of the verb. Verbs inflect for TAM only.

present           -a
past imperfective -anu
past perfective   -u
future            -este
imperative        -i
infinitive        -je

(j in the infinitive ending has the behaviour described above.)

'be' is irregular. The only form appearing here is present .

The present is the least marked form and is used with most TAM particles like .

These derivational affixes appear. If any of them is attached to a vowel-final base, this final vowel is deleted.

-aire       agent nominalization
-aita	active participle
-ara	action nominalization
-ekje	diminutive

There is productive compounding. Compounds are head-last. The final vowel of the first element of the compound is deleted.

The causative formation that occurs in this text is analytic. It is formed by including the causer in nominative case as the object of the preposition in the phrase describing the caused event.

Basic word order is NA, NG, PN, and both SOV and SVO. SVO is more common when the object is indefinite, SOV when the object is definite. Any of the nominal arguments can be omitted.

Prepositions modify either the nominative or the locative. The distinction in meaning is unimportant.

Noun phrases can be put in apposition by placing them side by side without any special marking.

In a relative clause the relativized noun phrase is zero if it is the subject of the restricting phrase. Otherwise a third person pronoun appears and is fronted.

<ber- ap kaikekweu linui> is the idiom for 'be reminded of'.